This is the first time I’ve managed a full year of weeknotes – zero breaks and managed to even keep the week numbers straight so this Boxing Day final edition, as 2024 crawls to a close, it is time to focus on 2025 (doesn’t that sound soooo sci-fi? 2025. Buck Rogers stuff).

Like Mike Tyson didn’t really say – but probably felt after that Jake Paul travesty – everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth…and my health issues this year did feel like quite the punch. In the end though it didn’t massively derail my reasonably sensible ambitions as I wrote about in Week 50. So I’m going for a similar flavoured set of goals for 2025.

Hacking my health

Health is obviously going to be a big focus. I really, really want to be able to lower my reliance on these meds and I suspect diet and exercise is my best shot of the that (though I doubt there is any future in which I am med-free).

So I am going to get more serious about the whole lower carb life. I’ve made some big changes already – beer, pasta, rice, white bread, pizza, potato, sugar are all 90% plus removed but there is still room to improve so I am going to sign up for one of those meal delivery services (Green Chef I think) that offer Keto and Low Carb dishes/ingredients/recipes with the various replacement options (cauliflower ‘rice’, veggie ‘pasta’ etc). Initially I am going to aim for cooking at least 3 proper low carb meals a week for 3 months and hope that locks in the habit in for the rest of the year.

I’m also going to stop drinking at home alone completely. No wine, no bourbon, no nothing unless I am out out…which isn’t that regular anymore so this should really bring my drinking down to a minuscule amount.

For exercise I am thinking – and I can’t believe I am saying this – of joining a gym and trying strength training…and maybe getting a personal trainer. This still needs some thought.

Volume down..but not going on mute

Building from my I thought about this a lot essay I am making some changes with this blog. I am going to take the year off from weeknotes (and month, quarter or any other cadence of note – except maybe year). I’ll still write the occasional blogpost but the goal is to keep my thoughts to myself a bit more and see how that feels.

This also stretches to my public speaking. I have a talk at a meetup in January that I’ve owed the organisers for a year and my talk at Camp Digital in July (which is about my experiences of working in the open!) but it is my intention to do no other in-person talks (though I might do invite only run throughs of my Camp Digital talk in Bristol and in London.)

I don’t know what I’m going to do about things like BlueSky and LinkedIn – maybe not much.

I’m going to continue with the jobs newsletter aiming to add 200 new subscribers, send 45 editions and raise enough from tips to cover the cost of Ghost.

Also Debbie, Steve and I are hoping to run three more Product for the People events in London, Birmingham and Newcastle.

It is a lifestyle business

The Trumpocolypse means no trips to USA for a while – a pointless protest that only really effects me but it is what it is. So my big break is going to be InterRailing in the spring – itinerary still needs locking in but I think it will be Brussels > Paris > Marseille > Barcelona > Madrid with the usual street art and street food focus. I’m also thinking of Amsterdam in December instead of my recent trips to the US at that time of year.

I am going to aim to go a year without any flights at all but definitely no long haul ones.

I’ve decided to also go all in on properly learning calligraphy and signwriting (the fairground style) as my days of playing with spray cans out in the cold are over.

Oh and I’m going to buy a suit. A nice one. Maybe properly tailored. Then wear it for my Camp Digital talk.

I’m going to buy no new trainers, jeans, hoodies or t-shirts.

Whataboutwork?

I’m staying at GDS until the end of March (the close of Q4) and then I’ll head off on my SpringBreak. After that I don’t know. I’ll be looking to consolidate around a new work week that is nearer three days than five. More advisory than hands on. Step pitching myself as a ‘product’ person – lean into the generalist digital leader schtick. More people than software. Agile comms not agile delivery.

Hopefully the market continues to warm up and some of the initiatives emerging from the Digital Centre and things like the National Data Library have a Jukesie shaped whole to fill. I still really, really want a library thing – fingers crossed.

I have to make a decision on the whole maintaining my own ‘company’ thing as well. I’ve barely done any outside IR35 work since I set it up and I’m still paying for an accountant for it. I do like the idea of doing more of the kind of coaching and advisory work that would suit the kind of thing I did set up but I don’t really have a feel for finding it – whereas my network does seem geared up for finding perm and ‘Inside’ roles still. Maybe I just need to hold my nerve until the right thing(s) come along. I also think I should try and sign up to be an ‘Associate’ officially with one of the friendlier consultancies? I guess I want the best of both worlds – the freedom of being an independent operator but also part of something bigger. Greedy eh?!

I do want to be a part of something local again – even if it is some kind of informal gathering or a shared work space.

…and in a shot growing ever longer I’d still like to work somewhere like Canada or New Zealand. I can’t see this happening which is why I am contradicting my no long haul flights goal with this one.

That feels like plenty. LFG…Just keep it low key.