Following the tradition of 2018 and 2019, I’ll revisit my previous year’s goals and see what I achieved, and set new goals for 2020.

Goals from 2019

✅ Finish the book in the first quarter of the year

I did this. I launched the Learn EOS Development book on March 23rd.

🏁 Earn 1000 EUR / month by end of the year through my side-projects

The only side-project I launched was my book. I made a bit over 100 sales with my book and some sponsorships, so let’s say about 6000$ last year - or 500$ per month on average. However, the book sales slowed down after the launch of course, so I’m not able to keep up the average - it’s more like 150$-200$ for book sales.

So I definitely failed this goal.

I assumed I’d work on more income-generating side projects after my book launch, but I did not. The reason for that is that I usually work on side projects after my main job(s) are done, but I did not in the second half of the year. Instead, I spend my free time working as part of a team of open-source developers on Vigor, the stablecoin project on EOS run as a DAO/DAC.

Still, I’m happy with my decision, I always wanted to work on an open-source project and gain experience running a DAC. I get paid in VIG tokens though which has the same feeling of working for 100% equity in a startup. They are worth nothing but have future potential. 😁

☠️ Grow my blog viewers to 20,000 / month. (It flattened out at 10,000 sessions per month for quite a while.) Set up a tiny newsletter.

This did not happen. I am still stagnating at the same 10,000 session / month. No idea, if Google changed the algorithm or I am writing too much for a niche at the moment because the twitter engagement and feedback I personally receive on my posts is better than in 2018.

The tinynewsletter idea is great, I totally forgot about it.

☠️ Keep up the bi-weekly blog-post consistency

This is a goal I have full control over but still failed. That’s why it hurts the most.

I only managed to write 12/26 blog posts last year. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about - quite the opposite is the case. It just comes down to priorities again, and writing blog posts is always one of the lowest on my list of career ToDos. But I get a lot of leads through my blog and introductions to great people that read my blog, maybe it should actually be a higher priority.

Goals for 2020

It’s really interesting to me that I failed almost all of my goals, but I still feel that 2019 was a great year career-wise and not pursuing these goals was the correct decision. Maybe it’s because I only write about career goals, and never set goals about my job, an income I want to earn, my finances, etc. I ‘m still in the mindset that this blog is about creating side projects and new income streams first and foremost - the indie maker concept. And, in the end, side-projects have a low-priority by (my) definition.

So I’m not even sure if it makes sense to set low-priority goals. At some points, they just turn into a list of things I ‘d like to pursue next year, but might also not care about that much either …

I’m also rediscovering old truths, like passive income is not really passive, especially if you’re a developer or an author. It’s not enough to put in a lot of work in the beginning, if you want to maintain the passive income you need to maintain the product.

Enough with the existential crisis, here are my ”goals” for 2020:

• Get back to a bi-weekly blog-post consistency.
• Set up tinyletter for my blog and fully automate the sending of email notifications every month with my latest blog posts. (I already know I am not going to do it if I have to write a personalized email for every post. 😃)
• Launch a new side-project with the potential to earn income
• Be open to throw away these goals if they become irrelevant, my priorities change, or other better opportunities come along.