My 2014 Annual Review

Time for my 2014 annu­al review.

I’ll do my best to answer three ques­tions in this post: ¹This format is inspired by James Clear’s annu­al reviews.

What went well this year?
What did­n’t go so well this year?
What am I work­ing toward?

Here we go:

1. What Went Well This Year?

Jack. On September 14, Jack was born. As a first time fath­er, I’m still not quite sure how to describe this feel­ing; it’s more than just love; it’s more than just an immense sense of respons­ib­il­ity and pur­pose. It’s … magic.

New apart­ment. We needed more space and found an apart­ment in Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm. It was­n’t per­fect to move while my wife was preg­nant in her third tri­mester (it took us longer than expec­ted to find the right place), but I shipped her off to her par­ents while I moved our stuff and cleaned out our old place. Now we both love it here.

Marketing. I write down my thoughts online, and that’s all the mar­ket­ing I do for my busi­ness. And it works; I get more high-qual­ity leads every week than an aver­age mid-sized agency. I’m not look­ing to hire, so for now, I’m happy with refer­ring most of those leads to others.

Family sup­port. I’ve enjoyed work­ing closely with my young­est broth­er, Pontus, for a year. He’s a pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer play­er, but he has helped me semi-reg­u­larly through­out the year.

2. What Didn’t Go So Well This Year?

Office space. After work­ing out of my apart­ment for most of 2013, I moved into a cent­rally loc­ated office in 2014. But in 2015 I gave up the lease, even though I enjoyed the office. I love work­ing from home, and that’s what I did — whenev­er I had the chance. I don’t even want to think about how much money I spent on rent for those 18 months!

The pro­ject from hell. Took on a risky pro­ject in 2013, which just went on and on, well into 2014. After 300+ hours, I still had­n’t made a dime. Once the pro­ject finally launched, everything changed for the worse, and even though we mar­keted the task well, sales wer­en’t boom­ing. And when I was finally about to get paid in late 2014, the com­pany told me they had already spent that money.

Agency plans. I’ve always had some vis­ion to grow my busi­ness into an agency. But now I’m not so sure. I do know that I enjoy being a freel­an­cer, though. Can I run a solo busi­ness forever and be happy?

3. What Am I Working Toward?

Clearer busi­ness focus. Today, I’m tak­ing on pro­jects with no par­tic­u­lar selec­tion cri­ter­ia or fil­ter. But I’ve noticed an inter­est­ing trend; the assign­ments I enjoy the most are the same types and the most prof­it­able. I plan to devel­op a clear­er dir­ec­tion on what pro­jects to take on next year.

Paternity leave. Whatever it takes, I’m determ­ined to spend as much time with Jack as pos­sible in the com­ing year. My boss is great, so that should­n’t be a prob­lem. [note]I’m the boss.[/note]