My 2020 Annual Review

Time for my 2020 annu­al review.

In this post, I’ll do my best to answer these three ques­tions: 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?

52 blog posts. I wanted to give my blog some extra atten­tion this year, and I man­aged to pub­lish weekly blog posts across the whole year.

I learnt how to use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. I’ve always been com­fort­able with writ­ing, so devel­op­ing new visu­al skills has felt like explor­ing a whole new world of cre­at­ive expres­sion. I aim to reach a pro­fes­sion­al level as both a web design­er and a photographer.

Married for 10 years. Apart from cel­eb­rat­ing our 10^th wed­ding anniversary this year, I think I’ve been a sup­port­ive hus­band this year. My wife’s career as a news anchor is demand­ing. I’ve taken on most of the respons­ib­il­it­ies at home — and by always mak­ing it my pri­or­ity to listen, give advice, and encourage.

My son star­ted school. Starting school is a sig­ni­fic­ant event in any per­son’s life. I think the trans­ition has worked out well, and I’m proud of my son for tak­ing on so many new chal­lenges with a pos­it­ive and curi­ous mind.

CEO for KIX Communications Index. Learn more here.

I learnt my way around a kit­chen. My second year of learn­ing how to cook. I’ve been explor­ing taste com­bin­a­tions, food chem­istry, more advanced cook­ing tech­niques, mise en place, and knife skills. The aim is to express me cre­at­ively using essen­tial food ingredients.

No alco­hol this year, either. Life without alco­hol is work­ing out per­fectly. Alcohol-free beers go great with cer­tain types of food, and I often replace red wine with 100% blue­berry juice, and I go for smooth­ies and elab­or­ate fruit juices instead of cock­tails. I quit drink­ing because I felt ter­rible for days after drink­ing, and I’m still pleased about this decision. The aim is nev­er again to con­sume alco­hol, ever.

I learnt to solve mas­ter level Sudoku puzzles. Learn more here.

2. What didn’t go so well this year?

Covid-19. I lost about half of my typ­ic­al work­load as a freel­an­cer from a pro­fes­sion­al per­spect­ive. But whatever impact this impact has had on my career, the import­ant thing is that my friends and fam­ily come out of this pan­dem­ic with their health intact. That’s all that mat­ters — I can fix everything else.

Terrible sleep­ing habits. This whole sleep-for-five-or-six-hours-each-night has got to stop. I’m 41 now, and I can­’t get away with it anymore.

No ‘epic out­put’ this year. I love to teach, and I love to write. Given the pan­dem­ic, I had such an oppor­tun­ity to either launch a PR course or write a PR book. Going into this year, even without know­ing about the pan­dem­ic, I had such ambi­tions — but I just nev­er made it across the fin­ish line des­pite ser­i­ous attempts at both endeavours.

Better English. It dawned on me that I’ve been writ­ing weekly in English for a dec­ade now. While this is sort of an accom­plish­ment in itself, I really should be a bet­ter English writer by now. I know my way around pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness English for sure, but the aim is to get my writ­ten English on par with my writ­ten Swedish.

3. What am I working toward?

Explore a more out­doorsy life­style. I know a bit about wil­der­ness sur­viv­al and bush­craft from mil­it­ary train­ing and quite a few books. Maybe 2021 is an excel­lent year to explore a more prac­tic­al approach? At least, I want to teach my son how to build a make­shift shel­ter and make a fire in a few dif­fer­ent ways.

Push my dead­lift from 160% to 200% of my body weight. The aim here is simple: I want to improve my strength.