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Year-Review - 2024

Since 2022, I am doing some kind of end of the year review. The process has evolved each year. At the beginning of the year, I keep some goals or wishes that I want to accomplish in the new year. The year end review is about understanding how did it go and what can I learn from the previous year. Format of this review is changing every year. For this year, I have borrowed from the blog post - Annual self-evaluation time, woo-hoo! .

So, lets start with good things first -

Accomplishments/Celebrations

  • Its been a year, since Akshara (ಅಕ್ಷರ) is part of our family. Experiencing the parent hood, celebrating milestones with daughter & wife is great. It does take a lot of time and effort - no doubt. Parenthood pushes you to be more optimized. Spending time and playing with your daughter is the single best way to recharge yourself. I am still learning about parent hood. But, Anu (ಅನು) makes all this happen with ease for me.
    • We had ಅಕ್ಷರ’s naamakarana (ನಾಮಕರಣ/naming ceremony). I created the digital invitation card for namakarana from scratch using Obsidian Excalidraw plug-in
    • We had ಅಕ್ಷರ’s ear pierced.
    • We celebrated her first birthday. Three of us spent the whole day together.
    • We celebrated festivals. Before Akshara was born, we used to celebrate festivals, but this time we are more involved as we feel it is passing down the culture. Celebrated these festivals - ದೀಪಾವಳಿ - ನರಕ ಛತು೯ದಶಿ, ಗಣೇಶ ಛತು೯ತಿ, ಕೃ಼ಷ್ಣ ಜನಮಾಷ್ಠಮಿ, ದಸರ
  • Improved my personal blog
    • I moved my blog’s content to my personal Obsidian vault.
    • I changed the theme of the blog to no-style-please
    • Updated the about section to add more details about me. I also added a now page, based on Derek Siver’s now page to reflect my current priorities.
    • I added the ability to search the posts in the blog. I also expanded it to search based on the category as well.
    • I added a new page called blog-summaries which will list all the interesting blogs & articles I read.
    • I on-boarded my blog to goat counter to understand the overall usage of my blog.
      • Based on the GoatCounter, total visits to my blog in the past year (from April 2024) is 353 visits. I am sure in that around 100 are my own.
    • I bought my own domain - https://harsha-kadekar.blog and intend to shift to that domain in this year.
    • Updated my existing post related to how my development configuration is present - My_Development_Configuration
    • Published blog post Book-Summary_The_Willpower_Instinct about the book I had read previous year.
    • I have now kept references of the common linux commands, VIM/NeoVIM shortcuts and linux terminal shortcuts I use often. This is very useful for my work. I have referenced them multiple times during my work.
    • Posted a blog on Advice to Freshers joining a new software development team - Suggestions_To_College_Freshers_Joining_The_Engineering_Team
  • I started learning Rust Programming Language.
  • Connecting To My Roots
    • I started reading Valmiki’s Ramayana in Sanskrit. I do not know Sanskrit language but still able to progress with help of online tools.
    • Spending more time on understanding Bhagavad Geeta
    • Became regular in doing Sandhyavandhana
    • Started growing veggies - mint, coriander and garlic this year
  • I have observed that I have been more organized and disciplined. I have developed daily routines and most of the time sticking to it.
    • Early to raise, reviews & plans, fasting, yoga, pranayama, dhyana.
  • I completed reading 12 books this year.
  • On personal finance,
    • Disciplined regular investments
    • Automated tracking financial goals,
    • Steady growth in savings, retirements and investments.
  • Thanks to Anu, visited some really nice places.
  • Continued with my interest of cooking by preparing many Indian vegetarian food items.

Needs Improvements

I am mentioning here very vague things. I have specific action items from these on my end. I will be working on them through out this year.

  • Deliver Results for the planned goals/projects
    • None of the planned projects reached its logical end last year.
    • One of the main problem is - trying to do lot of things. Do one thing at a time!
    • Concentrate on very few things. Commit Less and Deliver More.
    • Daily do some work - even if it is for 5 minutes. Persistence, is important.
    • Break the deadlocks into small actionable tasks to keep progressing.
  • Optimizing Review and Planning
    • Good thing is I am doing my reviews regularly but bad thing is it is taking a lot of time.
    • Hence, it needs to be optimized.
  • Deliberate Thinking
    • I need know myself. Think deeply on various topics - self, technical, finances, relations. Understand the why part.
    • Be curious, Be open for others views & opinions, learn always and learn from everyone.
  • Health is important
    • Good food habits is a must
    • Overall body and mind caring is a must - Yoga, Pranayama, Dhyana, Walking, Exercise.
    • Early to bed and Early to rise
  • Improve people relationship
    • maintain & develop relations - family and friends
    • grow the network
  • Controlled Experiments
    • This year I want to try some new things - technically as well as financially. This should help me gain new knowledge as well as raise the risk appetite.

Looking Forward To

  • On the technical side, I would like to gain technical knowledge in following
    • Rust Programming Language
    • Design Patterns
    • Linux
    • AI
  • Blog - I want to build my own website using Rust and host it in the harsha-kadekar.blog domain.
    • I would also like to publish 12 posts which are outside of the usual book summary posts.
  • Books - I want to read 12 books.
  • Personal Finance
    • Build a portfolio of dividend stocks in USA
    • Diversify more in India ETF investments
  • Health
    • I want to extend fasting to 24hrs instead of 12 hours
    • I want to add simple Strength Training