2023 annual review – The year I decided to go pro

At the time of writing this, the end of January is right around the corner. The new year began as fast as the old one ended and the whole world around me has moved on with their lives.

Most of us are back at work. And some of us might be working on (and hopefully sticking with) their New Year’s resolutions. I’ve never been the type to make these but I’ve always had a thing for looking back and reflecting on the past year.

This time around, instead of keeping things in my journal, I thought I could make this a new habit of mine. As part of my plan to write (and publish) more on my blog, in case someone else can learn from it as well.

Home

What went well

Back in January 2022, I was lucky enough to buy and move into a house, together with my girlfriend. It’s an old building, surrounded by a huge garden. We knew from the beginning that this meant a lot of work inside and around the house.

In January 2023 we finally got to start using our newly remodeled kitchen. This was the first big investment we made for the house. We both love to cook together, so this was a much-needed and welcome upgrade.

What didn’t go well

Along with the new kitchen, came the problems that might occur with projects like these.

We ended up having a few issues with the company we hired for this project. What started as a good experience, got more and more challenging with time:

• Poor communication from their side (or none at all).
• Missed deadlines and a lack of commitment (didn’t do what they said they would).
• Various defects after they completed their work.

We’ve never dealt with these kinds of problems before. It was very challenging and exhausting at times. Sadly, we haven’t sorted everything out yet, so this will be something we’ll take with us into 2024.

Gardening

What went well

We went into our second year tending to our own vegetable garden – with great success! It demanded a lot of work, from the end of January until early November.

But it was also a welcome change from sitting at a desk and staring at a screen all day. Especially during the long summer days.

Plus, we learned so many new things:

• How to build a raised bed, using pallets.
• How to fight all kinds of invasive plants. I got very good at digging holes with a shovel. A lot of work but a great way to exercise!
• How to grow a variety of different vegetables: Carrots, garlic, onions, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini (got flooded by them), and squashes. Just to name a few.
• How to cut back the branches of our fruit trees (apples, pears, plums, and Mirabelle plums).

And much, much more.

We’re still far from being completely self-sufficient (which is a vision we both share). But the yield from our garden already covers a huge part of the vegetables and fruits we eat during the year.

And of course, there’s nothing sweeter than the taste of homegrown San Marzano tomatoes.

What didn’t go well

We learned that figuring out and doing all of this stuff by ourselves is a lot of work. Alongside a full-time job, this can be truly demanding and sometimes exhausting.

We often found ourselves with too little time on the weekends for the many projects we planned. And also too little time for much else. Something we can improve on in 2024 but I also trust that we’ll get a bit more efficient with time!

Health

What went well

As I mentioned earlier, we love to cook our own meals. We’re always trying out new recipes and improving existing ones. (I’m still on a mission to make the perfect pizza dough.)

One new obsession of mine this year was learning how to make sourdough bread. It took a lot of trial and error. Figuring out how to make a sourdough starter proved particularly difficult. But I found a way that works for me, which doesn’t need a lot of time or kneading, once the starter is ready to go.

This became a new part of my weekly routine. I prepare the dough every Saturday so we can enjoy a fresh loaf of bread on Sunday morning. And we enjoy whatever’s left throughout the upcoming week.

For me, nutrition goes hand in hand with exercise. I haven’t been focusing on any particular goals this year. But I still made an effort to move a lot:

• I went on a 30-minute walk almost every day of the week, right after lunch.
• I hit the climbing gym 2-3 times a week, together with my friends.
• I did a lot of gardening work and went on hikes regularly (though not as much as I would have liked to).

What didn’t go well

In March I injured my right ring finger, attempting a very tough boulder problem. It took some weeks for me to recover. After another injury a few months later, at the same joint, the pain hasn’t fully gone away since.

I’ve looked into it with my doctor but haven’t found the cause for it yet. So this might be something I have to look into in more detail in 2024, depending on my recovery.

Travel

What went well

We decided to cut back on traveling a while ago, to spend that money on the many projects for our house and garden. We still ended up spending more time away from home, than planned (but I’m glad we did):

• We spent a long weekend (4 days) in Adelboden (Switzerland), back in April, together with our friends. It was awesome to get away and spend some time in the mountains (we basically lived in the hot tub at our Airbnb).
• Two very close friends invited us to their wedding in Izmir (Turkey). And so we spent a week in a beautiful mansion, together with our friends. We hadn’t been to the sea for a long time and it was the first time we traveled to Turkey.

Both travel destinations were beautiful. But for me personally, the actual highlight was spending so much time with our friends.

What didn’t go well

Definitely a luxury problem but I would have liked to go hiking more often, like we did in the past. But with all the work in and around the house and events on the weekends, we weren’t able to make enough time for this.

Going forward, I’d love to plan more day trips with my girlfriend and our friends. I love being in nature, hiking, making a fire, eating a Swiss “Cervelat” and having a good time with friends and family.

Work

What went well

I remember starting the year with a clear goal in mind: I wanted to become a professional at what I was doing.

Funny enough, after almost seven years of working as a freelance web developer, I still didn’t feel like a pro. Even though I’ve proven to myself (and others) many times before that I’m more than capable of making a living.

In an attempt to “become a pro”, I started improving on (and keeping track of) the many processes I was going through. From onboarding clients to working on (and finishing) projects.

• I learned how to better communicate with my clients and always made sure to deliver what I promised.
• I started to have a clear process to go from 1st call to the finished project.
• I developed a follow-up process, to stay in touch with my clients. That way I always knew when they needed help with something. And it also allowed me to start selling maintenance as a service. Sometimes it even led to follow-up projects.
• I learned a lot of new things about programming, design, marketing, sales, and writing.

In 2023 I worked on some of my biggest projects so far and found a good amount of new clients, which is a great success for me. And as a nice side effect, this year ended up being my most successful one so far in terms of income.

Needless to say, this was a huge boost in confidence. And I did indeed start to feel like a professional, simply by positioning myself as one.

What didn’t go well

I still feel like I could improve a lot on the many processes and systems that I currently use. For example, I still haven’t figured out how to consistently and reliably book new client projects in advance. This always leaves me with a feeling of uncertainty. Even though I always somehow end up booking enough throughout the year to make a living (and more).

This is part of having a service business. I think I’m pretty good at looking after my existing clients. Acquiring new clients and marketing myself are the two things I want to become better at.

Wealth

What went well

I’ve always been very good with numbers, including money. Early on in my career, I learned the importance of knowing the ins and outs of my budget, for both work and non-work. And I continued to put these skills to good use in 2023.

As I mentioned earlier, we invested some money into a new kitchen and several garden projects. On top of that, we traveled more than planned. All while being able to put more than enough food on the table and put some money aside for future investments.

In short, we have everything we need and more.

What didn’t go well

While I know that I’m very good at managing the money that I have, I feel like I have yet so much to learn about building wealth. This is of course related to the work I do.

If I’m being honest, I felt stuck with my web design service business for quite a while. I always knew I didn’t want to build websites for a living for the rest of my life. But I haven’t put much thought into how to evolve my business

In December 2023, I re-read Nathan Barry’s article about the ladders of wealth creation. I started to see it from a completely new perspective. I understand, that this isn’t how things might work for everyone. But it helped me gain clarity on where I am with my business and where to go next.

I’m already doing very little hourly work for clients and am charging on a per-project basis. Following the advice from the article, the next step for me is to offer productized services. And I think that’s a good starting point for the new year.

Going forward, I want to build on the momentum I’ve created in 2023. I want to continue doing client projects. All while learning how to slowly move up the wealth creation ladder.

This isn’t necessarily about figuring out how to make more money (even though this can be a nice side effect). This is about figuring out how to evolve my business and myself as a person. All while slowly moving towards my ideal lifestyle.

Writing

What went well

For years I’ve been keeping a journal, writing every morning, at the same time, for 30-60 minutes.

For years I’ve been writing emails, proposals, contracts, and copy for client projects on a daily basis.

That’s a lot of content. And most of it never saw the light of day.

More and more, without me ever realizing it, writing has become an essential part of my life. The idea of starting my own blog or newsletter always excited me a lot. But at the same time, I always thought I had nothing worth sharing.

That changed in the second half of 2023, when I realized that over time I had learned so many things. And most likely there are people a few steps behind me, who could learn from them.

In October last year, I challenged myself to write and publish a 250-word essay for 30 days in a row. The challenge was inspired by Dickie Bush’s and Nicolas Cole’s Ship30For30 cohort. And I made it through the whole 30 days, which I’m really proud of.

What didn’t go well

Before I knew it I once again found myself trying to do way too many things at once:

• Writing a 250-word essay every day.
• Learning about how to attract an audience on social media (X for the most part).
• How to build a successful blog and newsletter.

All while running my web design business and trying to have a personal life. I started to feel completely burned out.

And so I decided to take a break, which was the best decision in a long time.

I took a step back and thought about what’s important to me: The writing itself. And I want to put that skill to good use.

I want to continue where I left off back in December 2023 and write on my blog. (This annual review is a part of that goal.) According to some advice I read online, this isn’t the best way to attract an audience with writing. But that’s okay, because the writing itself is more important to me than the rest for now

So how am I gonna do that? Well, I don’t know yet. I’m already used to writing daily. Now I have to figure out how to transform these ideas into articles.

There are plenty of problems I solve in my everyday business and that’s probably a good starting point.

Productivity

What went well

I need a lot of structure in my life. This is why I’ve developed all kinds of habits, routines, and systems for every aspect of my life

Throughout last year I more and more started to feel out of control of my own time. It boiled down to the following problems:

• I always felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day.
• I was way off at estimating how much time I needed for a certain task.
• I was trying to do way too many things in one day.

I hit somewhat of a low point in the fall (no pun intended) of 2023. And so I started experimenting with new ways to organize my day (and life). That’s when I discovered and got obsessed with The Deep Life approach by Cal Newport.

At first, I started listening to his podcast and devoured his books. Then I introduced (one by one) several aspects of a system he calls multi-scale planning:

• A place to capture and store all the information for ideas, thoughts, tasks, projects, etc.
• Time Blocking for my daily tasks. (This helped me a lot with estimating how many tasks I could fit into one day.)
• A weekly and a quarterly plan, to keep track of bigger projects.
• A vision for where I want to be 3-5 years from now, acting as a direction to work towards.

Looking back, this was probably one of the biggest changes I’ve introduced last year. I’ve made some adjustments to this process since. And now I’ve finally found a good way to not only organize my work but my life in general.

What didn’t go well

Throughout most of 2023, I felt like I had to put in more and more work to reach my goals. But instead, I ended up procrastinating a lot and I felt completely burned out by the end of the year. Consuming way too much productivity advice didn’t help either.

In the future, I want to challenge my view on productivity. I’m not a machine and trying to get more done in less time isn’t a sustainable way to approach work and life in general.

What I want to do instead is gain clarity on what it is exactly that I’m trying to do. I want to focus on the things that move me closer to my vision and I want to say “no” to the things that don’t.

Music

What went well

Music has always been a very important part of my life. While some would call it a hobby, it is much more to me than that.

I spent a lot of time making music this year, which I’m so happy about.

• I’ve done a lot of practicing (piano, guitar, ukulele, singing).
• I wrote a lot of new music, of which I released two new songs on all streaming platforms.
• I got myself a bass and started practicing and recording for my songs.

There was one big change I introduced this year, that stood out from all the others. Every day I was carving out at least 60 minutes for music, first thing in the morning (right after journaling). Working for myself gives me the freedom to do so and I mostly stuck with that plan.

What didn’t go well

As mentioned, I did write a lot of new music but I didn’t finish as much as I would have liked.

There’s a lot of overthinking involved in my process, which makes it hard for me to make clear decisions. It’s a constant back and forth between changes, making things worse and worse with each iteration. Instead of being confident enough to go with the first “good enough” version.

In short, the process from demo to finished production is long and tedious. More often than not I lose the “spark” and excitement I initially felt for a song. That can be very frustrating and sometimes devastating.

Going forward, I want to keep up the daily music routine. On top of that, I want to invest in myself and further improve my skills as a songwriter, producer, and musician.

I want to learn how to go from idea to finished song faster, without all of the overthinking involved. And in the long term, I want to build a huge catalog of music.

Looking ahead

More often than not, when I take the time to reflect on the past year, I don’t feel like I have done or changed a lot. But I also know that it’s easy to forget about the many things that happened throughout the year (good or bad).

But even more important is what effect they had on me and the world around me.

One thing that scares the sh*t out of me is looking back and realizing that I haven’t changed that much. I’m afraid of being the same person, stuck in the same place, and dealing with the same problems as a year ago.

But now that I’ve reflected on all these aspects of my life for the last year, I realize that I have changed a lot. I feel like I’m making progress and moving in the right direction. And that is honestly the best feeling there is.

January has already been a great success for me. And I can’t wait for what’s in store for the rest of 2024.