I could have never predicted where I was last year. 2025 was a year of new stuff, yet all kind of the same. Work was so busy and fun, the company grew to the point where they needed to make those hard organizational changes about splitting up into teams. We also had some core people need to step away for weeks/months at a time. Traveling and working remotely around the EU was fun, but I loved my time working out of the Berlin office.
If you want to review last years recap/goals post, you can, but it isn’t necessary.
How did I do on my 2024 goals?
I didn’t create goals for the year prior to Jan 2024, but I switched over to quarterly goals in Q3. Here are my quarterly goals (and some personal ones as well):
- Secure more permanent housing in Berlin.
- Status: Fail. When we were in Berlin we did the short term rental thing. It helped us never have to get furniture, or a kitchen. (In Germany the kitchen appliances are the responsibility of the renter). It also allows us to travel more.
- Doing my best as the only designer at Memfault
- Status: Mixed. I launched a few major initiatives, and took over some Product Manager responsibilities when the team had some health concerns in Q1. I loved the ability to try some new things and work in a different role, but it was hard being the only designer for product/engineering and running a product team. Later in the year we hired a second designer which put me in an odd mental health space. This meme hits in the feels. My main focus prior to hiring the second designer was shipping features that users could understand and scaled well with our system. The new designer’s focus was building a product that looked good. I realized I should have been putting a higher focus on how an executive with purchasing powers feels when they use the app then they daily user.
- Being a good Husband
- Status: b+ I tried a few different ways of quantifying this, but then I gamed them all. I asked my wife, she said the only thing that mattered was her opinion of how I was doing, and that seemed subjective. She rated my performance as an
A, but I wanted to drag her to more movies about robots for the sake of the relationship, so I am giving myself aB-.
- Status: b+ I tried a few different ways of quantifying this, but then I gamed them all. I asked my wife, she said the only thing that mattered was her opinion of how I was doing, and that seemed subjective. She rated my performance as an
- Be More Social
- Status: Gimmie - I set a goal of 1 social activity with friends per week in Q4. I 2x’d this. I really liked it as a goal though, At the end of the year it let me quantify this goal and see how I was actually spending a lot of time with friends.
- Stay consistent with BJJ and avoid major injuries.
- Status: Success. I wasn’t perfectly consistent, but I went a lot. In berlin I was very consistent, going 3 days a week every week. Outside of the city that wasn’t the case. haha, idk what I was thinking with “avoid major injuries”, this is a combat sport it is part of it. I had some knee and rib things, but nothing put me out for more then a week or two. I attended ~160 classes and open mats throughout the year, so averaging around 1 every other day. I had previously not been replacing stripes when they came off in the wash. My coach didn’t appreciate the sandbagging. When I told him I needed two stripes to roll at gyms in USA he happily obliged so I got to roll with a friend in the states.
Some of my Travels in 2024
While 2024 was less nomadic than our previous “Month of Merry-ment” years, we still managed to experience some incredible corners of the world while establishing our base in Berlin.
- Berlin: We started the year with a new years fireworks show I won’t soon forget. We also stayed in Berlin between the other locations.
- Valencia, Spain: We got our first taste of American’s visiting us while traveling in Spain. We spent about a month here and had 3 different sets of visitors and friends we spent time with. We enjoyed Valencia a lot, being able to walk on the beach side boardwalk every day was a much needed reprieve from Randi’s distain of Berlin’s darkness.
- Innsbruck, Austria: We spent a full 30 days in Innsbruck, over the summer. I was super lucky to find a great BJJ gym here where I went every day we weren’t hiking. Our blog post on Austria gives more info
- Munich, Germany: After Innsbruck, Randi rode a bike to Berlinwhile I met up with a coworker and friend and days in Munich. It is always cool to get facetime with coworkers I mostly interact with on the computer
- USA: We finished the year in the States. Our blog post on this trip
- Colorado: Caught up with high-quality friends in Denver, opened physical mail (a rare nomad treat), and even got in some cold-weather dirt biking to see Mark.
- North Carolina: A classic family Christmas to round out the year.
Looking back, the transition from being a full-time nomad to a “home-based traveler” wasn’t that much more stationary. Maybe next year we won’t move as much?
Life/goals changes for 2024 and beyond
- Out with Annual Goals, In with Quarterly goals! I ready the “12-week year” and i decided to do quarterly goals instead of one massive year long goals. I am hoping this gives me more opportunities for course corrections,
Goals for 2025 Q1
- Get better at Product Management: I will determine success here by finishing 2 Product management books, and self rating my performance on Product related tasks at work.
- Get better at BJJ: My measurable goal here is 20 BJJ classes
- Get stronger: My measurable goal here should be easy enough lifting once a week
- Finish A1.1 German: This should be easy enough, it is just the paper work of actually doing the lessons.