I'm going to cut to the chase, I had a terrible year when it came to hitting the goals I set out last January. Aside from blogging more, I basically didn't hit any of my goals.

Comics

On the comic front, I didn't hit my goal of publishing two comics. One comic project (Splorers) I ended up completely rebooting, going right back to the beginning of the writing process which has taken a long time to moving. I'm still not finished but I'm edging closer with that one. I feel I've done a lot of learning with this project too which has slowed things down but ultimately will benefit my process going forward.

The other comic I mentioned last year is still in an unfinished state but I still think it'll be a fun little comic to put out so I'll be returning to this once Splorers is done.

On a more positive note, in December, I started doing daily-ish comic strips in one of my handmade sketchbooks which I'll write about more in a future post but for now, I'll just say the nature of them being short-burst, stand-alone comic strips is allowing me to flex my creative brain every day whilst keeping the work required to a minimum so they're more fun than mentally taxing.

Reading

I set myself a reading goal of 50 books in 2023 and towards the end of the year, it became apparent that I wasn't going to hit that goal. I ended the year on 27 books, which isn't all that bad, considering I'd not really read many books in the previous 3+ years.

While not hitting the goal sucks, it has got me in the habit of reading again. I've always got one or two books on the go at a time so there's always something to read and it's a habit I'll be continuing in to this new year.

Exercise

I failed miserably on this one. Aside from going for occasional walks with the family, I didn't really do any physical activity at all in 2023 which is absolutely not a good thing and I need to address this as I slowly approach the big 4-0.

For the first few months of the year, I posted regular updates with stats on podcasts and films so to wrap up this post with the final stats.

Podcasts

I listen to podcasts. A lot.

I listen while I'm driving, while I'm doing chores around the house/garden, and while I'm working so it's no surprise that the related numbers are fairly chonky:

429 episodes, 19.6 days

19.6 solid days worth of time spend listening to podcasts which equates to 5.1% of the entire year. Pretty crazy when you think about it.

Films

I don't watch as many films as I thought I did. If I had films running in the background while working, the number would be much bigger, I'm sure, but then if I'm not actually watching them, would they even count? Anyway, here's the breakdown:

74 watched, 6.2 days

It's a little strange looking back through the list because it shines a light on how quickly the year has gone. The first film I watched in 2023 was Glass Onion and that doesn't feel like it was a year ago at all!

I think that's about it for the year in review. A massive failure strictly looking at the goals, but lots of good stuff happened and lots of interesting stuff listened to and watched.

Now I can have a think about 2024...