2024 goals - 6 months in...
Back in January I wrote down a few goals to hit this year and as we're almost in the middle of June, that's near enough halfway through the year.
Goal recap
I know I linked to the original post above but if you happened to skip over that, here's the goal list:
- Actually finish and publish some comics this year
- Keep up the reading habit, beat last year's attempt of 29 books read
- Reduce phone screen-time
- Start rock climbing again
So, how am I doing so far?
Comics
As I write this, my first collection of Daily(ish) Comics is at the printer and I should get the first 50 copies in the next few days, just in time for me to debut it at Macc-Pow! in just over a weeks time.
I took my foot off the gas with the daily comics, I was struggling to keep up with the daily idea generation whilst juggling work and home life so it started to feel more like a chore than something fun. I've still got a sketchbook to fill up with more comics so I'll try pick it up again in the coming 6 months.
I still haven't finished Splorers and really want to get it done so I threw down the gauntlet over on Substack and dropped a deadline of October to get issue 1 finished. I've been in two minds whether to continue the story in issues or whether I should just write the whole thing and release it as a single book. Time will tell on that one...
So, I've got one book published this year which is better than last year so that's a success for the halfway checkpoint.
Reading
I've been a lot more disciplined with my reading so far this year. I've been trying to be conscious of the times where I'd mindlessly scroll on my phone (related to the next point) and replace that time with reading and it seems to be working.
So far I've finished 27 books this year so it's safe to say I'm going to breeze past my 30 book target. At this reading rate, I might even smash last year's target of 50 so I'll add that as a midpoint stretch-goal and see where I get to in December.
Reduce screen-time
I started strong but there've been periods where I've got sucked into the time-hole of mindless scrolling, despite being more disciplined with reading as I wrote above.
I've still not been spending as much time as last year but still not happy with where I've found myself. Having just finished reading Digital Minimalism, it's prompted me to implement a few things to help me further achieve this goal. I do need to figure out a balance though, not all screen-time is created equal. An hour reading useful articles is time well spent so perhaps the focus should just be on reducing time on social media...
Start rock climbing (Edit: Get some exercise)
I've fallen short on this so far, I've not really done any regular exercise this year which isn't great at all. I absolutely do need to sort out some form of exercise so I've re-joined my local gym. It's only down the road so it's easy to get to, now I just need to make time to get into a good routine.
I'd still like to go climbing again though so I'm not writing it off completely but right now my priority just needs to simply be some exercise.
I'll check-in again as we approach the Christmas period and see where I've got to. As objectives I can tick off, by December I should have:
- Released 2 comics in 2024
- Adjusted reading goal of 50 books (or as close to)
- Basically ditch social media except for occasional selected postings - no scrolling
- Got into a regular exercise routine - running, gym, climbing... anything at this point!