Goals Met: ~90%

Song Of The Month (listen while reading!): Picarón - Mexican Indie

Time flies. Each retrospective I’ve completed marks a month of my life, I can see in the files here that they are really starting to pile up.

How did I do with last month’s goals?

Music - Solo Project | Band Project

Prepare for the CORP. release show

  • Results: A

Our release show went spectacularly. It took up a good bit of my mental space for the first 3 weeks of Jan. The anticipation and coordination were always on my mind.

Took a lot of manual work too between printing and posting posters, buying stuff, planning, marketing, etc…

In the end, we almost sold out the 240 person venue (Kantine Am Berghain). People really responded to my Corporate Drone dancers and the more performancy aspect of it.

We also made a shit load of money from the show. Like >€2k which is nuts.

I’m not sure how repeatable it is though because really everybody came out that I know.

Was a really fun night afterward to with my close friends over in Berlin for it.

Finish 1 SE.CORP song

  • Results: F

Just haven’t been into it this month, been doing enough music stuff as is. But I am still excited on my songs, just gotta release em quicker.

Personal

Consider 2024, Plan for 2025

  • Results: A

I made a plan in the previous post. I’ve been good for sticking to stuff so far.

What else got done last month?

  • Finished my binge Christmas in Ireland.
  • Pushed Garvan to come to Europe. He’s got the flight booked.
  • BIG: I started a new project: Modergator.com.
    • Basically resend for content moderation. It’s a really DX friendly API that built over AWS’s rekognition so people can moderate their user’s posts.
    • I reached out to Dom to talk about it and he’s up to work on it with me.
    • I’ve spent too long:
      • Planning it all out and thinking long term: I need to just stick with the simple idea
      • Finding a UI template / stack and planning the UI.
        • In the future I should
        1. Find an example website I like
        2. With words, annotate the sections / copy that I would like to highlight on the landing page.
        3. Find a template and just run with it.
      • I have very much been enjoying the build though. It’s kind of addicting getting it all together.
        • I got to try out v0.dev as well, which is cool, but not world changing.
        • Shadcn seems pretty decent though.
  • I tried cyberpunk but found it a bit cringey. Ended up buying Skyrim and have also sunk like 20 hrs in already. Really enjoying it as an adult, which is nice. Sometimes nostalgia is a blinder.
  • I sent the stems to Connall for our recording session.
  • Went to a react meetup, always good to do, but I need to meet more people. I also met up with a startup friend who wanted me as a cofounder, but I wasn’t interested.

Lessons Learned?

  • You can easily put gig posters in bars. No body will say no. Make sure they are bright, with big words, and say what style of music.
  • Sometimes people don’t know or are avoiding that they did something that annoyed you. Its good to talk it over.
  • Working on my side project in the morning is a dream. I don’t feel the guilt at night when I don’t want to work on it. It is hard to end by 9:30 though.

What are my goals for next month?

You can’t connect the dots going forward, only back.

Steve Jobs

Make sure these goals trend the dots towards my goal, being in front of the right people, focusing time where it matters, etc.

  • Finish 1 SE.CORP song
  • Have Modergator shipped.
  • Final tax return for SkinTheory.

What are my 2024 (year) goals?

  1. 🟡 Release/Work on 3 startup projects. Build them faster, throw them out faster.
    • I need to build quickly and release quickly. I need to clear time in my schedule for this.
    • Related lifetime goal: Run my own business.
  2. 🟡 Show off 12 items of my work in public. 1 per month atleast.
    • I should build my projects in public. I should have my music out in public more. I should write blog posts. I enjoy the feedback.
    • Related lifetime goal: Run my own business / Have 100k fans of my music.
  3. 🟡 Curate and keep to a more regular routine. 6hr side projects. Wake up by 8am.
    • Atleast 6hrs per week on music / side projects.
      • Decide on Sundays what I want to achieve with the week
    • Wake up by 8 regularly and work on my projects in the morning.
      • I do better work in the morning and need to keep this routine. Otherwise I’m tired at night and just watch tv.
    • Reduce my obligations/stress so that I have time to work on projects / music. I feel stressed with all the things I must do. I don’t have time for my passions then, and I also can’t stop and smell the roses in life.
    • Define what I’ll achieve each week.
  4. 🔴 Release 4 SE.CORP songs. Set up a repeatable way to get listeners / viewers.
  5. 🟡 Develop a better musical ear
    • I’d like to more readily be able to find notes, tab out songs, and jam over other songs

What are my lifetime goals?

  1. Run my own business that allows me to: support myself, be relaxed, be innovative, love my work, travel.
  2. Backpack for 6 months through Asia.
  3. Have 100,000 fans of my music.
  4. Be relaxed and be excited to wake up to my life every day, and these days are meaningful long-term.