Looking Back Jan 2 2010
I’ve been relaxing over the holidays so have only just found time to write a 2009 year end post, but thought I should definitely do it as 2009 has been very exciting!
2009 was the year that I went freelance, and started my own business, mainly focusing on Ruby on Rails work. For the most part there has been plenty of work to keep me busy, and even though it was way back in March that I quit my day job to go full-time freelancer, the rest of the year has flown by incredibly quickly!
Also, I launched my website at the beginning of the year, but as the year drew to a close I was able to find time to rebuild it and rebrand. I think the new design is a lot more professional and represents my brand a lot better, so I’m very pleased I was able to get that done. My initial target was to get it done by the beginning of 2010, but in the end I was able to put it together much more quickly by using Tumblr, and so launched in November!
Working from home definitely suits me, I’m working a lot more hours than I ever was in a day job, but I’m a lot more relaxed, and I really am enjoying what I do. I also get to spend a lot more time with my incredible wife, who is the driving force behind all of my successes. And towards the end of the year I really found my groove for productivity. I was able to get plenty done from day one when I went full-time, but a few months ago I made a conscious effort to improve my productivity and organisation, and it has now allowed me to get a lot more done, and so I’m feeling incredibly positive about the possibilities for this coming year now.
Aside from the business, back in May, two exciting things happened. Firstly, we took a trip to Vegas for RailsConf, and turned it into a bit of a vacation. It was great to finally meet my long time associate and buddy Michael Leung, and the conference itself was decent. My wife and I got married in Vegas in 2007, so it’s always special for us to go back too, and we got chance to hire a Mustang and drive out to the Hoover Dam as well, which was really awesome.
When we got back from our trip, we picked up our gorgeous Dalmatian puppy, Rocky. He’s been absolutely brilliant fun since the very first day we picked him up at the end of May, and he still loves to play like a puppy, even though he’s almost fully grown now! It’s been a lot of fun taking care and looking after him, and he keeps us healthy with daily walks. Hard to believe he’s gone from this, to this, in just 8 months!
In November, I started an openings course with the Open University, a taster course on the long road to getting a business degree. I took on this course to see if I could fit in studying alongside my other commitments, and with some hard work, I can. So far the course is going great, and I’ll be wrapping that up over the next couple of months. I then hope to tackle a bigger course over the Summer!
Overall this year has been fantastic - one of real change and progress. I’m now doing what I love from home and at the hours that suit me, and with a greater variety of projects and code to write. I’m also studying something that’s both of interest to me, and that will also be really useful for running my business. I definitely have a few things I want to tweak though, that relate to my goals for 2010, to keep progressing and bettering myself, so I’m going to do a follow up post focusing on a few of these things next!
I hope everyone else had a productive 2009, and a belated Happy New Year to all!