Via Kottke

#

Via Kottke

#

1. Be Healthier

   That’s not really a great goal according to the “measurable and achievable” standards of goal making, so I’ll add that I’d like to get 30 mins of activity at least 1 time a week and have a homemade, healthy meal at least 1 time a week. Once a week might not seem like much, but 52 times a year is better than 3 times a week in January and then abandoned after that. I’d like to build this into a habit that I don’t have to work hard to hold myself to.

2. Make more than I spend

   I succeeded in this last year and want to continue the streak. I had 2 negative months in 2011 compared to 5 in 2010. I’d like to get that down to 1 month this year where I spend more than I make. I think with proper planning this is achievable, and if it wasn’t for Apple I would have hit that last year for sure.

That’s it. Stay healthy and financially stable. I think those two things are the source of great stress for people who have problems in either realm. With those two in line, it frees my mind and time up for great things.

Here are some of my guesses for great things next year.

• A vacation. This is cheating a bit since I have vacation scheduled for the first week of the year. It should be a good trip.
• More success at work. It’s time to turn all that we have been working into success on the bottom line, and I think this year will be a good year for that.
• Continuing happiness with Meg. We had more downs this year than since I moved to NYC, but we also had more ups in our relationship. Things look good for our future, and I predict we will continue to grow our lives together.

All of this is of course contingent on 2012 not being the end of the world. If that’s the case, then I hope to make it to see the end times. Here’s to having a great 2012.

• I made more than I spent

  Not a whole lot more, but definitely more. I didn’t stop spending all together, but I started to get smarter with how I spent money. I still spent quite a bit on Apple products and more on food than I probably need. I cut out superfluous spending and kept less money in my pocket so that it wasn’t spent. The year in the market was not great, but those losses haven’t been realized yet.

• I continued to travel

  I took a trip to DC for a conference and to San Francisco for two conferences to work with April at the new Silicon Valley Schipul office. I stayed at a house on Airbnb and had a great time. The time away from everything here was much needed, and the perspective that I got shaped the rest of my year.

• I continued to grow at work

  More training, more work, and more responsibility. We change fast at Schipul, and changed quite a bit this year. We went Big, and we are still here to tell the tale. We started the year launching a new Schipul.com and continued to innovate. We launched more sites than ever, created new software, and used better tools (Macs!) than ever before.

• My Happiness Project fell apart fast

  Meg and I had both read the book at the end of 2010 and each made plans for 2011. My plan was organized and thoughtful, and by March I had all but abandoned it. It was just too much change in the face of so many other things changing around me.

It really took my attempt at happiness to completely fall apart before I began to be happy. I was frustrated and confused with several things early in the year, and my trip to California could not have come at a better time. Work was overwhelming and was affecting my life in many ways. Getting out of the office and away from it all gave me the perspective to see everything around me that I was somehow missing. Spending some fun time with April and Jason in a new city was great, and I can’t wait to go back out west.

Since that trip in early April, things have continued to move fast, and I have moved much better with them. I moved up at work and continued to drive forward and some of my favorite coworkers went on to new things. Summer turned into Fall and Winter faster than I realized, with each day strengthening my excitement about the next.

My goals for health were not really accomplished much, but I have at least maintained my level of health. My guess about more success at work came true in the best ways. Meg and I have done a bit more cooking, and are still trying to work out the best way to not fall into the easy habit of always eating out. TV was also less a part of my life in 2011. New shows have not replaced the old ones, and I can see that trend continuing.

My outlook at the beginning of 2011 was positive, and I have finished the year with even more positivity. I don’t think I will plan for much in the coming year, as it seems I’m better off reacting to the change that is destined to take place without my influence.

General criteria for an MVP is the player who is having the best season, and is almost always on a playoff-bound team. Given that, the obvious choice for this year is Aaron Rodgers. The Packers are thus far undefeated, and Rodgers has been having a tremendous season. What we don’t know, however, is how the Packers would be doing with Matt Flynn or someone else as their QB for the season. They could continue to be undefeated. The Packers supporting cast could be the true MVPs, with Rodgers just at the head.

With Peyton Manning, we know how the Colts would do without him: Winless. This is following a 9-year streak of making the playoffs, along with 2 super bowl appearances in that time. The last time the Colts had 13 losses was 1997, before Peyton Manning, and 1998, his rookie season. Since then, the Colts have made the playoffs 11 times in 12 years.

For a team with so much success to completely fall flat after losing one player, it seems pretty obvious who is their Most Valuable Player. In 2008 the New England Patriot’s Tom Brady was out the majority of the season, yet the Pats still went 11-5. Few other teams in NFL history have suffered such a dramatic swing from losing one player as the 2011 Indianapolis Colts.

Good Luck to the Colts next year, and I hope Peyton wins the MVP.

#

Via Gruber

#

From the original post:

Thomas Suarez is in the 6th grade at a middle school in the South Bay. And while most of his peers are probably fussing over new soccer kleets or watching the Disney channel, he’s creating iOS apps and giving TED Talks.

He’s not just building apps, he built a company. Great public speaking, too.

Via Gruber

#

He talked about the importance of 10% time in cultivating innovation. You can read his article in the Telegraph to get the full story.

It starts with art. There was a study on the “creativeness” of commissioned vs. non-commissioned art. The outcome was this:

Put another way, the commissioned art was good. But the works that were great were consistently the non-commissioned ones.

This is probably frustrating to hear for the art commissioners. They paid good money for art, but the art that is better wasn’t even paid for.

The point is that personal creativity, the type that isn’t directed or instructed, turns out to result in the most creative outcomes.

Similar results were found at Atlassian, who hosts FedEx Days. FedEx days are once a quarter. The last Thursday night through Friday afternoon. Their goals are:

• Foster creativity
• Scratch itches
• Spike (do something radical)
• Have Fun

Employees “work on whatever they want with a skew towards” their products. The only rule is you have to ship something overnight.

There is also the story of The 2010 Nobel Prize winning Physicists, whose 10% time for “Friday evening experiments” lead to the discovery of graphene, a 1-atom thick material that stirred up the material sciences world. Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov worked together for years on Friday evenings before they wrote their paper in 2004 that lead to their Nobel Prize. Novoselov said of their Friday nights were spent doing:

“… all kinds of crazy things that probably won’t pan out at all, but if they do it would be really surprising.”

The goal of all of this undirected time, sometimes called 10% time, is to do something outside of your normal responsibilities at work. This is where breakthroughs come out. This is where creativity shines and innovation prospers. It’s not through typical R&D, or even through individuals within an organization that are dedicated to “special projects”. It’s all about giving everyone a little bit of time to try something different. Time to innovate. Time to Think Different.

Generation X knows you didn’t even read the whole thing.

Via Waxy

#