2016 Goals, Part I: Quick Reflection, and Starting Goals

In 2015, I didn’t do resolutions – I set some goals for the year, and moved on.  For 2016, I’m doing the same thing, but a bit bigger this time.

I knew 2015 was going to be a recovery year.  There was only so much I was going to do – my resources were low, and there was a lot of waiting for things to happen.  I was getting a divorce, for instance, and was waiting for it to be over with.  Just… stuff like that.

I can’t say I reached all my 2015 goals.  They were pretty loose goals, and I can’t say I completely failed.  I’m in better shape financially (more on that later – better shape, yes, but far from good shape, or even fully surviveable shape.)  I’m in better shape physically – but, not great shape.  I’m better off emotionally and mentally, but even that isn’t quite where I’d like to be at.

SO, I’m going to set higher goals for 2016.  This time, I think I’ve got more power to work with, too, so I’ve got the opportunity to do more.  And I’ll be setting my goals accordingly.  I’m writing them down mostly for myself, but anyone who’s interested in what I’m upto is welcome to read along.

First up is patching some holes in my finances.  2015 was a bad year for business – I lost multiple customers (to closing businesses), had a number of no-pays, contracts that were supposed to happen that didn’t, etc.  More often than not, I wasn’t getting ahead far enough to take on the things I need to.  In some spots, my expenses went up – monthly healthcare, for instance, using Atlas MD (great idea) – but, it needs to go up again for actual health insurance (mainly to cover major medical and emergency.)  In some spots, I managed to trim things.  But, I’m going to have to trim a lot deeper, and increase my profits at the same time to survive.  I’ve got monthly IRS payments, too, which isn’t horrible, but still another drain on my financial situation.

Along the way I did some “little things” like change invoicing systems.  Something that’s more portable, accepts credit cards, and gives me a “big picture” display of who’s got invoices due, what’s coming up, etc.  I’m not using it to it’s fullest, yet, but part of my 2016 goals it to use it for expense tracking a little better (it’s easier to pick an arbitrary start point, like Jan 1, and work from there than to try and juggle everything mid-year and expect it to work out well. 😉

January 1 I’ll start pushing a new brand:  Wichita Developer Lunch.  It’s a new service concept for game, web, and app development & education all rolled into one.  I’ll be pushing the crap out of it.  I’ll still be pushing the Midnight Ryder Technologies brand, too., though eventually the two brands are going to diverge.  Midnight Ryder will be all about games, WDL will be about apps and web in it’s own special niche.

With finances also comes the time drain:  I’ve got to spend better time on cost -vs- returns on things.  I’ve got a number of times where I’ve taken projects because I could do it cheaply (in exchange for more time spent) to pay the bills.  That needs to come to an end.  I’ve got both of the previously mentioned brands (they’re still just one company), along with half ownership of a local startup going on.  Money has been a problem, but an even larger problem is time – there’s places I need to invest it very differently than I did in 2015.

Everything I do needs to answer a question:  does it fall within my goals for 2016, and is it a wise use of finances and time?

More coming tomorrow…