Three Tech Adjacent Goals You Should Consider for 2025
A new year a new you? A new year, a slightly improved you? Every little bit helps!
2025 is upon us, and you may be considering how you can make your life and work better. In this article I will explain three goals: Get in shape/Improve Ergonomics, Spend Time Wisely, and Make Connections that you should consider for 2025.
The article is written with the small business leader or so-called “solopreneur" in mind, buy consider that if you work for “the man,” you are still in business for yourself; you just have one client. Or maybe you have one main client with multiple side jobs; that’s how I got started on my current self-employment journey.
So, in no particular order, here are my thoughts on these three goals:
Goal #1 Get in Better Shape, Improve Ergonomics
I’ll go over this in more depth in a future post, but consider starting working out if you don’t already, or consider how you work out if you do, and if it’s effective. Just as important is to consider what you eat, and especially what you drink, and how much of it. Over the last decade or so I’ve cut roughly 50 pounds off of my 6’4” body by making a few changes, including cutting out soda.
Ergonomics-wise, I started stretching more regularly (often during the work day), purchased/built a good sleep number mattress/DIY bed frame, and got a very nice Herman Miller Cosm chair for my office.1 I also started using very cool split keyboard. This allows for good ergonomics when typing, while making the experience more enjoyable, and possibly even faster.
While I’ve had back pain for almost as long as I can remember, it’s become more tolerable over the last 5 years or so. I can’t say for certain that correlation equals causation in this case, and I didn’t use the scientific method of changing one thing at a time either. However, getting in better shape2, plus improving my office ergonomics had some effect on how my back feels on a day-to-day basis.
Goal #2 Be Selective About Your Work
You only have so many hours in the day/week/month/year/lifetime. At the same time, there are infinite possibilities for what you can work on. Often its tempting to float from project to project, getting something 50-80% done without reaping the rewards of delivering and getting paid for it.
Related to this, I often want to start working on something, often without doing the research to indicate whether I should be working on that particular something. This makes me feel productive, but if I’m working towards a dead end I may be wasting my time.3
If you work at a traditional job with a boss that tells you what to do, or at least sets a general strategy, this may not be a huge problem. However, if you work for yourself you must act as both the boss and a lower-level employee. Knowing when to commit to an endeavor is a matter of experience and your individual situation, but it’s important to take a moment to consider how to allocate your time before actually spending it.
Juggling boss/strategist and worker jobs is a tough balance, and I’m not always the best at either role. As someone with countless unfinished projects, this is a goal that I need to focus on as much as anyone else.
If you are going to be more boss and less worker, at some point you may want/need to make the jump to paying employee(s), or contracting out some work. I’ve yet to cross that bridge though, so feel free to leave me a comment if you do!
Goal #3 Make New Connections, Maintain Old Connections
As a technical journalist, or whatever it is that I do, a rather large number of my customers come from referrals (especially the customers that pay well). Be sure to put yourself out there and make yourself easy to find. Social media can be useful, but in this day and age of easy, low-quality connections online, higher-effort techniques can pay off too. A few examples/ideas:
Get involved with a local makerspace or other professional organization
Make sure if you quit a job or gig that the people there know where to find you. Even reach back out once in a while.
Call (yes call… on the phone) that customer that you did business with a while ago, but haven’t heard from recently. Email/social can work sometimes, and it may be more appropriate in some cases. However, if it’s fear that’s holding you back from calling, just go ahead and do it!
Reach out to a contact who is just “on the border” of someone who you feel like you can, perhaps because of time, or any other reason. Relationships take maintenance, whether for friendship, business, or both4, and the more great contacts the better.
Attend a conference (or Maker Faire etc). Reach out later to those people who seem interesting.
Start a podcast? I don’t know if I recommend this or not. It does take a lot of work. However, if you want to meet new and interesting people, this presents a huge opportunity to sit down with someone you’d like to meet for an hour or so. I’ve certainly met lots of interesting people through the Create/Invent Podcast.
My Personal/business goals for the year
All of the above, plus some additions/specifics for my life/business:
Write one post per week here. Thanks for reading. I hope to see this publication grow. If you want to forward this on to a friend, acquaintance, enemy, business associate, pet, alien life form, or other, that would be much appreciated!5
Keep working out and eating within reason. I’ve actually been doing a pretty good job on this front, so no change per se.
Make more money. See this post about AI and the state of writing/my business.
New Iteration/improvements on JC Pro Macro 2. I love using my macro pad, but I think it could be better and easier to customize for the average person. Maybe it’s time to take it to the next level.
Develop one new “physical” customer, i.e. someone who contracts me to build a thing, versus words on a page.
Increase my rates as appropriate.
Start making money from my writing on Substack? You can always sign up for the paid version if you feel like helping me make that happen!
Plan for Success in 2025!
I wish you a great 2025… and the same for myself! While my individual goals will and should be different than yours, I hope that this gives you a few things to consider for the upcoming year.
Of course if there’s anything else that you think I should consider, just let me know in the comments. If you suggest that I should consider comments more thoroughly, I’d consdier that rather silly.
All the best! -JC
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Addendum/Footnotes:
As long as we’re on the subject of goals, here’s the non-AI song Grandma’s Money by Look Mum No Computer. Seems weirdly appropriate (mind the bit of profanity):
I actually interviewed this artist (Sam Battle) on the Create/Invent podcast and wow, he is exactly what you would expect from his videos etc. Which was awesome. After hearing some sort of tool in the background, we realized he was simultaneously working on a project without missing a beat in the conversation. Which made the interview even more fun (in that particular case).
On a related note, I was summarizing this “Grandma’s Money” song for my wife (in front of my kids who were somewhere around 6 and 4 at time) because I thought it was hilarious. As it just so happened, we went out to dinner for my father-in-law’s birthday soon after that, at which time they started singing it in the restaurant. This was quite embarrassing, but we were somehow able to get the conversation to move along.
Along with the chair I got these rollerblade-style wheels (that pop in by hand), along with this clear chair mat for it to roll around on. I’m fairly happy with both, though I used a deburring tool (similar to this) on the edge to make them less sharp. Also, the carpet seems to be sticky over where the mat is placed, though I’m not certain of the exact cause and effect.
One might call getting in shape internal ergonomics
One could argue that you’re not wasting your time in a dead-end project if you learn something that can be applied to a later (profitable) project. Or maybe you have to do work XYZ to find out that an otherwise good idea just doesn’t quite work out.
To the first point, you eventually need to get paid, so dead end/learning projects can’t your only work. To the second point, better to do a bit of research first to see if you can prevent wasted time later.
Re: friendships, this has come to a head for me in a couple of ways recently:
A - A friend of mine recently died rather suddenly. I hadn’t talked to him in a few years, but he was someone that I always meant to call, and we had the kind of relationship where I could have. I had no idea of his circumstances until I got the call from another friend about it. I’ll never get to talk to him again. There are probably people in your life (and mine) that would appreciate your reaching out, and you really never know what is going on.
B - Another friend from college got promoted to CEO of a rather impressive company not too long ago. While we had a lot of classes together, worked on projects, and went mountain biking a time or two IIRC, we sort of lost touch. He would be a neat person to reach out to, but that time has largely passed (besides a quick note on Linkedin).
C - To share a success: Through some circumstances I won’t get into here, I lost the phone number of my friend Sean, who I could have easily lost track of entirely as social media was kind of in its infancy at the time (and we both maintain a rather small footprint to this day). Somehow I did have his parent’s address, and sent him a card there explaining things and that he should give me a call. We’re still great friends to this day, even though he now lives across the country.
I’m doing a pretty good job on Substack so far as of this writing (on December 17th, 2024), with posts scheduled out 2+ months. I’ve been doing rough drafts as… drafts, then scheduling them when they seem done-ish, and revising as I have time/inspiration. Here’s what you have to look forward to, so be sure to subscribe to get updates in your inbox!
