I called 2016 as "Year
of intentional focus". Looking back , it
was 365 days filled with lot of action , some inaction as well. I doubled my
focus on some of my passions but also got distracted from a few areas I did
want to put some focus. On personal front,
my little angel is more than a year old now , Sakthi & I complete two years
of marriage. At work, I survived more than a year in tech product management.
Similar to what I have written in the past, I will review my goals and progress on my various
passionate areas.
Technology :
For
2016, my goals outside of work are : (1) Swift programming (2) Machine learning
basics.
- I attended a basic course on "Swift programming" and reviewed my programming basics in February.
- Dirtied my hands along with few other developers in understanding the bot framework and we managed to build a basic bot called AskHR Bot and demoed in our Hackathon
- I did sign up for couple of MOOCs on Data analysis and machine learning and never spent dedicated time to complete them. I wanted to read few technical books , but ended up learning only one on web designing.
- I did plan to build a basic mobile app and also write a classifier or spam filter to deepen my learning - but never managed to spend time in this area
For
2017 my 1 top goals for this area : Take up a coding project online and work on
that regularly over the year
Plan :
I would spend time dirtying my hand with coding and spend time writing code at
least one hour a week.
Health & Fitness
2016,
my top 3 goals for fitness are : (1) Get body fat level to below 20% (2)
One day finish at STP (3) Swimming : 300 miles , cycling 1000 miles
- I spent considerable amount of time in Biking this year since April with a my new found passion for climbing in the hills & mountains.
- I did have a strong one day finish at STP at a good average speed of 16.1 mph over the 200 miles.
- Biked more than 3700 cycling miles way more than my goal of 1000 miles. I also climbed more than 150,000 feet in cumulative elevation.
- Completed biking Portland to whistler which is over 460 miles through STP, RSVP & Granfondo Whistler.
- Some of the climbing highlight events include - Climbing St. Helens mountain Johnston ridge in Tour de blast , St. Helens mountain Windy ridge at High Pass challenge, to Mt. Rainier Sunrise point at 6K feet, Washington pass & Mazama at the north cascades and finally the mother of all climbs at Hawaii - Haleakala crater the longest climb ever of 10,000 feet.
- I did swim regularly but hit only 50 miles through the year, and once again completed the Park to Park swim crossing Washington lake from Seattle to Kirkland
- I regularly logged my food intake since June and managed to lose the weight gain I had in 2015. The weight loss improved my cycling performance especially on my climbing events, but could not hit my goal of body fat below 20%. I had more than 6% reduction but still hovering well above 20% body fat by end of the year. Overall my fitness & health had a positive improvement YoY because of intentional focus on this over the last 9 months of the year.
2017 ,
my top 3 goals for fitness are : (1) Get body fat level to below 20% (2)
(Completing Ramrod (if I win the lottery))Complete Everesting (3) Swimming : 50
miles , cycling 3000 miles
Plan :
I would stick to the same diet of eating real foods (Veggies, egg, meat ,
fruits, skip sugar and grains), with intermittent fasting. Good base training
with cycling and swimming with added strength training twice a week. I would
also do kriya yoga at least once a week.
Personal Finance
2016,
my top 2 goals : (1) Increasing the saving rate to move towards financial
freedom (2) Continue to stay away from debt
- Continued to stay away from debt, and doubled the focus on saving rate with lower focus on investment returns.
- Continued my retirement investing to US index funds completely with 401(k), Roth IRA, Health savings account.
- Finally managed to build the 6 month emergency fund and that also helped on overall asset allocation of my portfolio which was heavily equity biased. This will be my risk cushion
- Biggest goal achievement was finally closing and getting my house in India which was bought for India.
- Managed to complete the Living will through a local attorney. Also continued to regularly update the master document and managed to close on all real estate documentation work.
2017
goals : I stay with past goals and last year plan of (1) Increasing the saving rate to move
towards financial freedom (2) Continue to stay away from debt
Books
My
goals for 2016, (1) Read 25 Books at an analytical level (2) Write about
10 companies
- Beginning of the year I started reading at a good pace, and after my India visit, I dropped my focus in reading big time. This is one of the areas where I did not hit my goal
- I just read 8 books and had been on and off with reading. Facebook and other random web surfing had been a big time killer from reading books.
- I did not write about even one of the company, I did start researching early in the year and that stopped mid-way.
For
2017, my top 2 goals : (1) Read 15 Books (2) Write about 3 companies
after deep research
Plan :
Read 1 books a month, I already have a reading list for 2017
ready here. I will still have the
plan to read at least 25 days a day. Write a page every week and at least one
post a month in the blog
Music
2016
goals were (1) Play Aadi Talam in
Mridangam fairly well (2) Memorize Rudram, and sukthams
- Had been regular to the mridangam classes till holidays, but definitely this was lower in priority with my biking schedule.
- I did learn the basic Aadi talam in Mridangam , but far away from playing it in greater fluency.
- I also ensured I attended most of the monthly Seattle Rudram chanting event based on availability. I am able to chant most of the Namakam without book, but yet to memorize completely. I am able to chant most of the Sukthams.
For
2017 I keep the same goals , as I am yet to hit completely: (1) Play Aadi Talam
in Mridangam (2) Memorize Rudram, and sukthams
Plan
: Practice Mridangam at least 1 day a week and attend weekly classes
regularly. Memorize one stanza of Rudram every two weeks
Movies , Travel & More
I did
want to reduce my movie binge watching, but definitely the movie buff in me
could not control last year as well. I did watch most of the Tamil / Malayalam
movies last year. Since Sakthi & Swara were in India for a good 6 months of
the year, I spent most of the leisure time outside work in biking and catching
up movies. This is where I could have doubled my focus on reading. On travel,
we visited India in March and visited our extended family in Coimbatore,
Chennai & Salem. In the summer because of biking I travelled nearby to
Vancouver & Whistler. During the holidays we had a short trip to Los
Angeles and Leavenworth. The biggest travel we had this year was a 10 day
vacation to Hawaii. We fell in love with Hawaii, and would love to visit the
beaches again. We spent good time in the beaches and a good break from the
weather. For 2017, we hope to make a
visit the east coast. Outside of work,
along with my past colleagues we did spend a good amount of time in floating a
math coaching company. But by the end of year just before signing up, we had to
drop the plan because one of the major partner bailed
I have been pretty bad with posting in the blog last year. But one of the posts I made on OCI application process is the most read and commented post ever in my blog. Hope to post at least one post a month in 2017.
I have been pretty bad with posting in the blog last year. But one of the posts I made on OCI application process is the most read and commented post ever in my blog. Hope to post at least one post a month in 2017.
For
2017, my theme would be - "Year of learning".
I would like to focus my learning at work and outside work in the above areas.
All my goals are around learning. Hope to post more of my learning in the
coming months. Happy new year 2017 every one, There will never be a day when we
won't need dedication, discipline, energy, and the feeling that we can change
things for the better!