Happy New Year 2023!

Alright, so here we go for another year. I really need to keep this blog developing, and I think one of the reasons my mind has been in a bit of a funk lately, is that I have not been using my outlet of writing. That, plus the need to keep this legacy project moving along, has prompted me to set some goals for 2023. This year I want to write 50 blog posts. That is one tough ask, and amounts to four per month, with a target of six in January, assuming I can get off to a productive start.

So if I can use the quiet work month of Jan to get some done, hopefully I can achieve this. Why am I doing it? Well my blog to me is like my memoirs, something for my kids to remember me by. So I want to do it properly. Plus I enjoy writing to it makes sense to do this. I have the best part of 20 draft blog entries in there as it is, some with a bit of content already. So hopefully with a bit of discipline and regular time, I can achieve this important personal goal.

Let's review how I have done annually since this one started. It was a bit of a false start, with the punting-focussed blog getting some air time before I switched to this one. I could copy those posts over but I am not sure it adds anything of value frankly. So annual posts on this blog are;

2016 43

2017 13

2018 20

2019 56

2020 24

2021 13

2022 7

The big years were when I had lengthy periods off work - in 2016 I essentially had the first six months where I did bugger-all (of interest, John Reeve emailed me the other day, ASN are still on the cusp of funding it seems, hahahahaha). Then in 2019, I had the first half in Kupang where we only had so much to do, due to lack of funding, followed by four months living in Sungai Pelek doing not a lot. Given I am now in the busiest job of my life, as well as having a fairly demanding home life, maybe trying to get up there again in terms of blog posts is a lofty goal. But I like lofty goals, pushing oneself is a good thing, and making it too easy will just make me lazy.

The above is a snapshot from the Personal section of my To Do List (using the Microsoft product - it doesn't have the bells and whistles of some others, but I tend not to use those anyway, and this can link to emails etc. and is nice and simple, so after years of searching, this is the one I have gone with). So I'm giving myself some timed prompts, going to ensure I make time both at home and at work to do some writing, and my intention is to not just reach the goal of 50 blog posts, but get those drafts down to close to zero for the year. Wish me luck!