Looking Back On 2011

This was my first year working as an independent, and it's been quite a year. Things have gone very well, and I'm amazed at how quickly it all went by. This time last year, I was looking forward to start working for my first client though I didn't quite know what to expect. I hoped it would be interesting, and it certainly has been. I've been able to work with interesting technologies, with the kind of technical variety that I've come to really enjoy. I wrote more code in JavaScript than in C# this year, and I've also been able to do quite a bit of Ruby as well. I certainly didn't expect that going into this contract, so that was a major bonus. Even better than the technologies I've been able to work with this year are the people I've worked with. The team I've worked with has a fantastic mix of experience, knowledge and talent and it feels like all of us continuously learn new things from each other which is a situation I can only recommend to every developer.

Another great part about being independent is that you're free to do extra things on the side as well. I'm very happy with the responses that I've gotten from the people who've taken my NHibernate course, and I'm going to continue to offer it in 2012. I initially thought it would be something I'd do once or twice, but I was able to do the course 4 times this year: 1 public and 3 private ones. I've got another private one scheduled in February and will organize another public course in 2012, though this time I'm taking care of the whole thing myself instead of working with another company to organize it.

The most important thing I've learned from this first year is that it's important not to try to do too much. The first 6 months of 2011 were way too busy and hectic, and I only spent one full day doing absolutely nothing work-related. I've been taking things much slower since July and I'm spending much more time enjoying other things in life outside of work. For 2012, my biggest priority is pacing myself much better and spreading things out more. I always seem to alternate between months where I'm always working on something, followed by months of doing as little as possible outside of the 40 hours a week I do for my client. Hopefully, I can finally find a maintainable balance between those two extremes in 2012

On the blogging front, 2011 was a different year than the previous ones on this blog. In the previous years, I averaged about 150 posts a year but this year I only published 71 posts. And I'm actually happy about that. In fact, I hope to get that number down to 50 next year. I still like writing posts, but I no longer feel the need to like I did in the past while I was trying to build a bit of an audience. That often meant pushing myself to keep publishing new posts. Nowadays, I'll only write a post if I really feel like it, which in the long run is much more sustainable anyway. As far as topics covered this year, things have changed quite a bit as well. Some of my views, opinions and technical preferences have changed this year, which naturally reflects in the content I've published. I'm sure I've lost some readers this year because of it, but I also seem to have gained a lot more readers than I've lost. I don't know yet what I'll be writing about in 2012, but I will continue to push people to learn new things (or old things that people seem to forget about) and do better like I always have on this blog, in my own unique way of course

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas, and I wish you all a happy 2012. If it does turn out to be our last year on this planet, we might as well make it count.