A little later than planned returning to work to Welcome 2020 and the challenges and successes that lie ahead. This year will continue last year’s focus on new skills – in my case SwiftUI and on new software development projects that I’m working on personally or with clients. I hope to spend more time programming this year than usually and have luckily spent the holiday period working on some ideas and reinforcing knowledge gained last year.
Last year was a time of consolidation and upgrading infrastructure for clients and with a couple of exceptions those projects are complete. Lessons reinforced this past year – documentation and keeping it constantly up to date are key to being able to react quickly and with confidence.
I met some new colleagues and clients in the last 12 months – am really looking forward to what we can do together this year. Meeting new people and being exposed to new ideas/problems are key to keeping yourself sharp and avoiding complacency.
The other facet to 2019 was closing off some projects were no longer contributing to the business. As a colleague reminded me “Not all business is good business”. It can be difficult to find the right time and terms to end working relationships but in retrospect it is always better to seek a mutually constructive arrangement. I find it best to look for the positives that may come out of these situations ending and new opportunities opening up.
One of the things that I missed last year was attending Meetups here in Belfast and due to personal commitments was very limited in what I could attend. I hope to see many more new people and new possibilities at forthcoming events – if you see me there – yes I’m the guy taking notes – come on over for a chat (I don’t bite) !