Goals

What gets measured gets awesomer.

Here’s what I’m working on. Updated January 20th for 2015.

Become Conversational in Spanish

We’re planning trips to Mexico and Spain this year, and learning languages is fun.

So, my goal is to Rack up 30 XP / day in Duolingo’s Spanish program, accountable to Beeminder.

My Duolingo profile name is mattepp.

Write More

In my teens, I always knew I’d be a professional writer somehow, someday. It’s recently dawned on me I’ve lost a decade of practice and experience. I’m reclaiming this part of my identity with discipline and a commitment to write every day, and publish regularly.

My first writing goal is to Write an average of an hour per day, accountable to Catherine in a Beeminder fashion.

I’m keeping a private journal, and blogging to hone my craft. I’m also making slow but steady progress writing a book for WordPress development that I hope to publish in 2016. Time spent on all three of these counts toward my goal.

2015-02-01 Update: I’m easing this up slightly from an hour and fifteen minutes a day to just an hour per day, beginning a week from today. I’m also switching my accountability from Beeminder to Catherine — so I’ll pay her my fines when I derail instead of Beeminder. Same exact rules as Beeminder, same history, and same current pledge level: $90.

Minutes Writing

My second writing goal is to Publish a blog post an average of once per week, accountable to Beeminder.

My posts can be found here at mattheweppelsheimer.com as well as at Galactic Panda and Rocket Lift’s blog.

2015-02-01 Update: I’m switching my accountability from Beeminder to Catherine — so I’ll pay her my fines when I derail instead of Beeminder. Same exact rules as Beeminder, same history, and same current pledge level: $5.

Blog Posts

To be replaced by a home-rolled chart soon.

Vague focuses and specific goals for 2015

Apologies to Jeremy Felt.

This is a list in progress:

• Live in Mexico
• Live in Spain
• Finish editing video I shot of a few pairs of friends’ weddings from an embarrassingly long time ago
• Launch a product or service (there’s one on the front burner, but we’re still too early in customer development to tell if it’s a winner)
• Overcome my lifelong habit of hair twirling
• Get down to my target weight and stay there
• Completely apply the 7 Habits
• Start a new maker-oriented hobby: design and sew clothes? 3D printing? robotics? build a PC gaming tower from scratch?
• Become a much better WordPress developer: write unit tests, read 50%+ of core’s source code
• Get props on every major WordPress release in 2015
  • 2015-02-19 Update: I’m on track.
• Learn about the anti-aging movement, e.g. Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence
• Become more scientific. Spend as much time reading nonfiction books as fiction. Start to become an armchair expert in something cutting edge, like neuroscience.