This is something I have done for the past couple of years and it’s been interesting to look back.
Failures/Disappointments
- Again this year I have failed to send out a consistent newsletter and update the content on the website. I have been very Dougal like about it “Like I said before Ted, I’ll never do it again” and I’m at the stage of getting annoyed with myself about it.
- I meant to do more with my online courses and that hasn’t happened either.
- I did work on data visualisation for PowerBI but it’s still a weakness and I’m not quite sure yet how to deal with it.
- I had some minor health challenges, which I don’t handle very well. I’m the world’s worst patient.
What went well
- Work has flowed to me this year in a way that has been delightful. I’ve gotten to work with some fun people – spreading the Excel lurve. I am deeply grateful for my lovely customers (I do work with great people)
- I am well into writing my next book, tentatively called Make Excel your B***h (that’s certainly the title that has evoked the biggest response!) and I am looking forward to getting it published next year. I have worked with the wonderful Jen Louden on it and I am now working with Debs Jenkins on it (we are going to publish the book as part of a cohort)
- My finances are in good shape – not least because of the work I’ve done in Denise Duffield-Thomas Money Bootcamp.
- I went to New York, a long cherished dream of mine. Ah, if I was back in my 20s again, what a city that would be…
- I also went to Paris (haven’t been there since my 20s)
- Working with Zita Lewis means that I can always be sure of offering a top notch service to my customers around admin and follow up and that’s really important to me.
- I finished reading the Wheel of Time series ..FINALLY
- I read Lord of the Rings trilogy (and watched the three movies). here’s a magic scene (makes me well up every time)
Review of 2022 Lessons learned
I looked at lessons learned from 2022 and here they are again with my observations now a year later.
- “I am really going to have to use different metrics for my health than my weight. I really really tried and I failed.”
Self-acceptance will have to be a theme for this. I reckon the only time I will hit my goal weight will be after I am 6 months dead (maybe I can organise a flag to pop up on my grave…) .
- I love virtual delivery and that’s what I plan to stay with in 2023. I think it’s better for learners : bitesize, homework between (recorded) sessions, and a one stop shop with GiraffePad where you can have all the material in one place.
Still feel exactly the same way and that’s how I plan to continue for 2024. Even though there will usually be someone who says “They would prefer the training to be in-person”
- I am going to think long and hard about offering public courses in 2023. That will be a theme for reflection for me over the rest of the year
I didn’t offer any public courses in 2023 and given that my schedule is nearly full for a lot of the first half of 2024, probably not this year either.
- I am going to think about making these newsletter monthly rather than weekly…
Put that on the epic fail list.
- I really need to look at scheduling time for learning and experimentation.
I didn’t do this strictly but what I did do was I kept doing a lot of courses with Skillwave.training and also some great webinars with Neale Blackwood. I also do a Data visualisation course with Mara Pereira in Datapears.com
2023 Lessons Learned
- Delegating work to people I can trust e.g. Zita and Zoe is a real gamechanger.
- Planning things out and making it really specific e.g. reading a chapter a day of a book works really well for me. How can I transfer that to more nebulous things like writing a book will be an interesting challenge..
- A lot of my frustrations over the years have come from my expectations of others. Questioning my own expectations has been interesting and oddly liberating.
- I got someone else (Gayle Kaufmann) to review my training and it was great to have someone else suggest lots of small tweaks that will help my work be more effective.
- I really really hate it when I promise to do something (like the newsletter) and then don’t.