Always set goals, and always measure them. Here is a list of things I’ve done in the year of 2016.
Reading
I managed to read 26 books this year, that’s exactly 1 book every 2 weeks. I was hoping I could read more but there were too many things to work on at First Code Academy. My secret is carrying my Kindle everywhere with me when I know I will be waiting, flying, or having no Internet. I did not really have a theme for the year, I would say towards the end of the year, it became more focused on Leadership and Personal Growth.
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
- Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time
- How I Lost 170 Million Dollars: My Time as #30 at Facebook
- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel
- When Breath Becomes Air
- How to Lie With Statistics
- Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People
- Delivering Happiness
- The Internet is My Religion
- Tribal Leadership
- I Love You More Than My Dog
- Shoe Dog
- Augmented Age
- High Output Management (yet to finish)
- Building Great Software Engineering Teams
- Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
- Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)
- Mindset (paused)
- The Course of Love
- Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
- Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most (stopped, not interesting)
- Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow
- Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind
- The Amazon Way
- How Google Works
- The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
Traveling
Compared with a lot of jetsetters out there, I don’t think the list is even worth sharing. Anyway, I would like to travel more with purpose, say running an oversea half marathon.
- Cape Town & Johannesburg, South Africa
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Rhode Island and Maine, USA
- Phuket, Thailand
- San Francisco, USA
- Singapore
- Siem Reap, Cambodia
- Bali, Indonesia
Blogging
Including this post, I wrote 5 blog posts this year, far from my initial plan to get 12 blog posts out the door. Definitely something to work on in 2017.
- 7 Books to Read in 2016
- 7 Life Mottos I Live By
- How We Define Our Company Culture at First Code Academy
- You Have Been Finding Jobs The Wrong Way
- 2016 Year in Review
Public Speaking
I set myself a goal to take on a challenge of speaking in the public this year. It just so happened that WHub was hosting an event about “working at startup” and they invited me to be a panelist. It was my first ever public speaking gig and I was excited to share my startup experience with the audience.
Running
After my 1st half marathon in 2014 in Singapore, I told myself that the next one would not be coming soon. 2 years later, I figured I needed some new challenges in my life, and so instead of joining another half marathon, I joined 2. With a training plan in mind, I ran regularly throughout the year and achieved a personal best of 2h4m at Angkor Wat Half Marathon, 4m behind my target yet still a major improvement. I’m thinking to sign up more half marathons in 2017, anyone?
- HKDRC Half Marathon - 2016 Oct
- Angkor Wat Half Marathon - 2016 Dec