Yearly review 2025

I look back at a busy year. A first year of freelancing. A year with illness. And with many unfinished projects. But also a year with a lot of fun, feeling better emotionally and enjoying the freedom, responsibility and flexibility of freelancing.

In my head I already had the theme and leading paragraph for this year’s review ready. The theme was going to be “unfinished business” and the leading paragraph would mention “Zeigarnik related anxiety” (the nagging weight of unfinished tasks).

But then I re-read my 2024 review, which I’ll screenshot here for the convenience of my three readers:

Unfinished is a recurring theme. 2023, 2022, 2021… Every year I write about not having enough time to do all my projects. Which begs the question: am I so bad in planning and finishing, do I simply have too many projects, or is it really outside factors?

Which reminds me of the song “In my Mind” by Amanda Palmer:

And in my mind, in the faraway here and now
I’ve become in control somehow
[…]
And it’s funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
But it does not seem to have happened
[…]
And when they put me in the ground, I’ll start
Pounding the lid
Saying I haven’t finished yet
I still have a tattoo to get
That says I’m living in the moment
And it’s funny how I imagined that I could win this, win this fight

– Amanda Palmer, In my mind

A reassuring thought. I’m not alone. Everyone has unfinished projects. Everyone thinks they can finish faster than they can. The struggle is real (also close at home–the neighbors have worked on their construction projects for over 8 months, filling the air with constant noise of drilling and sanding).

But quoting lyrics and commiserating with others doesn’t get projects finished. I need to do something, and that’s probably going to need other people get involved to hold me accountable for my planning (i.e. my partner).

Aside from the unfinished personal projects and the illnesses in my family (and The Stuff happening worldwide), overall I’m looking back at a great 2024.

Wins of 2024 #

Like every year, this review is mainly a brag-list to make myself feel good. And that works 🤗

• personal growth: this year I felt happier, calmer and more in control. Less emotional outbursts, more understanding.
• freelancing is great: I had four different clients and eight projects. I love the freedom I have, that I’m seen as an expert by my clients, that I really help them forward, the diversity in my activities, and that projects are contained with a start- and finish. I reached my financial goal
• professional development: I visited multiple work-events, and scheduled “let’s get some coffee”-time with people
• reading: I read books! Hooray! I finished a couple of science-fiction classics and business books
• blogging: I wrote many articles, a total of 15.545 words. I moved from Jekyll to Hugo. And I rewrote most of the code from the template I used as starter. Pfew. A lot of work.
• music: we bought a stereo set! And it’s incredible what it did to our house. We listen so much more music and we really listen to the music. We sit on the couch and listen. It’s great.
• more music: I stared piano lessons. A lifelong dream
• helping out at school: loads of projects at my children’s school, it’s fun to see more of their world and contribute to it
• exploring the world: holiday to Portugal, visiting museums, holidays in The Netherlands, visiting Efteling, visiting my brothers’ family in Germany
• celebrations: we celebrated Yalda extensively, I organized fun birthdays for my wife&kids, I had a great birthday organized by my wife, and had a warm Christmas with the whole extended family

Struggles #

Life and lemons 🍋

• the book pile: I buy more books than I read. It’s a problem.
• project paralysis: I’m starting more projects than I finish. It’s a problem
• creative chaos: I have about 50 blurbs for blogposts, all over the place. In Bear, in iA Writer, in Todoist, as ‘draft’ in Hugo. It’s a problem (I see a pattern now…)
• disappointment over cancellations: due to Stuff I had to cancel visiting conferences, meet-ups and social gatherings. This bummed me out more than it maybe should have

Work highlights #

2024 was a busy year. I landed two new clients, both startups, and I worked for my existing two clients.

I designed a mobile app, rebuilt an existing concept from the ground up, did user research (with lawyers, tax-professionals, energy-companies and goat- and sheepfarmers), I deepdived into different domains such as Kubernetes, I used large-language models to analyze 1.000+ jurisprudence documents, strategy, roadmapping, opportunity-solution-tree, testing the limits of Miro with huge boards, gave training on innovation and warm-data labs, designed (and partially built) an interactive data-dashboard, product-market-fit workshops, wire framing, prototyping… Jack of all trades 😅

House #

The house, as always, demanded attention:

• Our heating broke, we had leaks and electrical issues. All fixed 💪
• I plowed and reseeded the grass in our yard (failed, any tips?)
• Endless maintenance. Cleaning gutters, washing windows, fixing bikes, car troubles, cleaning shed, cleaning basement
• Interior upgrades: bought new cupboards, working with an interior designer, painting outside furniture and inside window frames
• A year-long battle with internet providers. Ziggo screwed stuff up for a year, so we switched to Odido. And they promptly started messing stuff up also. Long story. Short version: it’s fixed now

Projects #

I started out with the projects I didn’t finish. But surely, I finished something?

• I moved this blog to Hugo, updated all my articles, added new code for series (see below!)
• I published my yearly easter puzzle. This year it got picked up by the local radio, who interviewed me for 5 minutes
• I bought a home-server and set it up with Plex, n8n and other stuff
• I created a website for my father: www.theozwinderman.nl
• I cleaned up my photo-library for 2024
• I experimented with n8n and AI
• I published loads of blogposts
• I got a cool clock based on a 1001-post I wrote years ago

Next year #

2025 is already happening. Already an eight of it is gone.

Based on the experience of never finishing anything, I’ve decide to set priorities on two projects:

• Penny: a thought-management tool. Finally publish it this year
• 1001ideas: my ideas-blog needs to move to Hugo so it works again

But above all, I hope to maintain the good vibes, reading, vacations and family-time.

See you next year.