wee doors banging

After a period of navel gazing, I concluded that I am mostly a “river person” who is most likely to be found (and happiest) floating from interest to interest almost on a whim, and while this means I’m exposed to a wide variety of interesting subjects and experiences it can make it difficult to actually achieve anything significant in any one area.

In an effort to address this “problem”, I’ve taken some good advice to heart and tried “brainstorming a handful of goals … to give [myself] a bit more focus and direction”. The result is my list of Goals For 2010.

1. Develop Alternative Income Stream(s)
Who likes the regular 9-to-5? Experience has long since shown that it’s not me, so my main goal for 2010 is to finally, properly explore how else I can fund my expensive eating and living-in-a-house habits. This is a two pronged attack, focussing first on growing my existing freelance web and software development contracting business and second on breaking in to developing and selling original iPhone games and applications.

Specific goals in this category would be to redevelop johngirvin.com appropriately and launch a game (or application) on the iPhone App Store. I’ve already taken some first steps.

2. Cycling Events
Much like last year, in 2010 I’m going to again attempt some local cycling events to raise money for charity. The events I’m targeting are:

• Craigavon Cycle Trail (50Km)
• Lap The Lough (150Km)
• Bonus: Bangor Coastal Challenge (100Km)

My participation in the Bangor event is somewhat in doubt because of a potential date clash. I’ll be happy if I can complete the other two though, and any more I manage to drag myself around will be a bonus.

3. Nice To Haves
The goals in the first two categories will take a lot of time and hard work to achieve (I’m under no illusions in that regard), so the following goals are just “nice to haves”. I won’t be disappointed if I reach the end of 2010 without completing any, and I’ll give myself a pat on the back if I do.

• Launch a pet web project that’s been on the backburner for quite a while
• Assorted updates to my other personal web properties
• Develop some new WHDLoad Patches
• Informally study some physics and astronomy
• Play some of the AAA PC games I bought (cheap!) but never installed, like Crysis (2007) or DOOM 3 (2004), and a selection of the best PC and iPhone indie titles. I also have a Nintendo Wii that needs more use. It’s research, honest.

4. Being Better
Not so much goals as general principles that I want to keep in mind for 2010. By actually coming out and stating these, I hope to help myself remember them!

• Don’t waste time
• Don’t waste money
• Don’t eat so much crap

So there you have it, my plans for 2010 in a nutshell. Let’s see what happens from here.