I don't know what to say. I feel like I have feel off the boat. I've been lacking motivation for personal projects and learning outside work. I have basically been just doing my job. I've put most of my outside of work time into making art.
Midway through the year I said Covid seemed more under control but it's really not. We've dealt with different variants from Delta to Omicron. So things have been open and in many ways seem more normal but Covid is not under control. I got my booster in early December. I'm trying to do my part in getting vaccinated and masking up in public. That all said, I don't wear a mask at work, I've gone to family get togethers, have traveled too (on an airplane). I still haven't been sick. So I stay cautious but I'm also not locking myself up.
I basically feel a bit burnt out, not just by development but by everything. So generally I haven't done very well with my goals.
Lets look at the goals I set for this year 2021 Web Development goals. Also lets looks at the report I wrote out in June Report: Midway Through 2021.
Initial Goals and How I Did
-
I want to explore and learn more of Svelte.js and maybe some other framework stuff. I haven't touched Svelte at all really. I have been thinking about it again. I had a whale sightings thing I was working on but the API has been taken down so that is broke. I got so frustrated by it, I drove myself crazy. I frankly had a bit of a breakdown and got really down. I basically wouldn't get out of bed the next day. I missed a couple days of work. After about a week, I'm thinking of how I can jump back in. I haven't touched it in so long I don't feel like I remember anything.
-
I would like to possibly transfer my St. Louis photos project into an Express/Node project. I have scrapped this project. I just don't have the motivation to do it right now. I may not ever go back to it. As far as I'm concerned, it is dead.
-
In VS Code I want to use more shortcuts and code snippets to speed up productivity. I do use the find and replace a bit more and searches are getting smarter. I'm still not doing great with this.
-
Level up my Javascript skills. I do more and more with it so I'm feeling more comfortable with it. I did have a website projects where I used a bit of javascript for some scroll and banner effects. I haven't really "studied" but I do what I need to do as it comes in.
-
Play more with transitions and animations for UI. For a redesign projects I did quite a bit with some animations and transitions. I just haven't put much focus on them outside of work.
Other Things Done
Honestly, I haven't been working much on personal projects. I have done little "proof of concept" stuff on my CodePen.
I did attempt to learn some .NET on my own. The main issue is I need Visual Studio and on a Mac, it sucks and it sucks so bad that I sort of just gave up on it. Though I did get through some tutorials on C#. I use it at work and I can do more with ASP.Net but I certainly don't do much with Visual Basic other than edit HTML that may be generated by it. I've also fixed little issues here and there. Another hurdle is that I just don't have database experience and a lot of the backend Visual Basic stuff is interacting with the database. So in the end, I have just stuck to front end.
Assessment
This is almost a carbon copy of last year. From my comments on my initial goals, it seems like I would give myself a failing grade. I've scaled back or gave up on a lot of my goals. However, I can't beat myself up about it. There are going to be ebbs and flows. I need to give myself space so I don't burn out (psst, I feel burnt out).