Lessons Learned: My 2011 Year in Review

1 of the Highlights: My sister Taylor and I after we jumped from a plane!

Holy crap balls. Crazy year.

How well did 2011 go?

Last year was dubbed “The Year of the Track Star.” The reason was because I wanted to track the progress of my goals.

As Drucker says, “What gets measured, gets managed.”

I tried to measure a bunch of stuff. In fact, I tried to measure too much: sleep patterns, work-out regimens, and then business stats stats stats.

One of the biggest mistakes I made last year was spending too much time processing, planning, counting, tracking and not enough time shipping. I still believe in tracking, and without some sort of it, I wouldn’t be able to process the year in these reviews like I am able to now. There is benefit, but I suggest not to go overboard. Lesson learned.

Here’s the review of last years main goals:

Business:

WakeUUUP:

I launched WakeUUUP early in the year but did absolutely no marketing and then took it out of the App Store. Why? Because it was good. But we all know that good isn’t worth shit nowadays. If you take time to create something, make sure it’s great or there is not point.

We are all capable enough to create art that is worth talking about and when we create something that is merely good, it falls to the wayside and we are worth more than that.

I took it off the market, signed a contract with an amazing design team out of Los Angeles called Ebbex to re-design it, and then started programming right after. The programming has taken far too long, but we’re just about there.

The Blog:

Neglected again. I didn’t make it high enough priority but that had to do with a lack of niche determination. That’s since been sorted and the blog will be a focus in 2012.

Real Estate:

I was a bit ambitious (but will be again this year!) with how many cash-flow properties we were gonna pick up. Instead of ten, we got two. But I did some real estate development type stuff this year which I really loved. But alas, no more real estate talk on the blog… it’s all about The Little Big App Tribe now.

Travel:

Time Spent Abroad:

My goal last year was 150 days out of Winnipeg. I hammered out 120. Not bad. Fuck I love travelling.

New Countries Visited:

I’m trying to visit every country in the world. I wanted to see 15 new countries but only saw 2. For travel, especially seeing new countries where visa’s need to get arranged, lodging booked, etc, there needed to have been much more planning.

Health:

Polyphasic sleep:

I tracked this diligently for the first 5 months of the year. I was working down towards the UberMan (2hrs of sleep a day) but never go there. No good excuses why I fell off the wagon, but lets just blame travelling . I found it extremely difficult to sleep much shorter nights and take a quick nap in the afternoon when you’re working off more than one person’s schedule.

What I can say about this is that I really do like the concept of polyphasic sleep (breaking sleep to shorter lengths spread out throughout the day to ultimately sleep much less. Wiki link here). When tracking this, I was averaging around 6h40m a day. That I’m sure was down from around 8, and since I’ve stopped tracking it I’m back at around 7.5-8h a day. Over the coarse of the year, the difference between the two is a pretty substantial amount of time.

Finally fit again:

The goal was to get fit like I used to be: in the single digit body fat percentile. I’m in a lot better shape but not quite there. Can we blame this again on travelling? No? Shit.

2 new eyeballs:

I planned to get laser eye surgery. Never did it. Put it to the backburner and didn’t make it a priority. This year tho haha. But really. I want this bad.

Productivity Life-Hacks:

My own Virtual Assistant:

I got one. And she’s great. Her name is Ade and she lives in the Philippines.

World Change:

ChangeCostsBuckAll.com

I never showed the title last year but I now think differently about keeping secrets, especially when it comes to helping those in need! I would be happy if someone snipes this idea and makes it happen.

This site has morphed into a bit of a different beast, but I really do want to do this. The gist: give just a single dollar, vote for the charity, share the link and help it spread. $1 from a lot of people can change the world. I want as much help as I can get! If you’re interested in creating something that can truly change the world, I can use your help. Email me at dane@danehomenick.com and I’ll fill you in.

Learning:

Reading:

If you’re not growing, your dying. My goal was to read 20 books and I ended up reading 29. T.V. eats your brain (except hockey, of course).

Language:

With the travelling that I’m able to do, I’m still disgusted at the fact that I pretty much only know English. This is balls and needs to change. My goal was to be conversationally fluent in Mandarin, but I didn’t get there. I also expected to be living in China for a few months last year but that didn’t pan out. This year I hope to remedy this.

Life Listers:

I wanted to hammer out as much off my life list as possible, and the five I wanted to focus on were skydiving, entering a demolition derby, going to Nascar, riding an Ostrich, and sitting ring side at a title bout.

Of these I only managed to jump out of plane. But holy shit wildest thing ever you have to try it! Go tandem first go so you can freeeeeeeeeee faaaaaaaaaaaaaaall! Anyways, I did do other things on my list this year: zip-lining (in the Andes), white water rafting (Peru), hit up Manchu Picchu, Lakers at Staple Center, Leaning Tower of Pisa, and getting a VA.

All In All:

It was a great year. I’m thankful for my health, the health of my family and friends, and all that I was able to do. I’ve learned a lot, figured out a ton, and honed my focus.

I hope you had a great year as well! What was the highlight of your 2011?

Tagged as: balls, blog, drucker, priority, track star

Lessons Learned: My 2011 Year in Review

How well did 2011 go?