Reviewing 2020

Happy New Year! 2020 is gone, and good riddance. I don't think I've ever been this excited to see the beginning of a new year, and it can't possibly get any worse.

As I mentioned last year, I've done away with the yearly goals, as they're just not effective (and 7 Habits agrees). But it's still fun to look over the past year.

Some have reported an increase in productivity due to being at home longer, but I'm not one of those. In fact, the opposite may have happened. Stresses at work increased because of COVID19 and a recent large merger, and at the same time I experienced an effective pay cut (I did get a nominal raise, but it was overcome by considerably higher insurance premiums and the fact they stopped paying my professional dues and for my continuing education). This stress led to much more depression and lower productivity at home. I do really wish I could have accomplished more tasks that I've been planning for years.

In the second half of the year I came out of it and started producing again. As far as blogging is concerned, 2020 saw this blog with my 2nd lowest number of posts ever. So, I beat 2019. Yay! I've resurrected the reviews I had done in the past, and after my December hiatus, I intend on continuing weekly reviews of movies, TV shows, and other things.

My Mormon and Economy blogs, on the other hand, have seen their highest level of posts ever -- coming mainly from the last half of the year. #1! This is due to my introduction of the weekly spiritual thoughts, and weekly coronavirus newsletters (which I've just now ended).

I will also, this coming week, introduce yet another blog -- a new initiative called "Always Be Better," which will be a Blogger/YouTube cross post thing. I will place the videos on YouTube and the transcripts in the new blog. Each week will feature a roughly 5 minute video touching on some random subject with the goal of helping us all to become better people.

Here are my favorite posts from this past year:

What Can You Do To Stop the Spread? -- Learn the simple steps that *you* can do to help join the fight against the virus and save lives. You can also see a list of actions to avoid.

Is Purple Really Not in the Rainbow? -- Read this to learn how "purple" isn't in the rainbow, but "blue-ish purple" is. I take on the Minute Physics guy and propose experiments you can conduct to find out the answer to this question for yourselves.

The Christmas Star -- Read about the "Christmas Star" event of Jupiter converging with Saturn in the sky, check out my pictures, and consider different theories as to what the actual Christmas Star might have been two millennia ago.

The Sonata Book -- Read about how I accidentally bought one of the most difficult collection of piano pieces, and how I turned it into a lifetime goal -- how it helped me to reach out for the impossible and hopefully to inspire others to do the same.

I also released to the public, my short story "When Time Flows West," which is remarkably similar to the recent movie TENET. You should check it out and see what you think.

Also, reviewing my past years of blogging, I came across a very important piece of insight. In this blog entry from 2014, I announced that I was going to take a break to devote 100% of my time to studying for an actuarial exam. I think I killed that exam -- wouldn't be surprised if it was a 10. But, I see now that I totally lost momentum at that time. And as far as writing is concerned, I have not gotten anywhere close to where I had been, despite several times that I've tried to reboot. 

I'm still trying ... I want to write more. I want to create more. I want to put down on paper all these ideas floating around in my head. I just have to build up that momentum again ... something my life coach advises. It sucks that that exam was 6 years ago, and it's taking me this long to reboot, but it's not too late.

What comes next? I'm currently devoting more time to music -- see if I can get momentum in that area. At the same time, I'll continue rebuilding my fiction writing momentum as well. So much to accomplish in this life!

So, in summary -- I had a rough first half of the year, did a lot of stuff the second half, and am now trying to build up momentum going forward.

How did you do in 2020?