{"id":1985,"date":"2022-12-30T10:30:30","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T09:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devpath.pro\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2022-12-30T10:30:30","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T09:30:30","slug":"past-year-review-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/time-management\/past-year-review-2022","title":{"rendered":"Past Year Review (2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The end of the year has arrived, and it\u2019s time to look back and sum up all the good and bad things that have happened in the year. It&#8217;s a great exercise to review each achievement and to focus on how to get better.<\/span><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div>Every year is an unknown, overall I&#8217;d say I managed to stay &#8220;positive&#8221; and push through despite a few sad events.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">In my\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/devpath.pro\/time-management\/past-year-review-2021\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rev=\"en_rl_none\" shape=\"rect\">previous resolution<\/a>, I\u2019ve\u00a0outlined\u00a0my 2022 to be something like this:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Move my role more toward Platform<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Start practicing Mindfulness<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Keep doing exercises more consistently<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: start;\"><strong>Platform Engineer<\/strong><\/h3>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">In the last few years I tried to focus on Cloud and DevOps, this year I fully switched to a Platform Engineer role, and I really like it. At the beginning of the year, I left <a href=\"https:\/\/radicalstorage.com\/\">Radical<\/a> to join <a href=\"https:\/\/www.treatwell.co.uk\">Treatwell<\/a> and it&#8217;s been almost one year of great learning and professional growth.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">I&#8217;ve, also, started another pet project: building a server rack (<a href=\"https:\/\/devpath.pro\/sys-admin\/server-rack-pet-project\/\">link to the blog series<\/a>). It was super cool to build from scratch and manage to assemble it step by step. I ended up with a Proxmox machine with a small Kubernetes cluster, a Pi-Hole, a KVM, a UPC, a firewall (with VPN), and a NAS.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">I simplified my own production environment which was over-engineered, switched from Kubernetes to Docker Swarm, and started to do experiments in my local Kubernetes cluster to stay up-to-date.<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: start;\"><strong>Learning<\/strong><\/h3>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">I wanted to read several books, I managed to read still a few, but also got myself a yearly subscription to one of those 15-minute book summary services (opted for <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.get-headway.com\/\">Headway<\/a>). I think the only value is to know which book to buy and to read them from cover to cover. Unfortunately, except for a bunch of quotes and highlights, no concepts whatsoever have stuck in my brain after reading the summaries.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">These are the books I&#8217;ve read this year:<\/div>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3IaXuDO\">97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know<\/a> (in progress)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3IgN2L0\">Calisthenics for Beginners<\/a> (in progress)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3VA6uFq\">Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Study Guide<\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3CfpMJx\">Emotional Intelligence<\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3VvBJl7\">Idioms<\/a> (reference)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3i57qEj\">Mastering Kubernetes<\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3VzSZG1\">Mindfulness in pratica<\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3vpwF78\">The DevOps Handbook 2nd Edition<\/a> (skimmed)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3GtWwkX\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Dip<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3i2QXR2\">The First 90 Days<\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3WSb3vZ\">The Making of a Manager<\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3WQ81IG\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">I&#8217;ve also joined a company-internal Book Club, focused on the book <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3WR09Xt\">Staff Engineer<\/a>, with other fellow Engineer Managers.<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: start;\"><strong><s>Mindfulness<\/s> Self-Care<\/strong><\/h3>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">I didn&#8217;t practice mindfulness as planned to do, alternatively, I did fallback on other activities:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">Rubik&#8217;s Cube, now I can solve in 2\/3min. It allows me to have a real break and isolate my brain from my surroundings.<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">I started with having breaks of the same length as 1 Rubik&#8217;s Cube (trying to do something like a Pomodoro approach).<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">In the beginning, it took me ~7 minutes (started with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zGu4QSKmj4Y\">Milan Struyf&#8217;s great tutorial<\/a>), and now I&#8217;m down to 2\/3 minutes, so I could solve it twice as faster as the initial starting time.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hD2ZnEVXc78\">Cup Stacking<\/a>, I used to do challenges with some colleagues during breaks a few years ago, I brushed the dust off my cups and started again, I&#8217;m still a little rusty and can do a 3-6-3 stack in ~6 seconds. It&#8217;s another activity to unplug my brain and improve my coordination \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">Ukulele, I learned the basics for fingerpicking and still working to get my strumming right (<a href=\"https:\/\/yousician.com\/\">Yousician<\/a> is helping me a lot).<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">I wanted to pick an (easy) instrument and start learning it. In the past I gave a try to bongos and djembe, they are great fun but they are a little too loud to be played in the house.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Laughter, I started watching some stand-up comedy (eg <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drybarcomedy.com\/\">Dry Bar<\/a>) during my COVID isolation a few months ago, and I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s great to have a good hard laugh. Good for the mood, but also for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.helpguide.org\/articles\/mental-health\/laughter-is-the-best-medicine.htm\">health<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">Breathing exercises, to reduce stress and manage to have more regular breathing and <a href=\"https:\/\/my.clevelandclinic.org\/health\/articles\/9445-diaphragmatic-breathing\">numerous health benefits<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Note:<\/em> If you&#8217;re looking for some ideas for yourself, I suggest having a quick look at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/134-activities-to-add-to-your-self-care-plan\/\">this list<\/a>, there are quite a lot of varied activities (which I might pick up next year as well).<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Being Fit<\/strong><\/h3>\n<div>I\u2019ve got too much relaxed and I didn&#8217;t have the same discipline I had the previous year. I got a couple of elastic bands and started to use those instead (here&#8217;s a good set of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hQ2lHMP4kco\">exercises from Chris Heira<\/a>). I also brushed the dust off of my pull-up bar, <span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">and managed to do 1 set of 20 &#8220;assisted&#8221; pull-ups\/chin-ups. <\/span>I also bought a speed skipping rope, to improve my cardio (I had to follow a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TxFeUcIPUHs\">tutorial<\/a> to do it right and not awkwardly like when I was a kid).<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">I bought a book about Calisthenics and going to follow an easy daily schedule to get back on track.<\/span><\/div>\n<h3><strong>Mentoring<\/strong><\/h3>\n<div>I kept doing sessions throughout the year, and also got a couple of new mentees as well.<\/div>\n<div>As promised in 2020, I\u2019ve got my own <a href=\"https:\/\/devpath.substack.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rev=\"en_rl_none\" shape=\"rect\">(weekly) newsletter<\/a>, and have been able to keep it going for 2 years. Each week I propose some curated content mostly related to the DevOps world (but also some content on programming, security, and leadership).<\/div>\n<div>If you ever need some help with your projects you could book me for a <a href=\"https:\/\/calendly.com\/fabiocicerchia\/15min\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rev=\"en_rl_none\" shape=\"rect\">quick call<\/a> ?<\/div>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: start;\"><strong>Next Year?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">For 2023 I&#8217;m not going to set any particular goals, as I&#8217;m starting to appreciate a little bit of loose scheduling\/planning to allow some unplanned new activities.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: start;\">For now, I just want to pick 2 running themes for the year, so most activities will be around these topics:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>Calisthenics<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Mentoring\/Training<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ve already started kicking off 2023 with a nice round of password updates on critical services (do you use a <a href=\"https:\/\/devpath.pro\/mixed\/bye-bye-lastpass-welcome-keepassx\/\">password manager<\/a>, right?!), an inbox cleanup, and a global backup offsite onto <a href=\"https:\/\/devpath.pro\/sys-admin\/server-rack-pet-project-nas\/\">my NAS<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div>PS: A little spoiler: I&#8217;ll be moving my role toward management (again?!). Am I in a <a href=\"https:\/\/charity.wtf\/2017\/05\/11\/the-engineer-manager-pendulum\/\">pendulum<\/a>? Maybe so.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The end of the year has arrived, and it\u2019s time to look back and sum up all the good and bad things that have happened in the year. It&#8217;s a great exercise to review each achievement and to focus on how to get better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"fabio","author_link":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/author\/fabio"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/category\/time-management\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Time Management<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Time Management<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 1 year ago","modified":"Updated 1 year ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 30, 2022","modified":"Updated on December 30, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 30, 2022 10:30 am","modified":"Updated on December 30, 2022 10:30 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabiocicerchia.it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}