It’s that time of year again. It’s time to reflect on the goals that I set for myself, and see where I succeeded and where I fell short. Before I begins with my retrospective, let me just toot my own horn for a second and say that I am pretty pleased with how things shook out generally this year. 2018 was for of great professional opportunity and learning for me.

I want to take a look back at the Goals I set for 2018. Sure I did not accomplish everything. But it was a busy year and I did have a few small wins.

Books

Finished two of the 3 books “Checklist Manifesto” and “Sprint.”

Blog

Wrote a good 12, long-format blog posts with valuable content. Plus, I succeeded at writing my series of “UX Tidbits” and “UX Quotes” sprinkled throughout he year.

Social Media

I wanted to increase the account numbers for the twitters that I run.

• On jnblatz on Twitter, my goal was 1,200 followers. I am around 1,800 so, not bad! No complaints since 1,200 was really ambitious.
• On Ladies that UX Dallas on Twitter, my goal was 700 followers. Success!
• Also continue to grow the twitter accounts for WIAD_DFW and IXDADallas.

Professional Development

• Continue to learn Sketch well enough to mock up several designs to expand portfolio and skill set. – Success!
• Create UX assets and deliverables to sharpen my skills and enhance my portfolio. – Always a work in progress. So I am going to claim semi-success for this one!
• Wrap up the “UX Process” project I have been working on. – Failure. But gives me something to work on in 2019.

UX Community Involvement and Leadership

• Launched the, much-anticipated IXDA chapter in Dallas. As a leader of the group, I’ve helped plan events, bring in great speakers and even moderated a large panel on diversity.
• Acted as Social Media Chair for WIAD 2018. I guess I did a pretty good job at helping the event that I was recruited to organize the 2019 WIAD Dallas leg on the international event. Stay tuned for a write up about how WIAD goes in February 2019.
• Spoke about UX Design Laws and Principles at North Dallas Product Owners Meetup.
• Guest speaker for two sessions for the professional development course “Agile for Patriots.”
• Worked for 2 charitable hackathons, doing research and design. I participated in BigGive Dallas and Dallas Give Camp. Both events were exhausting, yet fun and personally rewarding.

Personal development

• Have better work/life balance. – This one is a huge SUCCESS with the job change that happened in April. Much happier in my new work place.
• 2017 was not a great year for travel for me. This is especially true for international travel.  – Sadly I must say 2018 was the same. Not a lot of opportunity for travel. Being a contractor is touch. But 2019 is a new year so fingers crossed!
• Read more outside of UX. – I did read a couple of business and professional development books in 2018, so I can declare this a success.

Again, 2018 was a good year for me. I am thankful for my better job, good health, wonderful professional opportunities and great friendships I have made and maintained in 2018. What does a person like me do next? Start to think about goals and opportunities for 2019. Stay tuned.