Last year I created some programming resolutions and shortly after writing that post everything started falling into place. I certainly don't believe it was magic or divine intervention but I do believe in positive thought and setting an intention. Since I did pretty well with my resolutions from last year I wanted to come up with some new ones.

Resolutions:

Deliver Happiness

My main job at WooThemes is a WooCommerce Support Ninja and that's what I want to focus on most this coming year. I'm not too worried about my response time or the number of tickets I handle. I want to focus more on creating valuable resources for the WooThemes community so they don't have to open a ticket in the first place.

This will include:

• 1) Write a blog posts about common customization requests
• 2) Get involved in the WooThemes community at large ( WordPress Answers, WordCamps, and a yet to be disclosed site 🙂 )
• 3) Be vigilant about outdated docs on the WooThemes.com site

Testing

I could have included this in the topic above since it relates to delivering happiness but I wanted to separate it out onto it's own line since it's so important. At WooThemes the support team is always encouraged to test new themes & plugins before they're released but I often treat it like a second job. It really should be treated just as important as my other duties since every minute spent discovering issues before the release will save 10 minutes once we start going through the back and forth ticketing process.

• 4) Test new plugins for at least 30 minutes

Meet Other Developers

I love meeting other developers and I went to a ton of WordCamps this year. This year I want to get out even more and meet many more developers. I love the organic back and forth that you have when you meet someone in person. Especially when it comes to talking shop and discussing plugins, setups, business models, etc.

• 5) Attend 7 WordCamps
• 6) Speak at 5 WordCamps (already got WordCamp Phoenix lined up)
• 7) Attend more online events like WPWatercooler, Matt Report, etc.

Flex my Programming Muscle

One of the things I know I want to do at WooThemes in addition to support is flex my programming muscle. I love developing projects and every little bit of code I develop will help me understand WooCommerce even better. I've already started my first development project for WooCommerce and I'm excited to add a little bit of a development into my schedule.

• 8) Finish my first WooCommerce extension (hint it involves ninjas, forms, & WooCommerce)
• 9) Continue contributing patches to WooCommerce so that I'm in the top 10 (I'm #11 right now)!

Continue Developing my Own Extensions

This might be the most exciting part of my career at the moment. I'm so happy that I decided to look into developing extensions for Ninja Forms last year. User Analytics was released in June and I've released several more since then. I love the excitement of developing my own products and seeing how well they sell. I want to keep digging into Ninja Forms but I also want to explore some other frameworks.

• 10) Develop 3+ Ninja Forms extensions
• 11) Develop 1+ non-Ninja Forms extension (no idea where yet!)

Separate Life & Work

This is perhaps the worst part of my career at the moment. It's so easy to access all of this information which makes it hard to stop accessing it. There's plenty of nights where I “finish” at 5 and I'm continuously checking email, GitHub issues, replying to extension developers, etc. It's most noticeable when I'm with someone else and I'm constantly saying “just 5 more minutes”. I have to do something to put the work life balance back in balance.

• 12) Set aside a few days a week where I don't check anything electronic after 6PM.

Blog More

If there's one thing the Blogging for Benjamin contest taught me it's that blogging daily is a choice of commitment not having some master strategy. I'm really happy that I blogged daily but I'm not sure if that's the frequency for me.

• 13) Write 52+ blog posts. I want to have a roughly weekly schedule but I know that life gets crazy so I just want an average of once a week.
• 14) Guest blog on 2+ blogs. I have no idea where to do this yet – feel free to recommend somewhere to write. 🙂

Programming Resolutions vs Resolutions

That wraps up all of the resolutions for this upcoming year. Notice that this year I wrote Resolutions instead of Programming Resolutions. I'm trying to take a much bigger picture this year. Many of these resolutions take quite a bit of effort to achieve so I hope I can find the value in them as I do them.

I have 14 resolutions. I would love to finish the year accomplishing 12 of the 14. What are your resolutions?

Photo Credit: sparkieblues via Compfight cc