Notables
Last Month’s Goals
Finally back to a good report card!
| # |
Goal |
Grade |
| 1 |
Ship the next Pegasus release |
A |
| 2 |
Ship “Modern JavaScript” part 4 |
A |
| 3 |
Co-produce a new human |
Pass |
The latest Pegasus release
I got the Pegasus “React upgrade” release out—work I did related to the JavaScript series.
I had aspirations of getting more into it but ultimately decided to pull it back
and focus on the JavaScript post instead.
That means another release is probably right around the corner.
In general, I view having a ~monthly release cadence as a good way to show continual commitment and improvement
to the product (and also an excuse to keep talking about it), so I’ll probably aim to keep
frequently shipping small releases moving forwards.
Ship “Modern JavaScript” part 4
I did it!
How to build a React application in a Django project is live.
And the reception has been really great!
The Reddit submission
was #1 on /r/django for almost a full day and several people
took time to write me notes of thanks.
Someone on twitter even referred to it
as “staggeringly well thought out and explained”—which may be the nicest praise anything I’ve written
has ever gotten.
Obligatory “I was #1 on Reddit” screenshot
Anyway, I’m excited because now that the series is getting closer to completion it’s actually becoming
the quality resource that I imagined when I set out to write it many, many months ago.
At the time I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I’m proud and pleased to have powered though.
Co-product a new human
Success!
Our new little nugget, Victor.
I wasn’t quite sure how to grade this one.
My wife gets an A++, but I didn’t really do anything special apart from cheer her on.
Ultimately I decided that this was more of a pass/fail exercise than one to try and grade.
And we passed!
Last Month’s Profit
It’s months like these where I really appreciate the “passive” part of “passive income”.
Despite taking most of the month off to hang out with family, my projects still managed
to combine for my most profitable month to date.
Pegasus had another solid month and Place Card Me continues to bounce back from the pandemic.
We’re leading into what’s usually the most profitable time of year for place cards, so we’ll
see if I can beat these numbers in the coming few months.
OKR check in
Here’s my final Q3 OKR scoring:
| Project |
Objective |
Key Result(s) |
Status |
| Financial |
Achieve financial independence through passive income |
$4,000 average monthly profit |
$3700 |
| Pegasus |
Continue improving Pegasus through real-world needs |
Launch a new product with Pegasus |
Done |
| The Future |
On pause |
— |
— |
My OKRs for the third quarter of 2020
For Q4 I’ve decided to leave things open-ended, so I only have a financial goal: $4500/month profit.
It’s less ambitious than I’d like, but after 3 straight quarters of falling short, I thought that maybe I should pick
something a little more realistic.
The future
I’ve decided to take extended parental leave from my my “day job” at Dimagi and so will be fully charting
my own course for the next 3 months—something I haven’t done since my initial sabbatical more than three years ago.
I’m hoping to take the time to do a lot more reflection, maybe some more writing, and generally
try to make continued progress on this whole “how should one spend one’s life” question.
My first installment is here in case you missed it.
I don’t have any answers yet—but, among other things—I have the sense I’d like to find a way to
pursue something that feels more meaningful to me than place cards and Pegasus.
I’m also trying to figure out how Dimagi fits into the picture,
and whether it checks the “doing good for the world” box.
I’m not expecting to figure any of this out quickly, or permanently.
But so far, at least having the extra time to reflect on the question has been valuable.
It’s so easy to lose your way when you’re heads-down chasing the next todo item on your list all the time.
This Month’s Goals
In the spirit of having space for exploration—and also because I have no idea what I want to achieve—I’m
not setting any goals for the month.
Who knows what I’ll get up to?!
In practice, I’m guessing this coming month will look similar to my other months.
Some work on Pegasus. Some writing. Maybe a bit of consulting work.
But we’ll see how it goes. I like the idea of more flexibility for a bit.