Trophies and awards.

My Performance Review

Last week I got my performance review. While the feedback was positive overall, no review is complete without citing areas to improve. After I combined the goals of my managers with my own, my plan for the year looked something like this:

Less Twitter

I treat Twitter mostly like an RSS feed. I was usually on it intermittently throughout the day and often found myself reading more than making. Now I rely more on things like Sidebar.io to summarize things. Instapaper helps too.

More Writing

In the spirit of that, I’ll be doing less tweeting myself. I’ll still interesting links and chat with friends, but instead of tweeting a bunch of half-baked ideas, I’d like to make a few of them into thoughtful articles.

Less Dribbble

Since 2010, I’ve spent a lot of time on dribbble. Being around talented designers had paid off in spades. But when I see things like this or this, I grinds my gears. Keenan Cummings summarizes my viewpoint well. We tend to stay in our own little worlds, high-fiving each other and patting each other on the backs.

Dribbble is still part of my work week, but its focus is more narrow.

Focus on a Visual Style

When it comes to aesthetics, I tend to explore a little too often. Exploration is good, but I plan on devoting more time a single direction. I started creating a collection of common interface componests in HTML & CSS. If it ever matures, I’ll put it on GitHub.

More GitHub

I’d like to contribute more on GitHub, on friend’s projects and my own. Graphical freebies are nice, but they’re only art. Working code is better.

House Cleaning

I’ll be going through my Dribbble and Twitter follow lists to find folks treat these sites like more I do: Quality over quantity, reasonable signal vs. noise ratio, mature online etiquette.

Be a Better Employee

Last year I spent a lot of time becoming a better web builder. It worked. It’s time to focus more on things like project management, team management, presenting, and mentoring within my group here at work.

My Family Is Not My Side Project

Lastly, I don’t want an unhealthy blur between work life and family life. When I’m home, I’m home. If my son if awake, I’m not in front of the computer. If my wife is around, my phone is in my pocket. My family is not my side project. I have hobbies that don't involve an Internet connection.