2022 in review

A bit late, but it’s time for my yearly review. It’s something I like doing for myself and it’s nice to see that despite a tough year I’ve done some good things.

2022 Non-Geek Achievements

• We got our third child!

  This time we got a girl to complement our two boys, and I love them all more than anything. I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

• Wrote 4 blog posts.

2022 Geek Achievements

• Rewrote the blog in Rust.

• Wrote more Rust (thanks to my job).

• Wrote some Typescript (again due to my job).

• Started home automation with Home Assistant.

  It started with us installing solar panels, and I wanted to get some pretty graphs from it to see how it performed.

  

  But it all went downhill from there…

  

  There are still tons of things I want to implement, fix and play around with. I think it’s best not to think of smart-home as some sort of money or time saver, but more as a hobby that might have some positive effects.

Books I remember

• The Gentlemen Bastards Series.

  Disgustingly evil and I’ve got another book to eternally wait for (like the now 12 year wait for Winds of Winter).

• The Power of Habit and Atomic Habits.

  After reading these books I’m convinced that habits is the most powerful tool we humans have, and I need to be more conscious about them going forward. The Power of Habit is the more inspirational book, while Atomic Habits gives the blueprint of how to establish the habits you want.

Boardgames I remember

• Spirit Island

  I’ve never played a boardgame solo before, as I always identified boardgames with social interactions. But there’s really no difference between playing a boardgame alone, versus playing a computer game alone. And I had an extremely good time playing Spirit Island.

• Great Western Trail

  If you put me on the spot to name my current #1 boardgame, I’d have to give it to Great Western Trail. Such an amazingly well designed game.

• Obsession

  Obsession is quite an unique game, and it might be the game I’m most glad of having in my collection.

• Clinic Deluxe Edition

  A very thematic and chunky game about managing a hospital. I haven’t played it a lot, but I can’t wait to play it again.

• Netrunner

  Many years ago I used to play a ton of Netrunner and went to tournaments and stuff, and to this day Netrunner has given me the best boardgaming memories of all time.

  Unfortunately it became a bit too much and I got burnt out from the Mumbad Cycle meta, so I took a break to focus on other things, and then Fantasy Flight stopped developing the game. A sad ending to a great game.

  Or so I thought. The fan organization Null Signal Games (previously Nisei) has continued to support the game and has continued to release new cards for Netrunner, keeping the game alive and well.

  This is super exciting, and in many ways their releases are even better than Fantasy Flights (less useless cards, more coherent releases and less game-breaking interactions). So I bought all the new cards (I kind of regret selling my complete collection a couple of years ago) and I hope I get to play with them sometime.

• Radlands

  A quick and fantastic two player card game. If a lifestyle game like Netrunner is too much, Radlands is the perfect alternative.

• Carcassonne and Dragomino

  To my eternal joy, my oldest kid has been enjoying gaming more and more, and both me and him have been loving Carcassonne and Dragomino.

2022 Misadventures

• Got depressed and burnt-out.

  I’ve been meaning to write a post about this, but I haven’t had the energy for it yet. I think it’s enough to say that this defined 2022 for me, and even though I was on sick leave for “only” two months, I still haven’t fully recovered my energy and productivity despite the first serious symptoms revealing themselves over a year ago.

Plans for 2023

• Spend more time with my kids.

  After all, there is nothing more important.

• Reduce the boardgame list-of-shame that (I think) consists of 12 games that I own but have never played.

  A more daunting task than it might seem as it’s been very hard to get time for gaming, and I’m waiting for something like 10+ crowdfunding games to arrive in 2023. Oops.

• More focus on health, both psychological and physical.

  After being sick you realize how important your health is, which is something I’ve gotten new appreciation for.

• Establish Deep Work as my keystone habit.

  After becoming convinced that controlling your habits is the best thing since sliced bread, I’ve decided that the big productivity focus of 2023 is focused on habits, and specifically creating the habit of Deep Work (or the hyper productive flow state that hopefully all programmers recognize).

• Finish the digital version of my book.

  The plan was to finish it last year so I could move on to other projects, but if I don’t finish it now it might never be done. Therefore I’ll dedicate the spring to finally finalize it.

• Play games instead of doom scrolling on the phone or lazily watch TV.

  As I’m writing this I’ve had my Steam Deck for around a month, and it’s absolutely amazing.