New Year's Resolutions 2018

After revisiting my 2017 resolutions and evaluating how well I adhered each resolution, I'd like to set forth my resolutions for the coming year. This year, I'll set more measurable goals so that I can more effectively evaluate my performance at the end of this year. Just as I did for 2017, I'll revisit these goals and resolutions at the end of the year to evaluate my performance.

Find a better work/life balance

I really enjoy the work that I do, so much so that I sometimes find myself having a hard time pulling away from it. In general, I resonate with Chouinard's thoughts on a work/life balance.

“A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.” ― Yvon Chouinard

However, I'd like to instill a few gentle forcing functions to ensure a balanced life.

• Continue to make time for learning.
• Don't spend my entire day in front of a computer screen.
• Escape into nature for periodic reflection.

Read 20 books this year

Last year, I was able to read roughly 1 book per month. In the beginning of the year, I had a really solid habit of reading every night but as the year progressed my habit slipped and my reading pace slowed down. I'm setting a measurable metric this year to ensure that I stay on pace throughout the year with my reading goals.

Post at least one article biweekly on this blog

I'm off to a late start with this one, but plan to stick to this as best I can. In fact, this goal is largely a forcing function to hold me accountable for continuing to make time for learning - since I learn a great deal when writing posts on this blog. This year will probably continue to be heavily focused on machine learning concepts; I also hope to start writing about specific tips about designing infrastructure for machine learning ventures, something I'm learning as I work to get one off the ground.

This said, I'd also like to get back and write more musings on life and my experiences.

Find/grow the machine learning community in the Triangle area

I spent the second half of 2017 studying machine learning, but I largely spent this time learning independently from resources on the internet and engaging in online communities. These online communities are great - I'm able to connect with people from all over the world with similar interests and diverse backgrounds. However, this year I'd really like to get more involved with my local community.

Get a top 5% ranking in at least 3 Kaggle competitions

After spending many hours honing my craft as a machine learning practioner, I'd like to see how I stack up in the world's largest data science playground, Kaggle.