Owen Peery

I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. I do believe that continuous learning and improvement makes you feel alive. If we make any kind of promises for a new year, they should be promises we are already working on, but need to improve or perfect, not start new. Goals should seamlessly blend into our lives as we live them, not be some new task dropped like a ton of bricks in your lap, unless you want to fail at it. That said, I have a list of things that gets refined every year, to make sure I’m on track, but I do have 2 additions, that may sound more like traditional resolutions.

1. 1. Create more, consume less. I want to be creating content more than consuming it. Whether it is a blog post, a video, playing music, a coding/maker project, a painting, I want to spend my time making not watching. In the explore exploit dilemma, I want to be on the exploit side of the equation. Watch out for my review of Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions to learn more about explore exploit.
   2. In 2018, do more of the things I love. This is the true measure of success for me, am I able to make time to do the things I love, can I afford them, and do they satisfy me.

This list is all the things I have resolved to do more of, get better at, or take in a slightly different direction. These are not new, but keep getting adjusted each year. It feels good because each year I go deeper, learn more, or do more in these domains and it helps me personally and professionally. They are also things I love.

1. Put my family first, this gives me the strength to do the other things in life.
   • When things are calm, peaceful and happy at home, I can handle anything work throws at me. This allows me to work in even more challenging school environments without burning out because my family and home life are rock solid.
2. Find even more efficient ways to do things at work, so I can keep work at work, and enjoy time at home more.
   • I try to stay at work until work is done, so I don’t have to take it home. Sometimes that is not possible, but continuing to find efficiencies at work, helps me minimize the creep of work into my home life. The browser extension Extensity is going to help me with that and managing productivity aligned extensions.
3. Plan your work, work your plan
   • Stolen from a social media connection, but one I tried out at the beginning of school this year. It’s a keeper. Never underestimate the power of planning.
4. Code as frequently as possible. Include more making and physical computing.
   • Physical computing often gives a why to coding projects, that certain groups of students would not get interested in without. Coding by itself is not fun for everyone, but making a petting zoo that utilizes sensors, sounds, light and requires coding reaches more student interests and a greater variety of students. I have access to Microbits, Makey Makey, Hummingbird.
5. Continue with healthy eating, exercising and relaxing habits, explore new areas.
   • Get better at planning when to go to the gym and when my daily bicycle commute is enough exercise. Make my dog walks count by going farther. Adding abs to my yoga/stretching routine at night so I remove it from my gym routine and can shorten the time spent at the gym.
6. Keep reading at a healthy pace, this year, set a goal of 25 books, and blog about them.
   • I read nearly that many, but now I have to write blog posts reflecting on them. This will force a little more reflection.
7. Amplify voices and projects so other underrepresented groups can shine
   • Continue to de-center myself in order to center the work, and the work of those who have to fight twice as hard, to get half the spotlight. Lift every voice, that’s doing the work.
8. Practice both my electric and acoustic guitar
   • I’m bankrupt here. I played for over 15 years, but then it died away. Since I’m trying to focus on creating more than consuming, this is a perfect area for me to hone in on. Make more music, it’ll be more satisfying than listening to more music.
9. Make use of of my lynda.com and Adobe CC accounts more
   • Lynda has so many great new courses on hacking, infosec, coding, etc that I have to use it more. I hope to donate some of my time to work on video projects for groups who don’t have the budget to hire a pro.
10. Keep up my Spanish, don’t let my French die
    • I’m still good at both, though due to constant exposure, Spanish has become effortless. My French is fine, but getting rusty. Duolingo is great, but I need to seek out more opportunities to speak in real life. I don’t think I want to go to Meetups though, I tried that.
11. Eliminate static
    • Since my husband’s cancer diagnosis 4 years ago, we have set about weeding out things that don’t matter, or don’t add happiness, or increase personal connection. Keep up this trend. Simplify and eliminate fear of missing out, I’m not missing out on anything by strengthening my relationships.
12. Go slow, go deep, and yet do more
    • This applies to work with my students and in my personal life. This year, work against trying to multitask. I will be happier when I manage to do this. Multitask ONLY when absolutely necessary, otherwise, focus, concentrate, and create.
13. Find small ways to improve my teaching practice each week, try new ways to measure effectiveness
    • Keeping up with social media like Voxer groups, Twitter chats, and local meetups will continue to help. How will I know when I have improved? That’s the trick, what measure am I looking for? At this point it’s still student engagement, but I need to add another component, but I’m not yet sure what it will be.

This may sound like a lot, but these 13 items are not new. I started on them about 5 years ago. Now they are a part of my life. I’m just trying to go deeper and slower to learn more. A big focus for me will be writing and reflecting more on what I read. Any questions? I’ll eventually get to comments here, but if you message me on Twitter, @owenpeery, I’ll reply right away.

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