My Three Goals for 2009

What do you think of new year’s resolutions? I for one am not a big fan, but Chris Brogan had a good idea for setting goals in the new year. Since 2006, he has been using a few simple words to guide him towards achieving his goals.

The simplicity of such a strategy makes it easier to keep focused on the tasks at hand. It also makes it easier to know whether or not you have even reached your goals, because the measuring stick is very easy to read. I’ve decided to implore his strategy with these three goals in mind: listen, engage, and develop.

Listen

This is something that I began doing more of shortly after I created this blog. However, it is still an area of importance that deserves attention. Listening means finding more sources of information I find interesting and making note of them.

I also need to try to listen more on the social networks (Twitter, FriendFeed, and the like). This is an area where I’m having difficulty in filtering the signal from the noise. I probably need to start making use of some nifty tools like TweetDeck or PeopleBrowsr to help me to achieve this.

Engage

In the immutable words of Captain Picard (oh, wait, it’s actually just one word). Listening alone is not enough. I need to engage those who provide the words of wisdom I find fascinating. This is something I know I have not done enough of, so I’ve made it one of my goals this year.

Most of the discussions I had last year took place in comments on blogs. I don’t plan on abandoning commenting on blogs, as it is still a great way to remain involved. However, I will make more of an effort this year to try to increase my involvement in the social networks. Last year, the majority of my involvement on social networks came from broadcasting my blog and my Google Reader shared items to FriendFeed.

Develop

I will try to develop more useful tools and gadgets for whatever interests me at the moment. I’ve developed some nice free tools and iGoogle gadgets (most recently my Amazon Search gadget), and I hope to do more this year.

Development will not just be limited to programming. I also intend to develop more useful and interesting content for GeekLad as well as MakeUseOf. I would say I intend improve my own personal development as well, but I find that to be way too cliché and generic. This year I’ll just stick to programming and content.

Photo Credit: scottwills.

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