2020 In Review

It has been the kind of year that you never forget. If you would have told me people don't be allowed to go outside their home (at least for a while) and everyone will be wearing masks, then I would have laughed at you. This year was unpredictable on another level and showed me that the worst things are always around the corner, and you have to gather strength and move through them.

Changing Jobs

One of the vital changes that happened to me was in the form of a job (joined Pepper Content 🤩). I was thinking about this for a couple of months and then finally decided to break it off. I was experiencing burnout, and it was a toxic work environment. Finding jobs during lockdown wasn't quite as punishing as I thought, but I am grateful that the opportunities came along. I can't stress the fact that the people you work alongside make a massive difference.

New Things I learned In 2020

Backend Development

Completed Fullstack Nanodegree from Udacity, where the primary focus was on the backend technology where I used Python (Flask), Auth0, SQLAlchemy, Postgres & AWS for deployment. Here's the link to a detailed review

Building Backend APIs

Wrote a bit of backend code in Python (Falcon) that made its way to production.

AWS CloudFront & S3

Learned how to configured CloudFront and S3 for hosting static sites, configure redirection, etc. Build pipelines to build assets from GitHub actions and deploy them onto these services.

And a lot more in frontend space, it was all around the place but some notable things like testing in javascript (still learning), webpack configurations, used CSS grid in many places, etc.

Goals of 2020

Achieving the goals that I had set for 2020 didn't go according to plan.

✅ Reading one book per month.
⏹️ Exercising was an on-off thing during this year. I wasn't able to fully commit to making this a habit. I started it post COVID-19 lockdown, and it faded out in the last few months.
⏹️ Testing in Javascript. Still, at an early stage will continue to explore this.
❌ Writing one blog post per month. I procrastinated about writing many times and was occupying myself with other things to avoid working on this.
✅ Redesigning portfolio site. I had designed the new UI in Figma and implemented the same. Also, added integration of writing blog posts in MDX.

Things I Want To Learn/Do in 2021

I have sent a few but concise goals for this year to improve myself.

Focusing on personal health Personal health will be my primary focus this year. I like going out on a run & skipping, so I'll make it a habit to do this every day.
Financial literacy Improving financial literacy is something new that I plan to work on this year (managing personal finance, exploring stock markets). Learning new stuff excites me.
Reading books Reading books has become a new hobby for me this year. I don't want to overcommit but reading one novel per month seems to be working for me. So yes to more reading and less Netflix 😉.
Driving I have been procrastinating about learning to drive for a couple of years now. And this will be the year where I will push myself to learn and get the license.

Thanks for reading, hoping that 2021 will bring you all the success. :)