2022 in Summary
2021 was an exciting year for me in several areas:
- career and OSS
- content creation
- personal
Career and Software
I remained at Cypress during 2022. Component Testing, the main product I work on, finally became mature enough to be considered "Generally Available". I also got promoted to "technical lead". I'll still code a lot, but have more responsibility to plan and drive large technical changes. I also get paid more money.
I continued working on various OSS projects, mainly around Vue, Test Utils and Cypress. I've also got a few side projects, the most interesting is a rhythm game for the web. The working title is Eleutheria.
Content Creation
I re-recorded one of my Udemy courses, "Vue.js 3: The Compostion API". I included a detailed breakdown of how they sold last year, and I'll do the same here. I primarily sell my courses through Udemy now - I get a lesser cut than using Gumroad or my Vue.js Course site, but Udemy's platform has many great features, like Q&A, student communication, etc.
It is difficult to get a proper report of profit / course from Udemy, so I'll just include the combined total for both my courses - "Vue.js: The Composition API" and "Complete Vue.js 3".
| Year | Net Earnings |
|---|---|
| 2021 | $7967 |
| 2022 | $9087 |
I made more this year, despite spending less time on the courses (I only re-recorded one, and did so in a single week). I hope this will continue - I still intend to re-record my courses to keep them up to date.
My first book, Design Patterns for Vue.js, continued selling. It's a bit dated now - the ideas are still relevant, but Vuex has been replaced by Pinia, etc. I should update it!
| Year | Net Earnings |
|---|---|
| 2021 | $5120 |
| 2022 | $2749 |
I also solid about $1500 of courses on Gumroad - nice!
My total earnings for 2021 vs 2022:
| Year | Net Earnings |
|---|---|
| 2021 | $15021 |
| 2022 | $13565 |
$13565 is a non-trivial amount of money - I'm really privledged and honored to make money doing two things I love to do - coding and teaching.
I also continued growing my internet presence via my YouTube channel.
Here's a graphic:
Nice! I feel like I spent less time on YT content (I could be wrong) in 2022, but my views and subscribers grew. I did "Advent of Vue 2022" towards the end, which led to a big increase in traffic.
I do enjoy making YT content, but I'm getting busier lately and had less time to commit to it. I hope to keep recording content, though, even if it's not on a regular basis.
Personal
A big year on a personal basis, too.
Borders are Open!
The world is slowly starting to open up again. I went to South Korea and watched the LOL MSI 2022 event in Busan!
Landscaping
I finished my landscaping -- or, at least, the turf. Looks great. It was a lot of work - mainly moving soil around. I moved about 40T of soil using a shoel and wheelbarrow.
Communication Skills
I continued participating in a weekly bookclub with my friends, where we study communication skills, empathy and leadership. Here's the books/articles we studied:
| Date | Topic |
|---|---|
| 2022/01/11 | Tacit Knowledge |
| 2022/01/18 | A Guide to the Good Life |
| 2022/01/25 | Creativity, Inc. |
| 2022/02/15 | The Phoenix Project |
| 2022/02/22 | High-Impact Tools for Teams |
| 2022/03/08 | Introverts and Extroverts in the Workplace |
| 2022/03/15 | Leaders Eat Last |
| 2022/03/22 | Lincoln on Leadership |
| 2022/03/29 | Why It’s Important To Know Your Strengths And Weaknesses |
| 2022/05/03 | Top 10 Negotiation Skills You Must Learn to Succeed |
| 2022/05/10 | Collaborative Intelligence |
| 2022/05/17 | The surprising reason people change their minds |
| 2022/06/07 | Self Reflection |
| 2022/06/21 | Do I Make Myself Clear |
| 2022/07/05 | 8 Tips on How To Manage Up Successfully |
| 2022/07/12 | Forgiveness |
| 2022/07/19 | Serve Up, Coach Down |
| 2022/08/09 | How to Leave Your Comfort Zone and Enter Your ‘Growth Zone’ |
| 2022/08/16 | The Art of Public Speaking |
| 2022/08/23 | How to Take Smart Notes |
| 2022/08/30 | On Empathy |
| 2022/09/06 | 4 Negotiation Skills EVERYONE Should Know |
| 2022/09/13 | Why communication goes wrong...and how to fix it |
| 2022/09/20 | 5 Questions to Coach Yourself |
| 2022/10/18 | What Self-Awareness Really Is |
| 2022/10/25 | The Art of Giving and Receiving Advice |
| 2022/11/08 | How to train yourself to be more patient |
| 2022/11/15 | The essential foundation for every 1 on 1 relationship |
| 2022/11/22 | Lighthouse Leadership Tips |
| 2022/12/06 | How Leaders Create and Use Networks |
| 2022/12/20 | Reflecting on 2022 |
I learned a lot about communication, empathy and how to be more open minded. Moving into 2023, we decided to shift our focus onto more business focused topics. Our first topic is starting a small project using the philosphies described in The Lean Startup. We are writing a newsletter about Australian Biotech news - you can find the webpage for TBC Bio here.
I also read a bunch of books - not all of these were in 2022, but a lot were:
Cats
The cats are doing well. Moa even managed to have one of her photos go viral!
Baby
Our son was born this year! I'm not far in, but so far it's immensely challenging and satisfying.
Cooking
I cook most days now. The dishes I am most confident and proud of are easy once - Carbonara and various Risotto dishes. I'd like to keep getting better at cooking.
Moving Forward
I'm excited for 2023. I'd like to keep up with:
- communication skills
- content creation, passive income
As well as start/continue some new things:
- I'm learning more about health care, bio tech and science. My first goal is completing Fundamentals of Biology. I'd like my future career to be in this area.
- Do something new. Maybe learn to sing?
- Be a good father
- Figure out what comes next! I've got a lot going on, but I want to keep pushing myself and learning and growing.
Until next year!