Procrastination

I'm a professional procrastinator. Plus, I like shiny things. That's not always good for actually doing the things I tell myself I want to get done. Like writing here.

When I was at CF Summit in November I had lunch with Gavin Pickin, and we talked about the need to encourage people to be more involved within the community. Before the conference was even over, Gavin wrote a blog post about his ideas. I was inspired. I had grand plans. I wrote several pages on my plane ride home with the full intent of cranking up this blog and making my first post. But my old excuses crept back in, and I continued to procrastinate. It's been a month.

I did submit a presentation topic to dev.Objective() about the excuses devs make to themselves for why they haven't participated more in the community. Apparently that's a topic I excel in. I'm not only a procrastinator but a hypocrite, too.

So I guess it's about time to actually do something about that. I wanted to do a lot of things in 2015, but I never actually did them. The only goal I set for myself that I actually achieved was attending CF Summit, and that was a promise I made to a friend who passed away earlier this year. I'm glad I went.

So for 2016, I want to give something back to my dev community, even if it's the trite knowledge I've packed into my skull over the years. To accomplish that, I want to:

1. Write here. At least once a week. Preferably more.
2. Make this space prettier.
3. Make some serious progress on The Davis Initiative (more to come).
4. Organize my reading. I like to read. I do it all the time. But the things I like to read are a bit scattered, especially blogs, and I often end up playing catch-up on those.
5. Contribute to some of the open source initiatives in CF, like CFDocs.
6. Find the CFUG here, and if it no longer exists, get it running again. 
7. Attend at least two or three developer conferences. My short list is:
• CF Summit
• dev.Objective()
• CodeStock
• Wanted to do SQL Saturday in Nashville, but I moved. I need to find one down here. 
• I'd also like to hit Music City Code this year, but the logistics might make it difficult. I've promised a friend that if his preso gets selected, I'm coming up. 
8. Present at least once to a UG, a conference, or my mirror. I have several ideas that have been rattling around in my noggin for way too long. I've already submitted two General topics to a conference. I can do this.
9. Learn:
•  more about the CF functionality that I don't use regularly.
• more about jQuery, that I do now use regularly.
• more about the RaspberryPi that I finally picked up this year. This thing is like Legos for geeks! Next Christmas, I better have my Pi-powered Christmas Lights running. 
• more about TestBox and all the other Boxes. 
10. Actually read some of the coding books on my bookshelf. As a self-taught coder, this can only be beneficial for me. 
11. Pi-powered Christmas Lights - see above.

So now that I have publicly expressed my goals, I hope it will give me the kick in the backside to actually DO some of these this year.

After I see the new Star Wars, of course. :-)