New Year…same goals. Only better.
Last year…2023
After spending eight years of teaching SketchUp, my goal at the start of last year (2023) was to slow down, not work quite as much, and connect with my boys (now 13 and 14 years old). While we’d always been close, I could feel the teenage years at my doorstep (and my refrigerator), and I didn’t know how long they’d want to hang out with their mom.
I still worked most days (including through the weekends), but I worked many fewer hours overall. I did my best to let go of moments where I could have responded to an email more quickly or worked one more hour editing a course. Instead, I chose a big smile and enthusiastic greeting when my boys popped their heads into my office to ask for something. That was my queue to stand up and go to the kitchen with them. We watched many movies, took spontaneous weekend trips, and ate a lot of pizza (that wasn’t new).
I enjoyed the shift in goals for 2023, moving from focusing so heavily on business to mainly concentrating on the reason I work so hard in and on my business…my kids. (You can see the list of highlights from my/our 2023 below if you are interested.)
This year…2024
With the above mindset as my ramp for 2024, my goal is to work about the same number of hours…but to use those hours more wisely to grow my business.
Personal:
Home/travel balance: I’ve always loved to travel. But in the middle of 2023, the travel delays that we are experiencing broke me a bit. The stress of not making it home in time to be with my boys as planned/scheduled was causing too much anxiety. I canceled some trips in the ladder half of 2023 and felt such relief. I’m ready to add work travel back in, but I’ve learned to give myself more margin of time and more time at home so that my “mom hat” fits better.
Financial planning: Last year, I started listening to the podcast ChoseFI (Chose Financial Independence), and it completely transformed the way I think about money, life goals, and how I use my time in this life. This year, I’d like to continue evaluating where my income is going and how it can work for me in the future.
Business:
Customer Journey: I plan to take time to evaluate how designers/students approach my courses, move through them, and how they feel at the end. I’ve gotten great feedback over the years, but I want to smooth any bumps in the road.
SketchUp 2024: The software that I teach (SketchUp) is approaching a software update. Which means I’ll have another rerecord of my core workflow courses. This will be a big one, and I’m really looking forward to launching these!
Serve and grow: As always, I want to help my current students feel supported and grow my list of active students. My main connection with my students is email support and our weekly Office Hours. We’ve consistently had 20-30 designers joining these live meetings, and I genuinely enjoy each one of them.
Tammy Teaches: I’d like to carve out more time to create content for Tammy Teaches. This is a passion project of mine that has little to no revenue stream. At this point, I’m “throwing spaghetti at the wall,”...but I’m excited to see where it leads!
I’d like to dive into my business strategy from 2023, as well as my strategy for 2024. I’ve been experimenting with different ways to create more margin and boundaries for myself, but that deserves a dedicated post.
Personal Highs (and Lows) of 2023
Highs: we had so many fun moments!
Helping with the Mattersmith booth at KBIS (Las Vegas).
Taking the boys to Yosemite to witness the natural phenomenon called “Firefall.”
Traveling to Mexico City with a friend.
Portland with the boys for Spring Break.
Going on a camping trip with each of my boys for wonderful one-on-one time.
A trip to the San Juan Islands with my sister and friends.
Watching my boys start middle school and high school.
A spontaneous trip to Kings Canyon National Park.
Bend, Oregon, to attend a wedding of friends/colleagues.
Backpacking in Yosemite with my girlfriends.
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
Santa Barbara via Amtrak/train.
Lows: the end of 2023 knocked us down…
Since most of our travel included bringing the boys along, we were looking forward to an adults-only resort in the Dominican Republic over Thanksgiving. But the night before we were scheduled to fly out, Josh developed a bizarre eye injury in both eyes that resulted in six+ doctor's appointments, six prescriptions, five days of total darkness (for him), and a lot of stress trying to figure out what was wrong. Thankfully, most of the damage wasn’t permanent; however, some remains, which continues to puzzle us.
Then, one week before Christmas, I got a visit from Covid. It hit me hard, and I slept for days. On the bright side, no one else in our house felt symptoms or tested positive. I was feeling much better just in time for Christmas day and to spend time with my family, who visited the following week. It set me back a bit in my personal tasks and business tasks, but I’m happy to be on the other side of it.
Because we were hit hard with injury and illness at the end of the year, we are having a very slow start with lower energy this week. By some miracle, it all coincided with scheduled time off and holidays so we could at least recover without major work projects looming.
Perhaps next week, I’ll feel more inspired to hit the New Year running. But this week, we are giving ourselves the grace to catch up on sleep, go for walks, gather energy…and binge-watch For All Mankind!