• Publish 6 long-form essays
  ↳ Instead of publishing a new post each week, I want to focus on six in-depth essays this year. Quality over quantity.
• ████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ██████
• Read 20 books
  ↳ You can follow my progress here
• Go for a swim at least once per week
  ↳ If covid rules allow it
• Back exercise at least every second day
• Get back into running
  ↳ Exact systems & goals TBD
• █████ ████ ████
• ███████ ██ ██ ████
• ████████
• Conduct a 2021 Quantified Self project
• Finish work on Julian OS
  ↳ This is a Notion dashboard that complements my QS Airtable setup.
• ██████ █ ███ ████ ████ █ ███ ██ █████
• Finish work on my personal uniform
• ██ ██ █ █████████
• Visit 1 country I haven’t been to before
• Keep exploring more new places
  ↳ 25% of my Swarm check-ins should be places I’ve never visited before
• Have an in-depth conversation (60 min +) with 25 interesting people I have never met before
• Meet 50 Stripes I have never talked to before
• Limit meat consumption to 24 meals
• Limit alcohol consumption to weekends / time off from work
• ██ █ ██ ██████ ██████

I set myself 24 goals for this year and completed 9 of them (38%), which is a significantly lower success rate compared to my 2019 and 2018 lists (60% and 56%, respectively).

• Publish 52 blog posts ❌
  This was my number one goal for this year and even though I ended up publishing only 39 posts, I managed to make writing a weekly habit. Starting to write on a regular basis has been one of best decisions I’ve ever made. Over the last 366 days, my essays have been read by more than 100,000 people, my Twitter follower base grew by more than 10x and I’ve met so many incredible and interesting people in the process. The internet is amazing.
• █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ✅
• Read 20 books ✅
  Ended up reading 21 books. The Glass Hotel was the best fiction book I read this year, History Has Begun was my favorite non-fiction book.
  
• Watch less TV ❌
  I spent more than 160 hours watching TV this year – up more than 28% YoY. I blame the pandemic. And The Sopranos.
  
• Swim a total distance of 120km ❌
  Due to covid-19 I only managed to swim 72 kilometers this year.
• Go for a swim at least once a week ❌
  
• Back exercise every second day ✅
  Did my exercises on 59.29% of all days.
  
• ██████ ████ ████ ❌
  
• ████████ ████ ❌
  
• ██ ████████████ ❌
  
• Ship a redesign of this blog ❌
  Still playing around with different mock-ups.
  
• Finish work on my daily uniform ❌
  
• Conduct a 2020 Quantified Self Project ✅
  
• Publish my 2019 Quantified Self Report before end of Jan ❌
  Didn’t find time to do this.
  
• Limit meat consumption to 24 days ✅
  
• No alcohol if I have to work the next day ✅
  My beer consumption decreased by more than 69% and I had 13% less cocktails. I had a few more glasses of wine though (+31%)
• Visit 1 country I haven’t been to before ❌
  
• Explore more new places ✅
  I measure this in form of Swarm check-ins at locations I haven’t been to before. My goal for this year was to make every 4th check-in a new place (25%). I ended up at a 26% rate.
• Build a Personal CRM system ✅
  While I didn’t do what I originally set out to do (building a CRM system myself), I found a pretty good solution in Clay, which does pretty much exactly what I was looking to build.
• Keep phone screen time below 1h per day ❌
  This was a way too ambitious goal.
• Meditate 1h per week ❌
  
• Do a 3 day silent retreat ❌
  
• █████████ ████ ████████ ❌
  
• ██████████ █ ✅
  

At the beginning of each year, I release a public list of my goals and rules for the upcoming 365 days. Here’s a mid-year review of the 24 goals I set myself for 2020.

• Publish 52 blog posts ⚠️
  Behind target: I published 23 articles since the start of the year. I’ll have to carve out more writing time in the next few months to get to my end-of-year goal.
• █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ✅
• Read 20 books ✅
  On track: I completed 12 books so far.
• Watch less TV ❌
  Failed: I spent 125 hours watching TV last year. This year I’m already at 120 hours (74 hours of which are The Sopranos).
• Swim a total distance of 120km ⚠️
  Behind target: Due to covid-19 I only swam 36km so far this year. I’ll have to swim at least 3.3km per week from now on to still hit my target. Unlikely.
• Go for a swim at least once a week ❌
  Failed: Covid-19 broke my 183 week swim streak.
• Back exercise every second day ✅
  On track: Completed exercise on 70.16% of all days so far.
• ██████ ████ ████ ✅
• ████████ ████ ⚠️
• ██ ████████████ ❌
• Ship a redesign of this blog ⚠️
  Behind target: Started working on first wireframes.
• Finish work on my daily uniform ⚠️
  Behind target: Not started.
• Conduct a 2020 Quantified Self Project ✅
  On track: You can see my current setup here.
• Publish my 2019 Quantified Self Report before end of Jan ❌
  Failed: Finished about 40% of the work and still aim to publish the report before the end of the year.
• Build a Personal CRM system
  Removed: My idea was to build my own personal CRM system, but I’ve since discovered Clay.
• Limit meat consumption to 24 days ✅
  On track: I ate meat on 12 occasions this year so far.
• No alcohol if I have to work the next day ✅
  On track (with 2 or 3 exceptions).
• Visit 1 country I haven’t been to before ⚠️
  Behind target: Covid-19 makes it unlikely that I’ll achieve this goal.
• Explore more new places ⚠️
  Behind target: 25% of my Swarm check-ins should be places I’ve never visited before. Due to covid-19 I’m currently slightly behind that target (~20%).
• Keep phone screen time below 1h per day ❌
  Failed: My average phone screen time is currently way above 2h per day.
• Meditate 1h per week ❌
  Failed: I keep failing to make meditation an actual habit.
• Do a 3 day silent retreat ⚠️
  Behind target: Unlikely to happen due to covid-19.
• █████████ ████ ████████ ⚠️
• ██████████ █ ✅

• Publish 52 blog posts
  This is my number one goal for 2020. I want to start publishing quality content on a regular basis and improve my writing skills. I’ll donate €100 to charity for every week I miss.
• █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███
• Read 20 books
• Watch less TV
  Last year: 125 hours
• Swim a total distance of 120km
• Go for a swim at least once a week
• Back exercise every second day
• ██████ ████ ████
• ████████ ████
• ██ ████████████
• Ship a redesign of this blog
• Finish work on my daily uniform
• Conduct a 2020 Quantified Self Project
  This will be my biggest QS project since 2013. I’m tracking more than 70 metrics across 10 categories this year.
• Publish my 2019 Quantified Self Report before end of Jan
• Build a Personal CRM system
• Limit meat consumption to 24 days
• No alcohol if I have to work the next day
• Visit 1 country I haven’t been to before
• Explore more new places
  25% of my Swarm check-ins should be places I’ve never visited before
• Keep phone screen time below 1h per day
• Meditate 1h per week
• Do a 3 day silent retreat
• █████████ ████ ████████
• ██████████ █

I set myself 15 goals for 2019 and completed 9 of them, which is a slightly higher success rate compared to my 2018 list (60% vs 56%).

• ███████ ██████ ██████ ███████ ✅
  
• Go for a swim at least once a week ✅
  Like in 2018, I didn’t miss a single week this year. My swim streak is now at 171 weeks.
  
• Swim more than in 2018 ✅
  I barely managed to achieve this goal: I swam 132km this year, compared to 129km in 2018 (+2.3% YoY)
  
• Back exercise daily ❌
  I did my back exercise training on just 29.6% of the last 365 days. My average perceived back pain increased to 2.45/5 (up from 1.45 in 2018). For 2020 I have set myself a 50% exercise goal.
  
• ██████ ███████████████████ █████ ❌
  
• Spend less time on social media ✅
  I definitely spent *at least* as much time on Twitter this year as in the year before.
  
• Read 20 books ✅
  I started reading 34 books but finished only 19 of them.
  
• Get a Switch and play Breath of the Wild ✅
  
• Write 50 blog posts ❌
  I shipped just 25 blog posts and many of them weren’t what I would consider real articles. I’ll try to make writing a bigger priority in 2020.
  
• Write 365 tweets ❌
  
• Limit meat consumption to 24 meals ❌
  2019 was the first year I failed to achieve my meat consumption goal ever since I started tracking this in 2012.
  
• Limit alcohol consumption to 2 days / week ❌
  I failed to hit this goal. I reduced my beer consumption by 47% YoY, but had more cocktails and glasses of wine.
  
• Improve my cooking skills ✅
  Learned how to make sourdough bread, how to brew coffee with a Chemex and perfected my Old Fashioned skills, among others.
  
• Explore more new places ✅
  I measure this in form of Swarm check-ins to locations I haven’t been to before. My 2019 goal was to make every 4th check-in a new place (25%). In the end 43% of this year’s check-ins were at new places (777 out of 1806).
  
• Visit a country I haven’t been to before ✅
  Traveled to Japan and Finland.
  

• Charter cities
• Payment processing infrastructure
  Related questions:
• What explains the adoption of different payment methods across different countries?
• Why is Germany so obsessed with cash?
• Douglas Engelbart
• Command line interfaces
• Personal user manuals
  See Working with Claire Hughes Johnson & A Guide to Urs.
  Are there other good examples?

• ✅ Start a new job ✨
• ✅ Meet with ██████, █████████ and ████
• ✅ Visit an Amazon Go store
• ❌ Try both Impossible and Beyond Meat burgers
  Only got to try the Impossible burger
• ❌ Buy some Soylent
• ✅ Visit SF MOMA
• ❌ Test how scooters compare to those in Berlin

I set myself 18 goals last year and completed 10 of them:

• Improve my swim skills ❌
  While I hit my other swimming-related goals (see below), I failed this one. Thinking about getting a coach this year.
• Go for a swim at least once per week ✅
  I made it to 119 straight weeks last Monday and hope I can keep the streak alive for another whole year.
• Swim more than in 2017 (101km) ✅
  Total distance 2018: 128.5km – a 27% YoY increase
• Meditate at least 5 times per week ❌
  I meditated 99 times last year (~20h), but wasn’t able to make it a habit. This has been the fourth year in a row of me failing at reaching my meditation goals.
• Finish and launch prototype of monote ✅
  I launched monote in March last year. I stopped working on it full-time shortly after I launched, but it remains a side project with a couple hundred MAUs.
• ███████████████ ❌
• ██████████████ ✅
• Read at least 15 books ✅
  I ended up reading 18 books (11 non-fiction, 7 fiction). My favorites were The Elephant in the Brain, Finite and Infinite Games and Bad Blood
• Read/watch more Manga/Anime ❌
  (Need to figure out what books/movies/series are the best to get started)
• Write 12 long-form blog posts ❌
  While I did post more than 12 long-form articles, the majority were my monthly media consumption updates. I don’t really count those as writing which was the actual goal.
• Update design of this blog ✅
• Move to Berlin ✅
• Do a total of 10950 push-ups ❌
  Did these almost daily until around July, then stopped completely (not sure why).
• Watch 50 movies from the IMDB Top-250 list ❌
  Realised that a lot of the movies I hadn’t seen yet are actually really boring …
• Eat less sugar ✅
  (Need a way to better quantify sugar consumption)
• Limit meat consumption to 24 meals ✅
• Write more lists ❌
• Visit a country I’ve never been to before ✅
  Traveled to Poland (Warsaw) in May last year.

My list for 2019 contains 15 goals. I will review those in a year from now.

• ██████████████████████████
• Go for a swim at least once a week
  Current streak: 119 weeks
• Swim more than in 2018
  2018 distance: 128.5km
• Back exercise daily
• ██████████████████████████████
• Spend less time on social media
  Added App Timers for Twitter and Instagram, removed Facebook
• Read 20 books
• Get a Switch and play Breath of the Wild
• Write 50 blog posts
• Write 365 tweets
• Limit meat consumption to 24 meals
• Limit alcohol consumption to 2 days / week
• Improve my cooking skills
  Try 20 new dishes
• Explore more new places
  Measured in Swarm check-ins, +25% at new places
• Visit a country I haven’t been to before

• Vegan Pork Belly
• Bánh mì
• Fried Pickles
• Mussels with Venison