2025 goals
Main quests
Complete 2/3 book projects I’ve currently got in my pipeline.
Achieve the minimum effective dose of Ableton Live, so I can start experimenting with making original music for my films and vlogs. I’m resigned to never being able to play guitar “properly”. Certainly not for an audience. But I’m going to at least master the major and pentatonic scales, and learn how to chain them with chords to make my guitar into an effective sketching tool in a DAW. I can probably get the Ableton Live part down in a week if I carve out that time for it. So, that’s what I’m going to do.
Make the switch to Davinci Resolve. Between no longer producing videos full-time, no longer needing to collaborate with video editors, and Adobe’s subscription fine print, it is time. It kind of doesn’t make sense that I haven’t already, considering that I’ve owned the Resolve Editor Keyboard AND Speed Editor for more than two years now. Heh.
Level up my photography. I’m now certain that I don’t want to shoot people, and that my main interest is urban landscapes. To improve my vision and composition, I’m putting all of my cameras on the shelf and sticking to a single camera and lens combo. That’s my Fuji XH-1 + XF 16 1.4, which is a 24mm full-frame equivalent. I’ve been doing this for six months already, and 24mm is kicking my ass, it’s really hard. But I plan to stick with it through 2025.
Get in the “best shape of my life”. This is a bit of a squishy goal. I’m not trying to be Jack Reacher. I have zero hypertrophy goals. I just want to not start wheezing when I go up a flight of stairs, or climb up a hill. That means 45 minutes of exercise, 4x/week, minimum. Photowalks do not count.
Sidequests
These are all nice to haves. If they happen, that’s great!
Get UK drone flight certification and seriously practice aerial photography. I’ve had a DJI Mini 2 for more than 3 years, and I can count the number of times I’ve actually flown it on one hand. It would be nice to actually get my money’s worth from that thing.
Learn to swim and drive. At my big age, I can do neither. I don’t care about driving, but I concede that these are critical life skills that I should acquire at some point. Maybe 2025 is the year.
Add peppersoup to my meal prep repertoire. Sans the pepper. I mean, it’ll have some kick to it, just not the fiery kind that Yoruba people insist on. My plan is to attempt to reverse engineer Ozoz’s recipe with stuff I can find in Sainsbury’s. Or more sensibly, find and buy a spice mix online.
Obtain US and Canadian visas. Moving to the UK increased my global mobility by a factor of 40 percent, but adding these visas would give me more options for spontaneous travel. I’m not even planning on going anywhere (yet). After bouncing around for four years, I’m not in a hurry to hit the road again anytime soon. It’s really just the principle of it.
