Jumpstart January wrap-up

First month of 2021, completed. I wanted Jumpstart Jan to kickstart a great 2021, and get going on the goals that had been delayed and since carried over from 2020. Specifically, I wanted to:

1. Set up 2021 for success, daydream, plan, pen down intentions.

2. Get Lifelog into a stable state, keep fixing bugs (especially the streak), and get a product roadmap going with all the feedback coming in. Add as many of the basic features as possible, like edit/delete, comments count, notifications, @mentions, and markdown previews.

3. Start daily writing again

Set up 2021 for success

I got to look back at 2020 and then look ahead to 2021 in the form of the eight forms of capital that I wanted to build in my life. Following to that, I set up the my goals in Lifelog:

• $5k MRR
• 1% compounding
• Biohacking sleep/rest
  *Decoding coding

It’s interesting how once I set up the goals in Lifelog, I would look to it as inspiration for things to write, bringing about some quick reflection for the day, whether I had done anything to get closer towards any of those goals, today, this week, or this month. So the tool is definitely working as planned. I might veer off on some days to talk about topics that I’m interested in, like entrepreneurship and product making, but on the whole, I find the goals provide a good lens to focus my daily writing, more so than if it was more open-ended.

Lifelog

Guess what, it’s been 1 month since I launched Lifelog! I had so far not written much about Lifelog as I was reserving it for a dedicated blog here, while I keep my own personal account for other aspects of my life. But frankly, I’d been dying to write about my development journey, my thoughts and approach as I create my very first SaaS, and some of the memorable/painful experiences along the way. I think it’s definitely time to start that developer blog in Feb!

It’s crazy how this started from an uncertain idea to the now fleshed out platform that I use everyday. I didn’t know much Javascript, lest Node.js, Vue.js or Nuxt.js 6 months before this. But my learning journey as a web developer definitely came to fore once the shutdown of 200wordsaday was announced. From then it was fire on our asses. We all would have loved 200wad to stay, but if it didn’t shut down, I wouldn’t have had the push to get on #100daysofcoding initially, and then on to making Lifelog. So, silver lining, for sure.

Some numbers so far:

📈 Total one-off revenue: $600
📊 MRR: $40

For those who are keen on the blow-by-blow, day-by-day account of making Lifelog, check out my Makerlog logs specific to Lifelog.

Start daily writing

What can I say, I’m a proud member of #TeamStreak today! I had also selfishly began making badges for Lifelog to celebrate that. That was fun to make. It’s been nice to get back to daily writing after purposely breaking my 2 year streak to take some weeks off after the 200wad shut down. And those few weeks didn’t stop me from coming back. In fact, back with a vengence. I even had phantom limb for the first few days of not writing daily. I don’t know when the shift happened, but somewhere between the one-year streak and the two-year one, the habit had become set in stone. Consistency and discipline. Willpower and creativity. Consumption vs creation. Definitely a great meta skill, an awesome life skill to have, this daily writing.

Like @therealbrandonwilson said earlier, it’s nice to be “firing on all cylinders” in the first month of the new year. Not of course without some potholes like getting dengue, and an epic bug related to the streak in Lifelog. But all signs of better things to come (right now I’m just telling myself that, to hype myself up).

Onwards to February!