2: Ep.2 | Q1 Goals Retrospective

Bethany (00:01) Welcome to the Overcommitted Podcast, where we talk about our commits, our commitments, and some stuff in between. My name is Bethany. I’ll be your host today. Today we have Brittany and John on the panel for a retrospective on how our quarterly goals are coming along, since we’re already coming up to the end of quarter one, which is wild. So we, at the beginning of this year,

We started an accountability group to start tracking our goals based on a book that Brittany read. Brittany, I don’t know if you want to describe this book that we’re basing all of our goal settings on, but that would be great.

Brittany Ellich (00:42) Yes, I read the 12 week year by Brian Moran and the entire idea is just to break your goals down into 12 weeks at a time and try to have a lot of focus and clarity on those goals during those 12 weeks.

Jonathan Tamsut (00:59) Nice. I know we talked about the accountability group at the beginning of the year. And I think one thing that inspired me was a tweet that I read at the end of last year. It’s weird. feel like I don’t use Twitter anymore, but I feel weird saying that it’s a bad thing to be using Twitter.

But anywho, so I read a tweet, I think Tim Urban, he’s an author, and he wrote something, he tweeted at beginning of December 2024, he’s like, what is one thing you could focus on for the rest of the month and make focused, demonstrable improvement that you’ll sort of be proud of at the end of the year? And I was like, wow, that’s…

That was like a powerful tweet. like, I should just do that the entire year. And I haven’t really set explicit goals. And so I thought, why don’t I try to think a little bit more about where I want to go and make a plan to get there.

Bethany (01:59) Yeah, I love that. It’s really funny you all mention this because I was watching a lot of Ali Abdaal videos on YouTube. I don’t know if you all have seen him, but definitely I get aggressively targeted for his videos. a lot of it is a little…

Jonathan Tamsut (02:10) ⁓ yes.

Bethany (02:17) over kill for me personally, but I was thinking like, man, I wish I had more goals and stuff. And he talked a lot about quarterly goals and stuff. it really aligned when we just started talking about what we wanted to accomplish this year. And it’s good we have this group to really focus on things like that and hold each other accountable. So I guess we’ll take a bit of a…

pause right here and I’m curious, how did you all handle goal setting in the past? Have you tried different strategies before that might have worked or not worked?

Jonathan Tamsut (02:48) Yeah, you can go Brittany

Brittany Ellich (02:48) So,

yeah, okay. Yeah, so I have done sort of a quarterly approach in the past, but that was mostly for personal goals, not necessarily like career related goals. But if I was getting ready to do a run or something like that, I’d be like, okay, for the next three months, I’m gonna focus on running. And then the next three months after that, I’m gonna add in yoga or something like that. And I think doing that has…

been more useful to me than trying to start everything at once. So this is the first time I’m really applying it to work and career related goals. And I’m really excited. I don’t know. I never really thought about doing it in that way in the past. And the accountability group, actually, that idea came from the book as well. I was very nervous to reach out to you all at the end of last year and be like, hey, do you want to do this thing where we all just like meet and talk about the things we’re working on? But I mean, you all were.

open to it, which is awesome. And it’s been good so

Jonathan Tamsut (03:39) Yeah, and I think at actually the end of last year, Ali Abidal has like an accountability group service that you can like pay for or something. And I was like looking into potentially doing that. So I’m glad you guys saved me like 70 bucks. But I feel like, goal, yeah, you know, I feel like a lot of my life, the kind of goal has been kind of obvious, like in high school, super focused on getting into college.

That was, you know, that was sort of like almost seemed predestined. There wasn’t really anything else, you know, in college focused on getting good grades, right? Early in my career, it was just like getting jobs and like growing. And I think like, I feel like in the last couple of years, I’ve reached a point where it’s not as obvious, right? There’s sort of like an expanse in front of me and I’m like, well, what, what do I want to be doing? So I think, I think like part of goal setting for me was also just like thinking about values, thinking about

like where I wanna go. And I think the last couple of years, you know, I just haven’t really had a set direction. It’s kinda, I’ve just, you know, I’ve been kinda taking things as they come. So I wanted to be a little bit more deliberate about like, how am I spending my time? And like, what do I wanna do with my life?

Bethany (04:44) That is very relatable. Yeah, and I think it’s been similar with me for, like through college, I would set semester goals or whatnot, like this semester I’m going to aim to do this or this semester I’m going to do this. like you all are saying, it was extremely structured in a way of like what your goals were for the position you were in. And since getting into a career, it’s felt

pretty aimless and always admire other people that do really big things in their free time and just wonder how do you have time or energy and stuff? And it’s been really helpful personally to just set a goal so I have things to choose in my free time when I feel, of course rest is important, but like things to be like, okay, this will meaningfully put me in a direction that I wanna go in. Yeah, so it’s been a really good experience.

okay, let’s get down to the meat of it. What did you all achieve this quarter? What are you proud of?

Brittany Ellich (05:40) So my primary goal for the quarter was to write a newsletter once per week. And I did it. I wrote it once per week. And I feel like I learned a lot throughout that process. I’m planning to continue that for the rest of the year and just layer on new goals as I go. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. Everybody should subscribe. So the Balanced Engineer newsletter is what it’s called.

What about you, John?

Jonathan Tamsut (06:01) Yeah, so I just brought up my goal sheet and I guess like, you know, by the strict, strictest definition of goal achievement, I resoundingly failed. But I mean, so I mean, the way I kind of did my goals this year was like, I had kind of like year long goal and maybe this doesn’t even make sense and maybe this is like, you know, a good.

good retrospective, but you know I had like year-long goals, maybe 10 goals, and then like this first quarter I focused on three. One was to publish three blog posts, and I published one, which is more blog posts than I published in the last couple of years. The other kind of big goal was stretching, which yeah never really developed the habit of doing.

So I also have that as a goal this quarter. I actually, yesterday I stretched and I kind of decided that I’d need to like really make it as atomic, as short as possible. And so I kind of made that goal a little bit clearer. But in terms of my goals that like maybe I didn’t specifically prioritize for this quarter, I actually did.

you know, achieved some of those. I read, you know, I read four books, which is, I think that some total of books I read last year. So that was great. I also like worked out a bunch. I wanted to work out 45 times. I worked out 43 times. And there were certainly times where like, I didn’t want to work out. And then I thought, well, you know what? This is like a goal. So I want to, you know, so that was like sort of a good motivator. There were times where I had like free time and I thought,

What should I do in my free time? Why don’t I do something that’s sort of in line with my goals, which was helpful. So I guess my spiel is even if you totally fail at your explicitly stated goals, they can still have value.

Bethany (07:42) Definitely agree. Yeah, I’m in a similar position. I think I over-committed to what I wanted to do this quarter. I did accomplish some goals, but others I definitely did not fully accomplish. But it did give me a trajectory or a direction to go in. And I did make meaningful progress that I haven’t made previously on.

things that I want to do. mainly the goals I accomplished was I submitted a talk for GopherCon, which, fingers crossed, really excited about, really excited about just putting in the proposal because I’ve never done that before, so it will make the next time less scary and less unknown. I finished Godel Escher Bach, which I have been

trying to do for years at this point. So it was good to be like, all right, this is my goal to finish this book. And it was very meaningful and a great book to read. I also ended up setting goals with reading every other book that I decided to read. So not just technical books, but also like fiction and stuff, just filling my time with a hobby that I enjoy rather than.

spending hours on YouTube, which I tend to do if left to my own devices. also, I really want to make a blog and I’m definitely overthinking this whole strategy, but I really just want to design something that feels like me and I don’t, I’ve never been much of a front end affiliated engineer. I’ve mostly been back end. So,

I decided to start by learning more about design and being more thoughtful about design. So I purchased a course called The Art of Visual Design, which has been so far very good. And my goal was to make it to module five, and I am nearly done with module four. So I’m going to consider that accomplished. And so I…

I will say I also was hoping to make progress in running a 5K and that did not happen. So definitely some goals kind of fell by the wayside, but I think that was because I was a little confident at the start of the year. So for you all, what worked well with respect to setting and achieving or making progress in your goals?

Jonathan Tamsut (09:57) Yeah, I mean, one huge thing is…

making it super specific. like, know, goal, want to be more flexible. Do this stretch for five minutes at this time every day. And I think that’s been super helpful. Like make it measurable, which is, know, obviously like excuse you towards goals that are like quantifiable, which, you know, has flaws. But I think that’s a big thing. And I’m like, I’m a big like…

I’m incentivized by getting gold stars basically, getting streak calendars really work on me.

Brittany Ellich (10:29) Yeah, think what worked best for me was having, yeah, just one very achievable goal. was something that I knew I could get, but I think having that momentum will make it easier later in the year as I start adding more things to it.

Jonathan Tamsut (10:41) Yeah. And I think, I think like looking back on last quarter, I mean, you know, I certainly had time, I think to achieve, you know, like I could have written two more blog posts. I think, I think like, you know, and I couldn’t, you know, stretching right, you know, so, so I think, I think it’s like, like part of me is like, I should, I should pair back.

the amount of goals, but I also think there’s like habit formation, right? Like if you write every day or you stretch every day and it’s difficult to form more than one habit. So I think like intuitively, try to limit the amount of goals you’re working on. mean, definitely two to three. Maybe I just need to do one at a time.

Brittany Ellich (11:15) Yeah, this is a little bit of a spoiler, but I know that I’m planning to do more running in this next quarter. And for me, one of the things that I learned from reading Atomic Habits is when you want to build a habit like that, to just show up and do it every time. So I’m not setting like a minimum amount of time that I have to run each time. I’m just saying, hey, I’m gonna run three times a week, which means that if I show up and I run for five minutes, I’m checking that box. And, you know, to help build the habit of.

Jonathan Tamsut (11:35) Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Brittany Ellich (11:42) hopefully in the future running more.

Bethany (11:44) Yeah, that part of Atomic Habits definitely stuck with me. That book, honestly, was just one of the most influential books I’ve ever read. 100 % worth it. It is, I think, a big thing, good to give yourself grace. And especially where…

not necessarily new to setting habits, but it’s not like we’ve been doing this for a while. So I don’t know about you all, but I definitely, it was growing a muscle just setting a goal and trying to commit to that goal. And so I think there was a sort of meta goal in all of this of just building a habit of setting goals and being goal-minded of how I spend my time. So I think it was a really good experience of just thinking in that way.

I know after we decided, okay, we’re going to goal set and do an accountability group. I think my goals changed like at least five times in the time period of January. So it definitely was a skill to just kind of figure out how to even set goals. And I agree, Brittany, I was definitely.

setting some goals that I knew I could achieve, like with reading books, that’s what I do in my free time, but I was like, you know what, it was something I didn’t do as much last year and I wanna make sure I’m keeping up with, so. Yeah, I definitely agree with you all that it’s really about habits and I ended up using an app called Habit Kit to track what I was doing and so I…

It basically formats your habits like your commit graph in GitHub. And John, I think you were mentioning getting a gold star and stuff. I’m very much the same way as we talked about last episode with Sparkle, sparkles and all that. So it was, it was nice to have that. And then I also tried to leverage my to-do list a little more. use things three, but I don’t think it super matters. As long as you just write down what you’re

wanting to do, and it forces me to look at that and be like, okay, this is what I have set out today, and if I end up feeling tired or burnt out or anything like that, I have to explicitly cancel what I was planning on doing, rather than just being like, eh, I don’t feel like it. So I think this quarter was a lot about trading my to-do list a lot more seriously than I have in the past.

Jonathan Tamsut (13:50) Yeah, that’s, yeah, that’s, mean, that’s can be a whole nother topic like to do list optimization. think, yeah. And I think like for me, this is kind of an aside, but like, you know, being realistic. And I think, I think like, you know, this quarter, I definitely want to be a little bit, you know, I want to be like realistic about what I can achieve while still sort of pushing myself.

Bethany (14:09) That actually leads into my next question pretty nicely, but what are you all thinking about improving for next quarter in terms of how you’re doing your goals or what you’re setting out to do?

Brittany Ellich (14:26) yeah, so I’m planning to continue writing the newsletter as a base goal for sure. And I’ll probably still track that the way that I’ve been tracking the rest of them, which I’ve been using an Obsidian template. I can probably post it on GitHub or something just in case anybody wants to leverage that. But I am planning to do that. And then I’m also planning to run three times per week, like I already said.

And I was really impressed with one of John’s goals last time, which was about tracking the hours of machine learning knowledge. And so I want to do something similar to quantify something that I’m working towards. So I’ve submitted a few different proposals for talks this year, and I am a horrible procrastinator. And I know that if I don’t, you know, go about

having some sort of structure in the way that I prepare, then I will be preparing on the flight over to where I’m doing the talk. So I’m not going to do that. Instead, I am going to spend one hour per week working on my talks so that they’re a little bit more polished. I just went to a really great conference last week, which was the Epic WebConf and every single talk was just so well done and so well polished. So now I’m like, man, I’ve got a fire lit under me to do something good.

Jonathan Tamsut (15:37) That’s I mean, that’s awesome. Like yeah the the social prep. mean sink seeing people do things that you want to do really well is super motivating and How you know just having gone to the off-site so for Listeners I last week I went to an off-site and got to hang out with some my co-workers Which is unusual at github because we’re fully remote company But just seeing how smart everyone is and how knowledgeable really did kind of inspire me

I think for this quarter, think one of the biggest goals I have, maybe my number one goal is improving my mobility. And I’m super stiff, I don’t like stretching, it’s not fun. And so I’m still kind of figuring out how can I really get myself to do it. I used to have a timer at six o’clock would go off and tell me to do it, but I didn’t. So I think doing it more during the morning, I like,

have a streak calendar app. And I think like, you know, maybe I think one thing is like rewarding myself afterwards. I think it’s like, you know, tying it to a reward and like doing it earlier in the morning is something I’m gonna try. But, you know, I’ll keep you all posted.

Bethany (16:37) For my goals this quarter, am, I’ve got to go to my list, I am hoping to read 30 books. I got close this past quarter, so hoping to get that this next quarter. And then I also, for my blog, I’d like to continue on with the design course. I…

want to start a design, like a Figma design for my blog and finish that by the end of the quarter and then also just get in the scaffolding code so no styles just literally the bones for what I want my blog to be but not worry about making it fancy quite yet. So I definitely want to make progress there. I would like to submit another conference proposal. Submitting the GopherCon one was a lot of fun thinking about what

what I’d want to share with the world and what I’d want to talk about. So I’d like to submit more and see what other conferences look interesting and align with things that I’m knowledgeable on or would like to be knowledgeable on. And then finally, kind of a fun one, but I want to host a party, like a fun party. And so I like, I hang out with small number of friends and like very group in like groups. I would really just like to.

Jonathan Tamsut (17:37) You

Bethany (17:47) do something fun to host a bunch of friends. So those are what I’m aiming to do this quarter. I think, did I mention I also want to run a 5k? I don’t care how slow it is, but I want to do it. So yeah, I will probably try to at least build up some endurance there, starting out small with the 1 % better, like Atomic Habit says.

see how that goes and we’ll report back for sure. I think, John, what you’re saying about timing is so, like, aligns with what I need to get better about too. Like a lot of these things I can do in the evening when I’m like after work, I can…

hammer out a conference proposal or do some research for that or do the design course or read a book. But with working out, I overthink it every time. I’m like, I’ll get sweaty and then I need to take a shower and when should I take a shower? it’s just, I overthink it. I overcomplicate it every time. I think just putting it in my calendar and doing the thing is kind of what I need to do and reporting back on how that goes to our accountability group for sure.

Jonathan Tamsut (18:48) I’m sad that we live across the country from one another or else I would definitely go to your party. Not that I’ve officially received an invite, but…

Bethany (18:55) Oh, I would totally invite you all to a party. Maybe we’ll have an end of year bash when we achieve all our goals.

Jonathan Tamsut (19:04) I like that.

Brittany Ellich (19:04) That’s great. I like the idea too of a social goal as a goal. I’m a very, obviously very goal oriented human being. And I feel like I’m still sort of stuck in a rut from the pandemic years where I haven’t been as social as I have in the past. So I feel like I should come up with a social goal now too. It would be nice to make a friend or something, know, see humans.

Bethany (19:27) Yeah, yes.

And it’s like low stakes too because it’s, I mean at the end of the day you’re talking to friends or people who you know like appreciate you and love you and stuff so yeah.

Brittany Ellich (19:40) Mm-hmm.

I also want to go back to something that you said. I’m sorry. Did you read 30 books last quarter?

Jonathan Tamsut (19:44) Oh, yeah, you got to

talk about that. OK, then I need to know when you read.

Bethany (19:50) Oh, okay, so this is actually a blog post I want to write, we’ll do a little teaser. So yes, I read actually, it’s probably going to be 28 books. I’m counting the end of this week as the end of the quarter. But I, well, one, I just read for fun. It’s like something I enjoy doing. And it is something that’s just comforting.

I also realized that, so I figure if Godel, Escher, and Bach, which is like 780 pages, counts as one book, I can count like tiny books as, or short stories as one book too. So I read a lot of like shorter stories. So we went to London a few weeks ago and at the British Museum, we just picked up a bunch of like these little small books on some of the big.

exhibits and so I ended up reading those. There was like six of them and there were maybe a hundred pages and they just were really interesting and something I wouldn’t otherwise spend time learning about and it was really cool. And then also like reading fun stuff as well, like things that aren’t necessarily for your intellectual like gain but are just like fun. So I’ve been trying to be more okay with reading things that isn’t like

high brow or a tech book or anything like that and that’s helped keep like sustain the streak and stuff. But like last year I didn’t, I think I read like 24 books over the whole year so it was actually, I looked back and I was like whoa I did not expect to read this much in this first quarter so it was really cool. So hoping to actually hit that 30 number next quarter.

Brittany Ellich (21:24) That is incredibly impressive. I think… Oh, go ahead.

Jonathan Tamsut (21:26) It is.

Bethany (21:26) thank you.

Jonathan Tamsut (21:29) I was just gonna say, and you read Godel Escherbach, which is a book I’ve started like seven times and it’s just brutal. It’s a brutal read. Really interesting, but brutal.

Bethany (21:37) It is.

Yeah, for that one specifically, think you just have to like power through not understanding things.

Also, I found some outlines or summaries that were really helpful, so I would end up reading a chapter and being like, all right, this is a little too big brain for me, and then reading a summary of that chapter to kind of get the big points across and being like, OK, OK, I’m set for the next chapter now. But it was a really good book. We’re reading now Thinking and Systems, and I’m shocked by how much I reflect back on Go! Dallas or Bach based on reading this Thinking and Systems book.

which is also a really great read. Highly recommend for anyone who’s looking for a tech-adjacent book.

Brittany Ellich (22:17) Yeah, I really like that one. I do all of my reading on the treadmill. I run and read at the same time, usually right after bedtime, because that is my only time with three young children to do anything. So I have to combine my goals together.

Bethany (22:31) That makes sense. Yeah, I think as I like kind of reach more for reading, I need to pair my reading with my exercise goals as well, because it ends up I just lay on this couch for all night reading a book. Yeah.

Brittany Ellich (22:46) It’s amazing.

Bethany (22:46) All right, well, I think this kind of concludes our retrospective. Looking forward to quarter two and seeing what we achieve and accomplish and the things that we have to talk about for our goals. So for our fun thing today, this idea was inspired by Brittany. So shout out to Sparkles to Brittany. But.

I was thinking that we would talk about, do a little round robin about an app idea or like a website idea that you’ve had, but you don’t have time to build because you’re already over committed.

Jonathan Tamsut (23:17) Hmm I I actually so the the one app idea I’ve had for a while and I’m like, know, it’s so, you know I’ve I’ve had trouble like keeping in contact with people like remembering birthdays even like, you know, keeping in contact with like friends actually It’s funny this last week when I was in New York. I saw a friend from college that I last saw like ten years ago and so

I wanted to create what I call Friend OS, like an operating system for friends. And I still think it would be useful. It would be something that help you keep in contact, set up reminders. Maybe you could even automate initiating messages to people. It would remember people’s birthdays and stuff. I know Facebook and…

other social media apps do this, but I don’t use Facebook and I kind of wanted it to be something tiny and simple. And also, this sounds kind of creepy, but you could keep track of stuff. Maybe if a friend mentioned that they want a gift or something or want something, you can keep track of it so when it’s their birthday you can remember to buy it for them and stuff like that. That’s probably the app idea I think about most often.

That’d be cool to have.

Bethany (24:31) I will be your beta tester if you end up doing that. That sounds like everything I would love in an app.

Brittany Ellich (24:38) Yes, please give up your habits for this quarter and go build that instead, please and thank you. Mine, the one that I’ve been thinking about recently is it sounds like really boring, but I feel like it’d be really helpful is a standing desk timer. And I say this because I know these exist, but I just haven’t found one that you can like adjust the time appropriately and like track over time how much you’re standing. I have a standing desk. I never stand up ever. I think a lot of people are in the same boat.

Jonathan Tamsut (24:42) Yes.

Brittany Ellich (25:03) You’re Bethany, you’re standing right now, right? Like, okay, I’m impressed. I never use mine. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I would like to have one that is a little bit more customizable and, you know, one that I can be like, okay, I’m going to work up to standing, you know, 30 minutes, an hour or something like that. And I don’t have the time to do this. I’m a little over committed. you know, yeah.

Bethany (25:06) Probably the first time this quarter I’ve been standing so.

Jonathan Tamsut (25:25) I love the tie-in. I love the tie-in.

Brittany Ellich (25:28) What about you, Bethany?

Bethany (25:28) Okay, I have, I might give two, so if anyone’s looking to steal some ideas, please program these for me. I would say the first one, I also don’t use Facebook anymore, and I despise logging into Facebook every day. Like I have Facebook for Marketplace or my neighborhood Facebook group, but usually I just try to avoid it at all costs. But one thing I miss is Facebook events, and I think people just don’t like,

use this very much anymore. But I miss having a space where you could say, hey, I’m having this event and I’m inviting these people. And they can invite other people or they can invite other people or it’s private or it’s public or whatnot. And you can post pictures there afterwards if like you took pictures and you might not know everyone, you could see the people who were there. So you could find them or like chat with them after.

And so I just feel like there’s such a gap in casual event planning apps nowadays. So I’d love something like that. And then the second one is my family is a big Christmas list family, like at Christmas time. We all like make our lists and like hand them out. And every time I have to create groups with everyone else.

besides one family member to be like, all right, what are you all getting each other? So I’d love an app that just automates that or like says, hey, this gift is claimed. Basically like a wedding registry for regular events that aren’t weddings.

Jonathan Tamsut (26:50) Have you heard of a party fool?

Bethany (26:53) No, does this already exist?

Jonathan Tamsut (26:55) Well, so yeah, so my sort of friends have been using and you know, I should say Partiful not a sponsor if you want to sponsor us, contact. Yeah, we’re open. Actually, Partiful is a sponsor I could get behind. I don’t think they’re doing any evil in the world. And yeah, but it’s kind of fun. I don’t know if it has all the features you asked for, but it’s like, it’s kind of just like a silly fun app that and it’s like the UX is or the UI is very fun that my friends use to.

Brittany Ellich (27:01) We are open to be sold.

Jonathan Tamsut (27:22) parties.

Bethany (27:23) That’s amazing. I am looking it up right after this because that is all I want is something fun, nice to use and isn’t annoying or like you have to sign up to use this or whatnot. So.

Brittany Ellich (27:23) That’s

Jonathan Tamsut (27:38) You can use it for your party.

Bethany (27:39) Okay, I’ll report back on the experience and let y’all know how it goes. All right. Well, I think that’s our time for this week. Thank you all for listening in to us chatting about our goals this quarter. Hopefully it inspired you to think about your goals this past quarter and what you might look for next quarter. But till then, keep committing.

Brittany Ellich (27:39) There you go.

Jonathan Tamsut (28:01) Bye.

I do.