I spent 2025 telling myself I was too busy to write. I wasn’t too busy, I just stopped trying.

I spent 2025 telling myself I was too busy to write. I wasn’t too busy, I just stopped trying.

It has been a while since I last updated this blog with zero posts in 2025. This is not something I planned or expected but as with most people I simply “got busy” and had other things on my plate. I am now reviving this site and plan to write at least one post per week covering anything across my usual topics of culture, tech and management.

Part of the inspiration for this is my reinvigoration after spending more time reading and engaging with interesting people on X and Substack. It has been refreshing to find people that care about their work and actions in the world, a change from the “too cool to care” attitude that has pervaded many online communities.

The most important piece I have read on this topic is What if you tried hard by Aaron Francis. You should read the post for yourself but the crux of the post is that many people do not try hard. They feel they should not have to, that by pretending to not care that they will never truly fail. Much like your friend in school that says “I didn’t even study for the test” despite that not being true gives them the opportunity to fail with the excuse that if only they had tried they would have done better.

I am sick of people not caring, of worse services, of degraded quality and of wasted time. I want to care about things and I want others to care about things too. I want to try hard.

Popular thinking is that blogs are mostly dead and that nobody really reads them anymore, partially an issue of discovery and partially the lure of social feeds including short form content. This may be true but regardless I am setting a goal for myself to publish 52 posts in over the next 12 months. A full year dedicated to writing and publishing my thoughts much like I used to do when I ran a BMX blog, when I reviewed web designs and when I posted jiu jitsu content – when I tried hard.

I have created a large list of things I want to complete in 2026 which I will journal in my posts some of these I have included below. There are many courses I have purchased over the years that I am planning on completing this year. These are courses and books I have purchased because I do believe they can help me become the person I want to be but life and distractions get in the way. I feel regret looking at my Steam library seeing hundreds of hours spent moving characters around a map when that time could have been better spent trying and making effort towards my longer term goals.

The first goals I will be focusing on this year are:

1. The Laravel Workshop from Laracasts. I purchased this course in October, completed the first few modules then let it collect dust. Working on Little Bound (more about this later) has put me back into the world of Laravel and PHP so this is priority #1 for now.
2. Publish 50 videos on the Codercise YouTube Channel. During Covid and the years following I was regularly posting YouTube content on software development and engineering management. This fell off but is something I still enjoy sharing and want to get back to.
3. Launch Little Bound. We have been working on this app for the last six months and are getting very close to launch which I am excited to share with everyone once that happens.

The list of goals is long and will be a full year journey, perhaps there are too many things I wish to achieve but what is worse? To have a list with some items left undone or to never attempt it in the first place?

I’m trying hard this year. If you are too, I’d love to hear what you’re working on.