{"id":1306,"date":"2013-07-22T13:24:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T13:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1306"},"modified":"2013-07-22T13:24:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T13:24:14","slug":"2013-mid-year-reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/07\/22\/2013-mid-year-reflections\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 Mid Year Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of 2012 I wrote my customary post that looked back on the last year<\/a> as well as looking forward to 2013. At the end of that post I wrote down some things I\u2019d like to make some improvements to. I thought that the middle of the year was a good point to take a quick look at how I\u2019m doing with those things and maybe give me a kick in some areas. <\/p>\n

Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d noted how 2012 had been a bit of a disaster for me reading wise and I set a mini target of one book per month to get back into the habit as I do love reading so much. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m happy to say I\u2019ve smashed that target so far. I\u2019ve read 18 \u201cthings\u201d on my Kindle since the turn of the year. I\u2019m using \u201cthings\u201d because a definition of a book is something that\u2019s changed since I started using a Kindle. The length of a book is now something I don\u2019t take into account when choosing what to read.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very happy with how I\u2019ve hit this mini-target and I\u2019m loving some of the books I\u2019ve read this year. <\/p>\n

Blogging<\/strong><\/p>\n

My grand total for 2012 was 19 posts. My initial target was at least one blog post a week and I started off pretty well. It\u2019s July and this will be post number 23 for the year. Better than last year already. However, this is actually my first post in about a month. It\u2019s not that I haven\u2019t had anything to talk about, this post was supposed to have happened a month ago, but as the middle of the year has approached I\u2019ve hit the dreaded \u201cburn out\u201d I\u2019ve talked about in depth<\/a> over the past two years<\/a>. (Please go and read those posts if you haven\u2019t. I\u2019m pretty pleased with how they worked out for me) <\/p>\n

Fortunately for me this year, because of how much I\u2019ve written and thought about this I know when I\u2019m getting to the stage where I need a proper break and I\u2019m not stressing about it in the way I may have done in the past. I\u2019m fully confident my upcoming holiday will get me back on track with that \u201cone a week\u201d target. <\/p>\n

IT Community <\/strong><\/p>\n

Of the three areas I talked about at the start of the year this is the one I still think I could be doing more with. I\u2019m going to write about this in another post though as it probably needs it. The second half of the year will get my focus for this! <\/p>\n

Two out of three isn\u2019t bad right? <\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad I looked at this at the start of the year and made steps to do something to make changes to some things I wasn\u2019t happy about. Re-visiting this has given me some perspective that some change has actually<\/em> happened but I still I\u2019ve still got some time for a little \u201ccourse correction\u201d. \"Smile\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of 2012 I wrote my customary post that looked back on the last year as well as looking forward to 2013. At the end of that post I wrote down some things I\u2019d like to make some improvements to. I thought that the middle of the year was a good point to<\/p>\n

<\/span>Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"yoast_head":"\n2013 Mid Year Reflections - Andy's Techie Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/07\/22\/2013-mid-year-reflections\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2013 Mid Year Reflections - Andy's Techie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At the end of 2012 I wrote my customary post that looked back on the last year as well as looking forward to 2013. 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