Looking back at those goals has also given me a chance to reflect on the past year. This time last year I was starting out on a new project as the technical stream lead for a SAP Human Capital Module (HCM) implementation project. My role on this project was the main reason why I have not been able to blog frequently and complete some of my goals. If you look back at the frequency of my posts, you will see that my last blog entry was in July 2009 which was right about the time we had our first go-live. Since then, we’ve had 3 more go-lives, each one more intense than the previous one. The project will hopefully be ending at the end of this month and I’ve got my fingers crossed that my next project will allow some time for  more frequent blog updates.

Enough of the pre-amble, here’s an update of my 2009 goals.

Goal 1: Increase touch-typing speed to 50 wpm with and accuracy of 98% or more by June 2009.

It took a little longer than expected but I’m now comfortably typing at an average of 52 wpm with an accuracy of 95% to 98% for non-technical writing. For technical writing this drops down to about 38 wpm with an accuracy of 90% to 94%, mainly due to the all those shift characters I never spent much time on. For anyone trying to improve their own touch typing speed, I highly recommend http://www.typingweb.com/. I haven’t used the site in a couple of months now, but I will be returning to brush up on the shift characters.

Goal 2:  Learn the WPF Framework by March 2009.

I had a lot of fun with this one. If you familiar with windows GUI programming the traditionally way, WPF GUI’s can be mind blowing. It’s easy to create really stunning interfaces but equally easy to create bloated and ugly ones. I’ve decided to put all that I’ve learnt to good use and create a little piece of software that will assist me in some of the more tedious activities I have to perform in my current role as technical stream lead. More on that in a later post though.

Goal 3: Learn Symbian C++ by April 2009.

This one never really got of the ground mainly due to my interest in the symbian platform falling away right around the time I got myself an iPod touch. The simplicity and ease of use of the iPod touch blew me away. Nokia have real challenge on their hands if they are to remain market leaders.  While I have no plans to replace my Nokia E71 with an Apple iPhone just yet, I can see myself seriously moving away from Nokia in 7 or 8 months time when I renew my contract. In a later post I’ll give my impressions of both platforms.

Goal 4: Improve my memory  (by learning memory mnemonics and other techniques) by September 2009.

Another goal that I lost interest in. I wasn’t really prepared for the amount of effort I would have to put in to make this a reality. I might revisit it this year though.

Goal 5: Create 2 robots, one simple and one intermediate, by December 2009

This is something I still want to achieve. I never really got around to it mainly due to amount of time I spent at work. I will definitely be revisiting it this year.

Scorecard

Looking at the above, it seems as my goal achieved rating for the year is a measly 2 out of 5. I will have to try harder this year or maybe make my goals more realistic. Lifehacker recently posted an interesting  article on goal tracking tools and http://www.joesgoals.com/ seems promising. I’m looking at using it when formulating my 2010 goals but more on that later.

Happy new year!

Related posts

• Some of my goals for 2009 and how I hope to achieve them (0)
• Increasing my Touch-Typing Speed – Kickoff (1)
• Beginning Development with Silverlight 2 (1)
• A small WPF project management application (0)

I must confess, I started learning to touch-type sometime in November 2008. But I had fallen off the wagon at the beginning of January. To compensate and motivate myself to keep at it, I decided to make this one of my top goals for 2009.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’m using typingweb as my teaching tool of choice. I’ve tried various touch-typing software,both online and offline, but somehow I just felt comfortable with typingweb. My results are posted below.

I’m not sure how the accuracy is calculated but as you can see, I was making steady progress until the end of December 2008. After that, I hovered around the 25 wpm mark.

After 2 months, I’ve noticed the following:

1. Aiming for accuracy is much better than aiming for speed. If you try and type too fast, your error rate increases and your frustration as well. Concentrate on typing accurately, by using the assigned finger for the respective letter.  Speed comes naturally as your muscles memorise the keys.
2. Constant and regular practice is a must. You need to build some muscle memory and this can only occur with regular practice. My feeling is that the minimum you could do is 3 times a week. I’m aiming for everyday.
3. Practice sessions should not be too long. You fingers start get tired after while. I find that taking a short 3 minute break after every 15-20 minutes helps maintain accuracy. I try and keep each session to a maximum of 1 hour
4. Posture and relaxed finger placement is important. I’ve found that I make significant improvements when I’m relaxed and sitting correctly. My error rate seems to increase as my posture deteriorates. I wonder if expert level typists have this problem as well.
5. The lessons can be frustrating but it does get better. As with all learning experiences, the first few lessons seem very difficult and you wonder if you ever going to master it. I remember this exact feeling when I was learning to drive a car. But, If you keep it at, it gets better.  I found that the second week was much more enjoyable than the first.
6. Review your problem keys.  You need to be constructive in your learning. Doing the same mistakes over and over again, and you’ll never  make real progress. I find that specific letter combinations give me the most problems as opposed to individual letters. For example, my error rate increases when the word has an “i” and a “u” in it.

At some point I should actually start touch typing for my everyday documents. I hope to do this when my speed is consistently 30 wpm and above.

Related posts

• Some of my goals for 2009 and how I hope to achieve them (0)
• So what happened to those 2009 goals? (2)

The Importance of Setting Goals

One of the last tasks in my final year at university was to create my 1 year, 5 year and 10 year goals. We had an entire course on life skills and  goal setting. I remember the lecturer drumming into our heads  that goals had to be created using S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) principles.

Recently, while doing some spring cleaning, I came across the page on which my goals were written. Surprisingly, most of those goals came true. Even the ten year ones. This goal setting thing must really work!

So I decided to write down my goals for 2009 and track them throughout the year. These are not all my goals. Some goals I prefer to keep private.

Before listing my goals, let me recap the S.M.A.R.T principles.

Goal Setting Principles

1 . Specific

Avoid goals that are vague or ambiguous. Goals should be clear and specific. For example, if you plan to lose weight, a goal of “I need to lose weight this year” is not specific enough. A better way of stating it is “I need to lose 10 kg’s in 5 months this year”.

Your goals should also be stated in the positive. The way you think about a goal makes a huge difference.

2. Measurable

In order to track progress to your goal, it needs to be measurable. Being able to measure progress keeps you motivated. Some goals are easier to measure than others though. For example, it’s easy to track your weight loss but much more difficult to track improvements in personal relationships. 

3. Attainable

This means that the goal should be realistic and achievable. Planning to lose 50 kilo’s in 1 week through diet and exercise is clearly not achievable. Planning to be richer than Warren Buffet within a year is not attainable if you relying on blind luck.

4. Relevant

A good goal should be relevant and meaningful to you. This helps with motivation. If the goal is not relevant, why are you doing it? Look at each goal in your list and ask yourself this question. Why do you want to do it? What difference would it make in your life if you achieved this goal?

5. Time-bound

Each goal should have a deadline associated with. This creates a sense of urgency and helps to weed out procrastination.

My goals for 2009

Now that we have that out of the way, lets list my goals in no particular order.

1. Increase Touch Typing speed to 50 wpm, with an accuracy of 98%, by June 2009

After read this blog post on Coding Horror, I was inspired to learn touch typing. That post gives you a whole host of reasons why you should be touch typing. I’m hoping that an increased typing speed will make frequent blog posts a breeze.

I’ve already signed up for a free online touch typing course. My typing speed before starting these lessons was 48 wpm with a hunt and peck method of typing and 16 wpm using all 10 fingers. I plan to reach a speed of  50 wpm touch typing with an accuracy of 98% by June 2009.

2. Learn Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) by March 2009

WPF, Microsoft’s latest technology for GUI’s, is a quantum leap ahead of the UI technology that came before it. In a couple of years, most if not all windows applications will be using WPF for their interfaces.

WPF is a paradigm shift from the usual method of designing interfaces. Instead of creating a GUI by dragging and dropping visual components onto a canvass, you create the interface entirely in XML. Sounds cumbersome, but works surprisingly well in practice.  My aim is to teach myself WPF by March 2009 and start writing those applications I always wanted to write.

An example of the type of interfaces I want to create can be seen in the photoSuru application – a screenshot of which is shown above.

3. Learn Symbian C++ by April 2009

The closest I got to  writing a mobile application was a small “Hello World” application. This year I plan to make use of the processing power of the Nokia E71 and write all those mobile apps I really want to write. By April 2009, I should have a clear understanding of the programming stack.

4. Improve my memory  (by learning memory mnemonics and other techniques) by September 2009

I’ve always been fascinated by magic and mental-ism. My  two favourite performers are Derren Brown and Marc Salem. So it was natural that I would end up buying the books they wrote ( in the vain hope of becoming a master mentalist just like them).

Realistically though, I don’t even come close to mastering the necessary skills mentioned in these books. Mainly since I have the attention span of a goldfish. But the memory trick mentioned in both books does seem like a worthwhile and practical skill to have. So my 4th goal is to improve my memory using the techniques from these books. I  want to be able to memorise half a deck of cards by glancing at each card once. I should be able to this by September 2009.

5.  Create 2 robots, one simple and one intermediate, by December 2009

Nothing beats the satisfaction of creating something that makes other people go “Wow!”. Well at least for me.

I plan to create one BEAM robot and one Arduino based robot before December 2009. Nothing fancy and innovative. I will mostly copy designs other people have come up with.

And in conclusion

Well, there you have it. My goals are a mixture of most of my interests.  There’s some personal development, some programming and some hardware hacking. I’ll be using this blog to track progress and this should help with last years goal which was ” I will blog more frequently!”.

Related posts

• So what happened to those 2009 goals? (2)
• Increasing my Touch-Typing Speed – Kickoff (1)