I’m writing this review sat outside of Green Tree Coffee in Dali, China. Despite the tradition of Christmas being fairly weak in China, something is deeply comforting about escaping the Singapore heat and wrapping up in several layers of clothing. Dali seems like the perfect place to slow down and reflect on a busy year.
Yesterday I walked past a poster outside a cafe that read “laidback but meticulous”, this quote sums up how I aspire to operate in the world. Treading lightly, being malleable, adapting the the environment, not holding beliefs too tightly, yet, having a care for craft, detail, and beauty. Much of this philosophy is shaped by my recent stumbling upon the work of Christopher Alexander and his noble attempt to bring about more ‘wholeness’ and ‘life’ into being.
In December I typically start asking people around me for feedback and observations of my behavior and habits they’ve observed. Colleagues, friends, and a partner are all good places to start. By no means do the responses have to directly fuel the year ahead, but they’re a great calibration tool to pull you closer to reality.
Life and Work
2023 was the most stable year geographically speaking for a long time. 80% of the year was spent living in Singapore. My current living situation is arguably the largest source of discontent. Sharing a co-living space with young students is tiring both from a noise and a self-esteem perspective. Environment shapes us as much as we shape it and I long for a personal space to take pride in, a space that is shaped toward the habits I wish to build (e.g. a nook to play guitar in).
Singapore is a fine nation, but dealing with the constant humidity brings a degree of misery. However, I am aware of how many people would sacrifice everything to live in such a place and thus do not wish to bemoan it further.
In a professional sense, the year has also been rewarding. The Jenni AI team has grown and I had the chance to spend some in-person team members at our annual offsite. During the year I hired another designer and my role shifted toward head of product, focusing on identifying product opportunities. With this comes less time ‘designing stuff’ and more time talking to users and thinking. We’ve been able to sustain growth, averaging 20% month over month. However, I have yet been able to make meaningful inroads to reducing churn which is slightly frustrating.
Health and Fitness
During the year I picked up some new fitness practices to layer on top of general weight lighting in the gym:
- Tennis (approx 30 matches)
- Bouldering (approx 15 sessions)
- Swimming (approx 30 swims)
- Long distance cycles (3)
This is yet another instance of how our immediate environment shapes behavior. As Singapore has little in terms of outdoor activity, most sports have been centred around what is available in my apartment complex. I joined the gym opposite WeWork to remove as much friction as possible. I averaged 3 workouts a week and managed to get my 5 rep squat back up to 100kg.
Along with two close friends, I completed another long-distance cycle. This time our route was a total of 372km with 3,790m of incline. The tour route started in Munich and ended in the lake town of Lindau.
I took my x100v on this ride and was pleased with some of the shots. Previously I’d taken an old film camera which is pretty heavy to carry and a lot less forgiving to shoot with. The ride was physically challenging but my condition was sufficient to see me through. Despite being close friends for years, the group dynamic on this trip felt strained. Maybe because we’ve all diverged in life trajectories, or maybe because we just don’t have much face time anymore. On one hand, it felt like we’d put so much pressure on the trip to be the highlight of the year that we forgot to just have fun and ride together.
I persuaded Anna to do two long-distance rides, too! The first in Australia and the second in China. I think she’s slowly coming around to bikepacking life.
Places I visited
Despite being a stable year spending most of my time in Singapore, I still visited a handful of countries, some for the first time (Australia, Lichtenstein, and Bahrain).
- Singapore
- Bangkok, Thailand (March)
- Gold Coast, Australia (May – June)
- Melbourne, Australia (June)
- Guangzhou, China (July)
- Macao (July)
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (August)
- UK (August)
- Germany/ Austria/ Lichtenstein/ Switzerland, EU (September)
- Bahrain (September)
- Dali, China (December)
What were my highlights?
- Making a table at Tembolek woodworking shop in Singapore (we should learn to make our tools as Christopher Alexander states)
- Writing evergreen notes on Obsidian
- Swimming in the ocean along the Gold Coast
- Spending time with Jenni AI team in Kuala Lumpur
- Eating many, many grams of picanha’s with friends
- Meeting Sam Altman at the OpenAI event at SMU
- Joining a Christmas Eve festival in a tiny village in China
Reading
Completed Books
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgensen
- Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows (re-read)
- Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
- Dragon Tactics by Aldo Spaanjaars and Sandrine Zerbib
- Sex Before Dawn by Cacilda Jethá and Christopher Ryan
- Gamification by Yu-kai Chou
- How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens
- User Friendly by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
- Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb
- Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton
- From Third to First World by Lee Kuan Yew
- Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander
The stand-out reads were Thinking in Systems and Timeless Way of Building.
Started but Didn’t Finish
- Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman
- A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
- The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk
What did I learn?
In a leveraged world (Extremistan in Taleb speak) hard work is not directly rewarded despite the romantic thought that it is. What is rewarded is a couple of good decisions that are leveraged and thus have a non-linear impact.
I went deeper into the literature around prototyping, starting with hardware and then moving into software. I’ll post an extended summary of this in the near future.
Unless consuming to a classic audiobook or consciously engaging in a book for entertainment, just listen to music. Consuming information should be intentional and effortful. Skip new bestsellers and listen to the Spice Girls instead, it’s more fun and you learn the same amount.
I refined my product sense. This sounds somewhat fluffy, but I define this as, before running an experiment, how accurately can you sense the impact/ result. It seems to me that this comes from the number of reps plus intimate knowledge of users.
I picked up some more Chinese, albeit, very little. Spending more time in China has helped me pick up colloquial terms and trained my ear toward the use of tones.
What was missing?
I totally neglected playing and practicing guitar.
The amount of time spent shooting street photography fell significantly. I attribute it to Singapore streets not being as ‘alive’ as some other places I’ve lived (in my subjective opinion). For instance, life fills the streets of Albania and it is the perfect place to capture interesting moments.
Typically Anna and I will spend 30 minutes each morning reading with a coffee, we were a little slack with this habit this year often heading straight to the office.
2024 Intentions
Continue writing regularly. For my quality of thought through evergreen notes and my ability to communicate with others through my blog. A realistic aim of publishing 12 posts on this site.
Keep swimming. My goal is to complete 10 lengths of my condo pool freestyle without resting.
Continue writing extended posts about being a ‘design team of one’. I’m active in several design communities and a big pain point mentioned by designers is operating as a solo designer at a startup (isolated, lack of mentorship, not feeling heard). I’ve kept notes during my time at Jenni and will flesh these out into something digestible for an external audience.
Build a habit of practising Chinese for 15 minutes each day. This can be through the Hello Chinese app, podcasts, or reviewing existing notes. This practice alone will not create fluency but will expand vocabulary.
References
Some links to annual review inspiration posts.