With the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. I believe that by being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split that energy across many different goals.

I detailed my 2020 focus here (read that first if you want more context). I’ve posted a few updates throughout the year (quarter year, half year and three quarters update) and now is time for a final review.

2020 Theme: Action Economy

Self Grade: 7/10

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that 2020 did not go exactly as planned. I didn’t make as much concrete progress on my theme as I had planned, but I did spend a good amount of time this year saturated in the topic. While I don’t have the deliverables I was hoping to produce, I have felt my behaviors change as a result of the thinking and learning I’ve done on the topic of action economy, which is great. I’m giving myself a 7 out of 10 on the overall theme because of that.

2020 Challenge: Develop a Strategy Evaluation Model

Self Grade: 0/10

I have not gotten the model from my head onto paper or done the hard work of fleshing out the nitty gritty details. I have a few parts of blog posts written that I still intend to publish, but since they weren’t done in time, I’m not going to give myself credit for them in 2020.

2020 Habit: Run 13 Projects & 52 Common Tasks Through the Model

Self Grade: 3/10

I made a critical mistake here – I designed a habit that required me to a piece of design/creative work first. I never quite finished that, so developing the habit the way I thought never quite came to fruition.

That said, I am giving my self partial credit as I have thought a lot about this topic for various tasks I’ve undertaken, I just haven’t done so with the structured rigor I was hoping to.

One example of a place I’ve thought about this is evaluating what strategy to take for a major home project. There is a spectrum for these projects where at one end, you can hire someone to oversee the whole thing, and pay a premium for it, but spend very little though, at the other end you can do it all yourself with the help of YouTube and Home Depot and spend the least amount of money, but a lot of time. This year’s theme taught me to think about the value of my time, the intangible externalities, the opportunity to learn, the future leverage created, etc. Because of that I have decided on a strategy that utilizes my skills (coordination, planning, contingency planning, making tradeoff decisions, etc.), while leveraging other people’s knowledge, specialization and hard labor.

2020 Exemplar: Warren Buffett

Self Grade: 9/10

This year I learned a good bit about Buffett and I published my exemplar review for him.

I read one Warren Buffet biography and the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder letters from 1965-2002. (I plan to finish the remaining 19 years and read these every year going forward.

2020 Bucket List Item: 100+ Mile PNW SUP & Trail Running Adventure

Self Grade: 10/10

I completed my 2020 bucket list adventure – a 135 mile SUP and trail run up near the border of Canada. I still owe the adventure recap, which I will link to from here once I finish writing it.

Before this year I had never stand up paddled more than a mile and had never taken gear with me on a SUP. Paddling 50 miles with a solo backcountry setup was a bit of trial by fire, but I made it out and learned a lot along the way.