The pandemic is a bitch, let's put that clear. Having had close encounters with the virus at least 3 times by now I have come to accept that I'm gonna catch it eventually. Even though I'm confined at home, accepting this has relieved a lot of anxiety I had. Shit happens 🤷🏻‍♂️

This has been a year of growing a lot professionally, reconnecting with the family and learning how to manage relationships in the distance.

Not a bad one at all!

The start, the new job.

The year started with big changes:

• Moving back to the mainland and eventually back with my family.
• And a new job, my first "real" job ever! I was lucky enough to be offered an amazing opportunity: to remotely build a new product, one that could potentially have a huge positive impact and working hand to hand with a bunch of people I admired. A dream come true! (Thanks for that one guys 🖤)

Having been living inside my professional bubble for almost 6 year I had a bit of rough time balancing my expectations with the real world, and had to face the reality that I'm not as experienced as I thought. This was probably one of the biggest lessons I learnt this year and gave me the opportunity to grow A LOT. So I'm really thankful for facing that, no matter how uncomfortable it was.

I've been learning and improving non stop daily about agile product building, and came to realize the immense importance of being surrounded by very diverse and more experienced people. I feel like I learned more about building products this year than in the past 6 ones!

In summary:

• Started working with an AMAZING team
• Learning how to better build a product in an agile and incremental way
• I'm discovering a lot of the "theory" (or literature) behind the way I love to build software and see there is a great community around it.

On indie products

If you are a regular reader, which you probably aren't, because, well ... there are none 👀. You might be asking yourself: where the fuck are the updates man? what happened to the (cool?) sea voyage themed posts?

Well, to put it simply, I kinda lost the appetite I had when I wrote that. I still have that urge to make something successful, but waters are moving inside my brain and I'm giving them time to settle. Eventually I'm sure something will come out.

I did create a product for a single user 😁 a friend needed a custom tool to aid her job, which includes doing a lot of transcriptions. And it has been amazing seeing how it has helped her on a weekly basis.

I'm still kinda motivated again to create something profitable. My new job is channeling a lot of my product building energy, so this time I should really focus on the business side of things and do things right:

• Focus on launching ASAP
• Work on some topic that I'm really interested in
• Don't get blocked by decision. Make stuff that works and iterate to improve. But don't try to make it perfect from the start
• Abandon it sooner if it doesn't work. Don't hold to it.

Other bits and pieces

Those have been the biggest two areas of my life without getting too personal. But there are other little stuffs I shouldn't forget

• 👍🏻 👍🏻👍🏻 Survived the pandemic!
• 👍🏻 👍🏻👍🏻 Managed to keep healthy the relationships with my closest ones in the distance
• 👍🏻👍🏻 Lived quite a few outdoor adventures: Kayaking around Menorca, a bunch of hikes, my first via ferrata, surfing under hard conditions...
• 👍🏻👍🏻 Helped my cousin start his adventure planning company.
• 👍🏻 Learned how to cook a lot of new stuff.
• 👍🏻 Worked one month away from home for the first time ever!
• 👍🏻 Got back to drawing on a semi regular basis.
• 👍🏻 Got back to writing!
• 👍🏻 Mentored a fellow colleague and groups building a project.
• 👍🏻 Started learning about game development. And fell in love with Godot ❤.
• 👍🏻 Sold my abandoned car! (will mis you 😢).
• ☹️ I broke my exercise regime.

On to 2021

The main goal I have for 2021 is to learn how to enjoy my free time. I have gotten out of the habit, and at least for now I'm having half of my days free. Please don't waste it trying to be "productive" 🙏🏻. Also:

• Keep surviving!
• Keep getting into more adventures.
• FINALLY make some profitable products.
• Don't isolate, get more contact with my loved ones.
• Settle in somewhere, just do it, at least for the following couple of years 🤷🏻‍♂️
• Learn woodworking and woodblock printing.
• It would be cool to draw a comic!
• Participate in a video game JAM.
• Draw and paint more.

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Vilva.