As is often the case, the Christmas period was a busy one, full of delightful moments with loved ones. I wanted to write a little about 2024 in 2024 but, predictably, I ran out of time.
We are just teetering on the edge of ”Happy New Year!” being a stale greeting, so it’s now-or-never for me to share a look back at 2024 and jot thoughts down about the year ahead.
Highlights of 2024
2024 has been a momentous year for me, with some life-defining moments I will never forget.
Engagement
I don’t think my partner would forgive me if I didn’t put this at the top of my list.
In January I took a trip to Rome and proposed. In fact, it was on this very day last year.
It felt like a dream, and was a moment I had envisioned for a long time. Somehow I managed to keep it secret, even though my partner fiancée is a rather impressive detective!
There's not a detail about the weekend I would change. It underscored my love for the person I am choosing to spend my life with, and for Italy!
Running and exercise
Accountability
Both 2023 and 2024 have been big years for my exercise regime. Early in 2023 I began working Daily Body Coach, run by a friend of mine. The experience has driven me to achieve things I never thought possible. I've transformed my attitude to fitness, to eating, to routines, and have been blown away by the results.
While DBC was not specifically about running, it clearly had an impact here. I have written about running before, and while I didn't run a marathon in 2024 it was still a personal-record-breaking year for me.
Half marathon
I took part in the Royal Parks Half marathon and completed it in my fastest time yet. I wrote a piece shortly after this about why I run.
The Hardest Mile
I also completed an event called The Hardest Mile. It's hard to describe this as anything other than ridiculous. The challenge is to get around a running track four times in an hour. Does that sound hard? No. Not until you add in the small detail of how you get around each lap:
- Burpees
- Lunges
- Bear crawl
- Run
It was brutal! Once it was over, and I made my way home on a rail replacement bus service, I reflected. When I was at school, or even just a few years ago, I would never have even contemplated doing something like this.
Parkrun
Parkrun has also been a mainstay of my weekly routine. Almost every Saturday, I get down to my local park and run 5km.
If you've never heard of Parkrun, I can't recommend it enough. It's a free, community event where you can walk, jog, or run 5km around your local park. You can volunteer or spectate as people make their way around, and they happen all around the world.
Having taken part in Parkrun for years, I feel indebted to it. As the year drew to a close, I realised it's more than overdue for me to volunteer, so I'm intending to give back to Parkrun a whole lot more in 2025.
EcoSend and GoSquared
I am so thrilled with what we have achieved at both GoSquared and EcoSend this year.
If you had asked me just a few years ago, I would never would have thought my working life would have the purpose it does now. We make software! We send email! But it's why we do it, and who we do it with, that really makes all the difference.
From planting over 10,000 trees, to speaking with countless inspiring leaders on the EcoSend Podcast, to taking part in numerous volunteering days, I have found our work to be incredibly fulfilling.
We won an award and were nominated for another. We shipped several big improvements to the product. We produced over 60 new videos, 50 issues of our weekly newsletter, and started working with many more incredible organisations to support their email marketing efforts.
The team has also evolved — we have said goodbye and hello to some incredible people. I feel very lucky to get to work with such an incredibly smart, inspiring, and passionate bunch.
Hugo
Finding calm
The retreat
I intend to write about this, and it was actually the very act of going that caused me to break my weekly streak of articles. I went on a Buddhist retreat for a weekend where I had no phone, no Apple Watch, no internet, no TV, no radio, not even a book.
It was bliss.
I came back with a profound realisation that the world around me is incredibly noisy.
I am seeking out more calm in my life and have been trying to bring meditation into my daily routine since returning.
I'll share a more in-depth set of thoughts about the retreat soon.
Coaching
Coaching has been transformative for me over the last few years. Having time and space to think and vocalise my thoughts has enabled me to process a lot of the chaotic mess in my head.
This year I started doing peer coaching for the first time — pairing up with another person to both coach and be coached. The experience has been incredibly rewarding, and I've found myself continuing to benefit from being coached while also learning how to be a coach. I've found myself employing powerful concepts like reflective listening in other parts of my life.
Writing
For a wonderful patch of 2024 I managed to write a weekly update.
I found this incredibly rewarding. It's amazing how writing on the web can be such a two-way medium — it's not just me writing and publishing. So many people — friends, family, internet friends, and complete strangers have reached out to me this year with feedback, questions, thoughts, and ideas based on what I've written.
If you're interested, my relatively quick review of the Apple Watch Ultra was my most popular article in 2024. Over a year on from purchase, I continue to adore the thing. Thank you to the Google Search gods for surfacing that article to more people!
To everyone who has stopped to message me about anything I've written: thank you. Every message is a nudge to get me to write more, and it's you who I am thinking of when writing this piece today.
My focus for 2025
I intend to keep pushing forward with my fitness, to continue to improve my daily routine, and my finances. I want to make an even greater impact on the world and causes I care about, especially through the work we're doing at EcoSend. I want to continue to flex my creative brain. I also intend to get married!
There's a lot more to unpack for 2025, but I will save that for another time.
Other Things
An assortment of other links and thoughts I had been meaning to share since my last post.
- Leica meets Jony Ive and Marc Newson. The most beautiful camera ever made?
- We've planted over 10,000 trees at EcoSend.
- The Guardian wrote an eye-opening piece on the carbon footprint of our digital activities.
- Links are another dimension. A beautiful summary of what writing on the web can be even more impactful than writing for print.
- Late last year, Delicious Library shut down. It was a beautiful Mac app, and one that inspired me early in my years as a web designer. Truly the end of a glorious era for indie Mac OS apps.
- Lego interface panels. This takes me straight back to my childhood.
- Are LLMs are a bad business? I enjoyed this take on why building an LLM may not be the ultimate business some think it’s cracked up to be.
A quote
“All you need is a chair
and a table
and a typewriter
and a bit of peace.”
— Agatha Christie