Final Report

Today:

Lifestyle category

• Korean.

• Planning for next year.

Work

• Fallout prep.

• Campaign 3 prep.

• Thieves prep.

Social

• Skip.

Programming

• Skip.

Fiction

• Skip.

Brachyr System

• Map Work.

• Empire of Rats planning.

So, that's it. Day 366, December 31st, 2024.

Was this a journey? Not really. But I want to talk about it a little.

The plan for this year was to complete a bunch of things that had been rattling around in my brain, soaking up processing power by constantly reminding me of their existence. I wanted to get these done to a state where I could say "it's done" and shoo the thoughts away.

For much of the start of the year, there was progress. And there was always, every day, a sense of obligation. An intense "I need to do a thing or I've failed". Over time I started crossing things off the list as semi completed, or approached in a different way, even if I didn't feel I was achieving the proper spirit of the thing. Some story ideas I told myself will be short stories for the Brachyr System, some stories got folded into work campaigns. In both cases, sure, that is the minimum product. I can say to myself "that's done".

But other things I started putting off until I eventually just drew a mental line of "next year". The big thing here being a bunch of the video games I wanted to program. They dissolved, vanished from my daily to-do. For months that slot has just been "Skip". With the idea that "I'll do it next year". But I know I can't hold myself to that. Some of these ideas are too grand for me to "minimum product" them on my own. And scope creep is easy with a couple. In one case, the pokemon game, the attempt to design a minimum viable product resulted in something that was separate from the original idea and began to grow on its own. The exact opposite of the plan.

This year was described as being inspired by CGPGrey's "Year of-" theme concept. But that's not how I treated it in practice. In practice it was a new year's resolution. I hammered at it daily, insistent that this time it would work, that the checklist would be complete! But that's not how it worked out.

But, the theme of completion did shine through a couple times.

I did finish some of the intended things, of course. But I finished a couple other things that hadn't been on the original agenda. And I finished them because that's what this year was; complete things.

• I became a Community Ambassador for pokemon GO. Did it in a couple months too, apparently super fast.

• I noted an intent to watch all of ZOIDS, and I did. But I also watched all of the pokemon Anime. I even finished a couple other anime's I'd been curious about.

• I sorted my rpg collection, which is titanic. I might even get back to expanding it again.

• I completed the achievement list on Portal, Portal 2, Hexceed, and almost completed Opus Magnum and Disoriented.

While I barrelled into this headlong with the wrong mentality, at least a couple times, I stumbled on the one I intended.

What's the plan for next year? I don't know. I don't have a theme picked out while I write this. Will there be a theme? Maybe. Not sure.

So was this year a success? As intended, No. Over time I even gave up on this website. I stopped updating pages, I stopped really committing here, only ever even got one view per day that wasn't myself. This became a diary of sorts. A daily map of what I was doing, to hold myself accountable as that accountability sifted through my fingers like sand without my noticing.

Someone suggested I keep going. 2025; Year of Completion 2. Continue the blog/diary onward for the next year, or a couple years until it eventually fizzles out.

But both of those ruin the idea of the theme. While I didn't finish everything on my task list for this year. I am finishing the year here.

Thank you for reading.

It is complete, and the book is closed.