320 Things
One of my best happiness hacks is to do a yearly review in order to remind myself that life isn’t just work and stress about work. It always turns out that the year was much more exciting than I would have guessed.
My goal is to find an eventful item for each week that’s passed since the last review. This list contains 47 items, most from 2012.
See also my lists from 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007. Together the lists span 320 highlights.
Lift Worldwide
1. The biggest item of my year: launched Lift.
2. And had time to relaunch a much improved version 1.5.
3. Had a say in hiring also. We’re seven people.
4. Raised a Series A.
5. Ran a very successful Slow Carb Diet challenge (average weight loss: 8.6lbs).
6. My best writing was in the our Release Notes (reproduced here).
7. Although, I also liked The Competitive Value of Time.
8. Investigated our most popular habits.
9. Spoke at MIT.
10. Spoke at Oxford.
11. Did a rough screen test for what will hopefully be an interview series.
Used Lift to Improve Myself
12. Improved my 1000yds swim time by 10 minutes.
13. Read (and liked): The Secret Race, Ball Four, World War Z, 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, The Big Payback, Riverworld.
14. Watched (and liked): Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Prometheus, Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln, Cloud Atlas, Django Unchained.
15. Made 1980 check-ins to Lift.
16. Made 350 code commits (all to Lift).
17. Improved my Lumosity BPI from 543 to 1213.
18. Took a WellnessFX blood test.
19. Prompted by watching a car flip in front of my house, got First Aid and CPR certified.
Learned Tons
20. QS Conference.
21. SV Angel CEO Summit.
22. Ignite: Lean Startup.
23. Colin Powell at City Arts and Lectures.
24. Stanford Mobile Health.
25. Steven Pinker on the Decline of Violence.
Traveled
26. Lake house in the Adirondacks with the Milsteins.
27. Took my mom to NYC.
28. Pine Mountain Lake.
29. Minneapolis weekend.
30. Dublin and Paris.
31. Las Vegas.
Some Fun & Culture
32. Two Warriors games and one Nets game.
33. Rode the Tour de Vino.
34. Bi-coastal partying: Bar mitzvah in NJ in the morning followed by Circus costume party in SF in the evening.
35. Go Kart Racing.
36. Ann Hamilton at the Park Avenue Armory.
37. Wedding at the Bronx Zoo.
38. Storm King.
39. Bachelorette Party at Mission Bowl.
40. One Man, Two Guvnors. Love James Corden.
41. Squirrel Stole My Underpants, my sister-in-law’s puppet show.
42. Wyclef at the 92nd St. YMCA.
Upgrades
43. The electronic signature feature of OSX Preview. You know about this, right?
44. Virgin status (leg room!).
45. Moved my blog to Medium.
46. Switched from Netflix to Amazon Video.
47. iPhone 5.
Bonus
Sarah and I celebrated 8 years together. We maintained a bi-coastal household (even though I’m working full-time in SF). We both have new companies. We have a cute dog. The two of us tell each other “two good things from our day” every night, a practice we started two years in. That’s 4,000 good things beyond the above list. That’s a good life—made possible by having the right partner.
PS
In the interest of completeness, because sometimes I refer back to these in order to refresh my memory, Sarah and I also went to Mountain Home Inn, Sonoma, and Baltimore, and watched two seasons of Homeland and all of Louis (loved Louis). Plus I continued to watch Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.
