This year started with me moving to Tampa Bay due to work. When I move to a new city, I know that it will mean that the first month I’ll spend it getting used to the city, finding out where to live, identifying where are the stores, learning how to move around the city, how to get to work, etc. Even with such a big change in my life I managed to achieve some goals I defined at the beginning of the year. The rest, I will continue pursuing them in 2020. Overall, I managed to make progress in all of them.
Books
These are the books I read. The book that I liked the most is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I highlighted so many paragraphs of this book and I plan to read it again. This book taught me about Stoic philosophy.
- The Success Principles
- Choose Yourself
- Atomic Habits
- The Productivity Project
- The Miracle Equation
- Daily Stoic
- 168 Hours
- On the Shortness of Life
- The Four Agreements
- Meditations
Health
Moving to a new city means I get to experiment with habits and discover new hobbies. When I moved to Tampa I decided it was a good time to work on my healthy habits so I decided to start running again and the first thing I did was to sign up to a 5K race. I had so much fun at the 5K that I decided to sign up to a 10K and later to a half marathon. Disney organices super fun running events.
- Ran a 5K
- Ran a 10K for the first time
In progress: training for half marathon. I’m currently training for a half marathon. I have learned that, as with any other skill, consistency and repetition are very important.
Career
I got my certification as a Scrum Master and I took the course to get certified as a SAFe Scrum Master. I still have pending to take the exam.
I also started an online course “Intro to Programming Nanodegree” at Udacity. Every now and then I like going back to the basics and un-learn and re-learn again as technology changes so fast.
In progress: Udacity programming course.
Travel
This year I had the opportunity to visit the following places. I fell in love with London and I would love to go back again and explore more. Clearwater Beach is such a beautiful beach, the moment I arrived there I was amazed at how beautiful it is.
- Atlanta, GA
- Orlando, FL
- Clearwater Beach, FL
- Miami, FL
- Chattanooga, TN
- St. Augustine, FL
- Jacksonville, FL
- Sarasota, FL
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Athens, Greece
- London, UK
- Cambridge, UK
Cooking
I need to learn more recipes. This year I only experimented once in the kitchen new recipes and I learnt to cook “Tortitas de Atún” (tuna patties). What should have taken me half an hour took me 6 hours. I really need to improve my cooking skills.
Online Courses
This course is amazing. Aaron has so much passion for what he does and attention to detail. I don’t think I’ll be cooking Texas-Style BBQ any time soon, but if there is one thing I learnt from this class is to keep the seasoning simple and just use salt and pepper.
2019 Favorite Learning Resources
Websites
- Harvard Business Review (management)
- Psychology Today (psychology)
- Daily Stoic (philosophy and stoicism)
- Udacity (web development)
Podcasts
- The Tim Ferriss Show (entrepreneurship and learning)
- Dear HBR (workplace dilemmas)
YouTube Channels
- Keep Productive (productivity)
- Matt D’Avella (productivity and minimalism)
- Thomas Frank (productivity and learning)
Plans for 2020
I have already started defining my goals for 2020 and started the breakdown by quarter. I can’t wait to see what 2020 will bring to my life.
Arabela Navarro 