Finishing What I Start: The Final Report Card

At the beginning of the year, I gave myself the goal of completing 11 projects in 2011.  I called 2011 The Year of the Completed Project.  Even though there are still a couple of days left in the year, I figured I’d grade myself on my goals.  (F = Nothing done, D = Very little done, C = Some work done, B = A lot of work done, A = Project completed.

1. To Do List Sign – This seemed like an easy plan.  I already had a dry erase board.  All I needed were some hooks to hang i t up.  Easily done by January’s end, right?  Well, unfortunately, the dry erase board is still not up.  I couldn’t quite figure out where to hang it so it’d be visible to me but not a) look horrible on the wall or b) be in reach of the kids.  (Keeping a dry erase To Do list is no use if kids wind up erasing it.)  The boast still sits waiting to be hung and used.  Grade: F

2. Finish My “Packers” Story – This was meant to be finished in October.  I did get some writing done on it.  I now have a "future timeline" for the world mapping it out from the near-present day to the time that the story would take place.  I’ve further fleshed out the factions that would be in conflict in the story, along with their beliefs and motivations.  I also specified some of the individuals along with their motivations and secrets.  I even began writing some of the story.  It, however, remains unfinished.  Grade: B

3.  Math Board Game With NHL – This was to be completed in March.  No work was done on this though.  To be honest, I think he’s outgrown my original concept.  I’m wondering if the entire concept should be scrapped.  Perhaps I should redo it to be an introduction to role playing games where we make up and play monster cards.  We could use the cards we’ve already made and make more.  Still, since no progress was made, I’d give myself an F on this one.

4.  Upstairs Play Room – I actually finished this one (or very nearly did) and since we moved more of their toys up there it’s gotten a bit cluttered again.  Plus, it’s still not the most convenient place to go.  Despite all this, the boys like playing there.  I’d give this a B.

5.  Paint the Door – Didn’t do any of this.  F.

6. Paint the Ceiling – Nope.  Didn’t touch it at all.  Another F.

7. Shred, Shred, Shred – I didn’t shred all of our papers using our shredder, but I did find out about a public shredding day.  I brought a few boxes of papers there (including some stuff from the cleaning of the play room) and they shredded it for me.  We still have more to shred, but it’s just one box (not anywhere close to full) now, not multiple full boxes.  Grade: A

8. Repair Desktop PC – This one’s kind of a cheat.  The dead desktop PC has been moved to our attic, but it turns out that I didn’t need to fix it.  My parents had a space PC that they didn’t need and offered it to us.  I set it up and we now have the ability to do everything our old computer could do.  Well, except print.  It seems that our printer ran out of ink and is so old that they don’t make ink for it anymore.  However, since that wasn’t part of the initial goal, I’m still giving this one an A.

9. How It Works Blog Series – I didn’t do any work on this one.  F.

10. Kids Game Review Blog Series – No work done on this one either.   However, NHL’s turned into quite the gamer so perhaps this is something I could do in the future.  For now, though, it’s an F.

11. The PB Files – I never did any work on this either.  It’s an F for this as well.

All in all, that’s 2 A’s, 2 B’s, and 7 F’s.  Overall grade would be a D.  I didn’t even update my "Finish What I Started" series after awhile.  (Mainly because it would have been a very short blog post: "Still no progress.")

However, besides my 2 completed projects and 2 "significant progress" projects, I did quite a few big freelance projects.  These projects weren’t on my radar when I began the year.  In addition, I conceived of and programmed two Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Plus Rout.  Therefore, despite the incomplete projects, I’d definitely call this year a success.