The Best and Worst of 2006

My life, in a year-end side-bar column on page 2:

Best Personal Accomplishment: I blogged. Since I started on January 1, I have made 361 posts in 365 days, which is 98.6% of what I intended to do. I write every day, which is a good beginning for a writing vector. Best of all: I really enjoyed it. There is hope for me yet.

Worst Personal Failure: I dragged my feet on financial matters through the entire year. It took me vastly more time than was warrented to prepare an investment plan and execute it. I still have five months of data entry to catch up on.

Worst Personal Failure Runner-up: Poor track record (no pun intended) on exercise and health. I probably ran about a third as often as I ought, often going weeks at a time without exercise. My kids confront me about not eating my fruit and vegetables and washing my hands.

Best Professional Accomplishment: Relevant added two new full-time employees, and we survived the expansion, with only a marginal ~5% drop in my personal revenue.

Best Professional Accomplishment Runner-up: I did my first Microsoft CRM project. At last, we have another CRM offering with legs.

Best Professional Accomplishment of 1993, deferred until now: Identify Software, a software start-up in which I had a substantial stake for the last seven years, finally sold to BMC Software.

Worst Professional Failure: Continued failure to manage large projects effectively. Over-promising and delivering late continues to be, while not the norm, fairly commonplace.

Worst Professional Failure Runner-up: I'm still doing my billing notes only hours before they need to be in. My life would be a lot less stressful if I could manage my billing and scheduling on a daily rather than weekly basis.

Best Spiritual Accomplishment: accepting primary responsibility for the UNC Self Knowledge Symposium. I desperately needed a renewed committment to spiritual community, and I got that in spades this fall. I'm glad I had the courage to put myself back on the front lines.

Worst Spiritual Failure: poor leadership with the UNC SKS. I came to the group with rather low expectations, and (surprise!) my expectations were met. I did not subject myself and others to enough tension when it was warrented, and business matters were handled squishily.

Overall: a good year. Things are moving.