---
title: 2024 Year in Review
date: 2024-12-28
tags: [Career, Productivity]
excerpt: Reflecting on 2024 - the projects I built, lessons I learned, and goals for 2025. A year of growth, challenges, and accomplishments.
draft: false
---

# 2024 Year in Review!

As 2024 comes to a close, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the year. It's been a year of significant growth, both professionally and personally.

## Professional Highlights

### Projects

This year, I worked on several exciting projects:

**E-commerce Platform**: Led the frontend architecture for a new e-commerce platform serving 100k+ daily users. We achieved a 40% improvement in page load times through careful optimization.

**Design System**: Built a comprehensive design system from scratch, complete with documentation and Storybook. This is now used across 5 different products.

**Open Source**: Made my first significant open source contributions! Contributed to several Bun-related projects and created a few small utilities that others found useful.

### Skills Developed

- **Performance Optimization**: Learned a ton about web performance, Core Web Vitals, and how to actually make sites fast
- **System Design**: Started thinking more about architecture and scalability
- **TypeScript**: Became much more proficient with advanced TypeScript patterns
- **Testing**: Finally built a solid testing practice

## Personal Growth

### Writing

Started this blog! Writing has helped me:
- Clarify my thinking
- Learn more deeply
- Connect with others in the community

### Work-Life Balance

Made a conscious effort to improve work-life balance:
- Implemented a hard stop at 6 PM
- Started exercising regularly (3x per week)
- Picked up reading again (finished 12 books!)

## Challenges

Not everything was smooth sailing:

**Burnout**: Hit a rough patch in Q2 where I was working too much. Learned the importance of rest and boundaries.

**Imposter Syndrome**: Still struggles with this occasionally, but getting better at recognizing it and pushing through.

**Saying No**: Learned that saying no to some opportunities is necessary to say yes to the right ones.

## Lessons Learned

1. **Quality > Quantity**: Better to do fewer things well than many things poorly
2. **Ask for Help**: Nobody knows everything, and asking for help is a strength
3. **Document Everything**: Future you will thank present you
4. **Take Breaks**: Rest isn't laziness - it's necessary for sustained performance
5. **Community Matters**: Connecting with other developers has been invaluable

## Goals for 2025

Looking ahead to 2025:

### Professional
- Contribute to a major open source project
- Speak at a local meetup or conference
- Learn Rust (for real this time)
- Build and launch a side project

### Personal
- Write 24 blog posts (2 per month)
- Read 20 books
- Maintain exercise routine
- Learn to cook 10 new recipes

### Learning
- Deep dive into system design
- Master web performance
- Learn more about databases
- Get better at writing

## Thank You

Thanks to everyone who supported me this year - colleagues, friends, family, and the online tech community. Looking forward to 2025!

What were your highlights from 2024? What are you looking forward to in 2025?