jimkleban

[jimkleban]

10 Goals for 2023

9 years of foolishly posting my annual personal goals. A look back at 2022 is here: https://at.tumblr.com/jimkleban/my-2022-in-review/muu9t9hu9fkh

Themes for 2023

The world is changing quickly with polarization, evolving norms, war in Europe, inflation, tech layoffs, and a looming recession. These are also very exciting times especially with what has been made possible by advances in generative AI. This year finds me happy to pour my heart into my work and looking forward to explore more of the world. 

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” -Ferris Bueller

10 Goals for 2023

1) Crush it as Head of AI at Supernormal

A new year finds me in a new role running AI at a startup called Supernormal. Supernormal is an AI-powered meeting assistant that automatically gives you detailed notes after your meeting. The generative AI space is on fire for now, and for a product like this it's a race to win. I'm excited for this role as a career step. It's a good fit for my background and skills, the team is great, and I'm finding in really fun to work at a startup. My goal for 2023 is to hire an AI team and deliver a great product.

2) Follow the muse with Infeather.

We are born to create. What we make are expressions of ourselves and sometimes in creating there is a sense of something calling us forward. A muse, if you allow it to be. Over the last year I've been building an AI-powered reader called Infeather. By crawling twitter and other sources it finds high quality articles for people to read on followed topics. My dream is for this project is to grow it further into something people can use day-to-day. The recommendations can expand beyond linked articles to include videos, forum threads, and posts. The goal this year is to keep going, following the muse, and make the reader better and grow the number of users.

3) Live abroad with the family.

In 2019, Elizabeth and I took the girls (7 and 4) on a year of travel where we stayed in Bali and Australia. We want to do something like this again before our kids grow up. I'm not sure if the timing for traveling again is right this year given our work, health, and family commitments, but ideally we'd set up somewhere in a new country sometime this year. We would find schools for the girls, work remotely, and spend our free time exploring. 

4) Respark the romance with Elizabeth.

My wife Elizabeth and I have known each other for more than twenty years, and we have been married for over thirteen. It's not always easy to find good, quality time for one another given our full time jobs and parenting duties. And yet, it's the relationships that matter most in life. My goal this year is to do ten amazing things together with my partner.

5) Develop the art of long term friendships.

One of the key predictors of long term happiness through life apparently is the presence of long term relationships. It can be hard to prioritize friendship when you a busy life with family and work takes up time and energy. Yet, it pays off in the end. I think there is a real art in making friends, and maybe it's mostly a matter of making oneself available. I want this year to be one for friendships, new and old.

6) Build 3 new AI apps as experiments.

I'm intrigued by what is possible with AI and it's never been easier to wire ideas up quickly. This year I have the goal to write three new (mini) apps. The ones I have in mind at the start of the year are a spoken language practice chat bot (using Whisper) for my attempt at learning French, a personal health assistant that helps build positive habits, and an oracle/therapy bot that helps you  reflect about what is happening in your life.

7) Get a couple of home improvement projects done.

Out of all of the things that I like to do, spending on home improvement is not one of them. As such, the house is in a bit of disrepair and there are a couple of things we want to make better. The goal is to land at least two of these house projects (even if it's just scheduling and coordinating contractor work) before we go abroad. This could be new upstairs bathroom fixture, a shed in backyard, and repairing the deck. I think these things can be fun and rewarding.

8) Get into the mountains.

The best part of the Pacific Northwest is probably the nearby mountain ranges with the Cascades  and the Olympics. These are wonderful places to explore and spending time in the mountains is also a great way to stay in shape, get tough. I try to have a physical goal each year, and this year I'll be working on adding strength exercises to my routine, but I think an even better goal will be to spend more substantial times in the mountains - getting out on a day trip at least twice a month.

9) Give up added sugar and fast food.

Health matters more as you grow older and I don't think you can keep bouncing back from treating your body poorly. This includes the diet. I've been blessed with a fast metabolism and I'm physically active, so I haven't had a reason to avoid eating poor food. I've done well in the past with giving up alcohol, but at times the cravings have just transferred to donuts and cheeseburgers. I feel much better when I don't eat these things. The goal this year is to give up added sugar, save for the occasional shared desert, and stop ordering fast food.

10) Break the phone addiction.

The iPhone was released in 2007 and changed the world. Like television, we both benefit and suffer from the adoption of the omnipresent computer in our pocket. The device and its apps are designed to be addictive, fueling profit, in ways television never was able to be. On the other hand, we also gain from having these tools. We own our phones and how we use them, not the opposite way around. The goal for 2023 is to change how I use mobile phone, through a mixture of behaviors, settings, and apps so I can demonstrably claim my phone serves me.

Closing

2023 has energy, legs to it. I feel happy, empowered. A lot is going to change quickly, so buckle up and take the ride. Here’s to what comes. 

[jimkleban]

My 2022 in Review

In 2022 I joined the Great Resignation, which as others have said is really the Great Reshuffling. I wrapped up my time at Stripe early in the year. I then spent six months working on my own bootstrapped software project, an AI-powered reader named Infeather which launched at the end of the year. In September, I started a new role as Head of AI back at Supernormal, a seed stage startup I worked for before Stripe. 

Familywise, I had a wonderful summer with the girls while between jobs. We added a new Kleban - a Havanese puppy named Lola. It had been Chloe’s dream for us to get a dog and she and Jasmine have helped to take care of her a lot. Sadly, Lola ended up needing a surgery for a liver issue but she is recovering. Travelwise we stayed in the states this year, two weeks on Maui after leaving Stripe, a family trip to Utah and Colorado, a brothers' hiking trip to Moab, a guy's surfing trip to Tofino, and Thanksgiving in Detroit.

All in all, it was a good year.

A couple things learned

“Startups are hard.“ - anyone who has ever worked at a startup

In February after leaving Stripe I set off to build my own bootstrapped company. I did not seek out finding a cofounder, instead preferring to just hop in and start making things. I coded a lot, scratching an itch to make things myself that had been building after a decade as a product manager. Along the way, I learned a tiny bit about why startups are hard. Inevitably, you spend time building out a thing to get feedback only to learn what you have is not what people want. It takes iterating and time and commitment to get it right. There is something beautiful in this process, but it’s so much harder than the showing up, doing some things, and collecting a guaranteed paycheck a steady job gives you.

“Each person bears a uniqueness that asks to be lived and that is already present before it can be lived.” - James Hillman

When you have time to reflect and as you get older you come to know more about who you are and how to find meaning in your life. Each of us has a depth that can never be fully known even to ourselves, and we also have unique character and calling, something that makes us what we are different than others. I’m taken by the idea from the psychologist James Hillman that when considering our own purpose in life it won’t really be something that can be thought out and written down, but instead be expressed in the ways with which our individual character acts and converses in the world. 

Overall

I had 9 goals for 2022 (https://at.tumblr.com/jimkleban/9-goals-for-2022/afi16bjcfbjg) Out of the 9 goals, 2 went well, 4 showed mixed results, and 3 didn’t work out. I rate this a pretty good year.

Went Well

Join the Great Resignation.

I wanted to leave product management and Stripe and so I did. 2022 was a wonderful year workwise for taking steps in another direction. I set off building my own thing and learned a lot along the way. In September, I reunited with the founders at Supernormal and joined a seed stage startup called Supernormal as Head of AI. Supernormal makes an AI meeting assistant for automated notes. To me, this is a new way to wear many hats - coding, designing, hiring, strategy - while working collaboratively and skipping the downsides of middle management in larger organizations. The Great Resignation is a chance to reinvent yourself.

Build my own software as a mode of expression. 

With Elizabeth's support (and her job at Microsoft) I was able to explore creating software on my own and I worked on this full time for 6 months in 2022 before joining Supernormal. I built and launched infeather.com and I'm very proud of what I have made and its future. I love coding and making things progressively better and seeing what works and doesn't and going back to re-designing and starting again. I also learned that I don't ever want to be a CEO, as I'm more of a maker at heart than a salesperson. Our options aren't limited today by convention. You can make or find the thing that matches your talents, and if you're honest and earnest and willing to accept failures along the way, you can make it work.

Mixed Results

Become a more generous and altruistic person. 

I guess this is happening slowly over time as a result of getting older, being an optimist and a believer in human fulfillment, and maintaining an earnest spiritual practice. I had defined some outcomes to measure with this including increasing charitable giving, doing community cleanups, and reducing the number of meals eating meat. I gave some to charity, but I did 0 volunteer cleanups. I ate 345 meals with meat in 2022 (yes I am a quantified self nerd and track these things,) which is probably down by about 33% from before (but I didn't track in 2021 so I’m not sure.)

Value time with friends and family more. 

When I left Stripe I had a lot more time for the girls especially in the summer when they were off from school. We did morning sessions where we'd go through workbooks together and then we'd do something fun in the day, like going swimming or out to lunch or for a bike ride. I wouldn't have had that time with a full time job and I'm glad I chose to spend it with the girls and not overwork on my software project. Friendwise, while I did take some trips, there is certainly more I could have done to make new friends and value old ones.

Develop an urban nature cross-training routine

I wanted to mix up my usual running with different types of exercise that gets me outdoors including the goal of running a triathlon or two. While I did make an effort to diversify my exercise, I didn't do very well at this. My main workouts were yoga, ice hockey, and running. I ran the Seattle marathon (my last one?) after feeling a bit lax in the fall which at got me outside.

Support local businesses in Seattle.

I did nowhere near the level I wanted to for this, and we still order too many things on Amazon, but I did become a new shopper at our local market (Met Market) and when possible bought books from the local store (Third Place books.) Even writing that feels nice, I'd like to continue to develop this one.

Didn't Work Out    

Record a synthwave album.

In 2021 I did a lot of music recording, but this year I just never got into the groove. I made part of one song, largely a copy from a tutorial, in synthwave style and it just didn't feel interesting to me. It felt like this music could just be made formulaically. I did play and practice guitar an ample amount, especially with the Taylor acoustic I was gifted for Christmas. I enjoy warming up and then singing, hippy style, a gift from my friend Tom Thumb.

Write based on my reading.

I didn't have a reading goal this year but wanted to start writing. I did not do this. Maybe there is a writing career ahead of me, it's something of a life dream to author a book, but based on what I'm getting done it's hard to see it happening. On the plus side, I did consistently journal (I have a morning pages habit) and I do free-form writing in Roam Research. I just didn't make anything that I'd consider 'writing based on reading.'

World Adventure

In 2019 we set off for a year abroad spending a lot of time in Bali and Australia as COVID hit. We would love to do it again. There are always a lot of moving parts and this wasn't the year. Maybe 2023 will be.

[jimkleban]

9 Goals for 2022

This is year number 8 (wow!) of bravely posting my annual personal goals. My lookback at 2021 is here: https://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/673135362834579456/my-2021-in-review

Themes for 2022

2022 is a time for change, a time to acknowledge the world has forever changed with the pandemic, and as it lifts normal is never going to be the way it once was. This year I change myself, who I am workwise and how I live in the world. Changes can be scary, but they are unavoidable. We only have so much time on this Earth, do we decide on how we want to spend it or do we let the outside world decide for us? 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” - Victor Frankl

9 Goals for 2022

1) Join the Great Resignation. 

This year it's time to wrap up my product management career after a fulfilling, rewarding and somewhat exhausting ten years - 3 at Microsoft, 5 1/2 at Facebook, and 1 1/2 - 2 years at Stripe. I've decided it's time to make a change. I will take a slow leap into a new independent way of working, a new career, letting how I work in the world change, and taking the hard and honest reflection for looking at how to change myself. I still see myself working in computer software, and building ‘products’, but really what I want to do is some combination of things that doesn’t really fit into what a PM does in industry. So change it is.

2) Build my own software as a mode of expression. 

What we choose to create in the world over the course of a lifetime is a very important decision. My plan is to take some months building my own project and letting it take me where it takes me, letting it take me to my next phase of collaborative work. I'm lucky that my wife Elizabeth has a job to keep us supported and that she is so supportive of this. Before Stripe, I rediscovered that I really enjoy building things on computers and this eventually led to me building AI for a startup. My goal for 2022 is to launch an MVP of a software project that aligns with the vision for what I want to make in the world. I already started with this last year with the algorithmic newsletter up at infeather.com.

3) Become a more generous and altruistic person. 

Sadly, this is one of the types of goals that I often fail on. I've been given so much and yet I still have to learn to give back in more meaningful ways. I think it's important to not give up though when something matters, and so there are three concrete ways I want do so this in 2022.1. increase the amount of charitable giving I make, 2. give my time and join at least a few community cleanups (start small,) and 3. change my diet to limit meat to one meal a week, as an ethical decision to reduce the suffering of farmed animals.

4) Value time with friends and family more. 

If 2022 is the time for the Great Resignation, it's also an opportunity to redesign my lifestyle a bit. It's easy for me to get too self-involved whether it be with work or my other extra-curriculars, and I'm happy as a hermit. In 2022, I want to develop a lifestyle that fosters connection, intimacy, and serendipity in friendships and family. I'm not sure how yet how to measure this, but I think I'll know if by the end of the year things feel very different in how we have chosen to spend our time. I'm also optimistic that the pandemic ending will help this one along - we’ve been isolated from one another for far too long.

5) Record a synthwave album.

Last year I started out messing around making songs in Garageband. These weren't great songs, but that's not important to me - I had fun with the process of creating and have learned a lot along the way. Playing and making music brings me to a state of flow. This year's goal is to record another set of songs, this time in collaboration with my brother Chris. I'm inspired by the '80s sounds of synthwave, so I'll see if I can make it in this style. Instrumental, gated reverb, analog synth bass lines. Tron, Out Run, Stranger Things. If you're curious about this genre,  I've made a synthwave playlist, and the songs I made in 2021 are up at https://jimkleban.com/music.html

6) Develop an urban nature cross-training routine. 

I live in a city, but I love nature and I love to stay in shape and mitigate stress with endurance workouts. I love to cycle, run, kayak, skate, ski and swim. The goal this year is to build a (mostly) outdoor focused cross-training workout plan that includes a mix of these activities each week and do at least 3 different activities per week. Ideally I'd also mix in a healthier diet plan, and I’m eyeing a triathlon or two to give me goals to work up towards.

7) Write based on my reading. 

In past years I've had goals to read a certain number of books or read a certain number of minutes. This year I am changing this to a goal to get more out of the time I spend reading by pairing this with more active thinking. So, for the books and articles I read, my goal in 2022 is to write 20 summaries, write 5 articles, and make at least 100 ANKI (spaced repetition learning) cards based on what I read. The aim here is to change the habit of how I read to make it more active by forcing more active thinking by writing. I will use the notetaking app Roam Research and some ideas from the technique of Zettelkasten to help this along.

8) Support local businesses in Seattle.

Local businesses are more than just businesses, they are communities. I haven’t been overly sensitive to this aspect of things, but over the years I've noticed that the places in America that turn me off the most are the ones where the stores are all big national chains. I think it is hard to survive indie today. I’m definitely not anti-corp, as scale lifts the economy and all of our standards of living. But the Amazons of the world also come at the cost of de-humanizing pressure on workers and a loss of meaning in our work. This year my goal is find ways to support local businesses with a community to them whenever possible, even if it’s starting with the easy to do choice of buying all of my books from the neighborhood bookstore.

9) I do believe it is time for another adventure.

And, finally, should things fall into place with jobs, health, and COVID clearing up, we are considering embarking on another world adventure. We've always dreamed of living in Europe and our travel plans to go there in 2020 were cut short by the pandemic. Our girls are still young enough at 10 and 7 to not be too displaced socially if we take a significant amount of time abroad, and it may all work out with the career change. So, who knows? Sometimes with goals the timing has to be right.

Closing

2022 promises to be an exciting, but scary year as big changes are made both in our personal lives and in the world around us. It is far better to be alive, empowered, ensouled than it is to cling on to what is no longer working. Be brave and be easy on yourself.

[jimkleban]

My 2021 in Review

In 2021, I completed a full year working at Stripe, made a lot of progress on my side projects, and took trips to Hawaii, Florida, and Iceland. Elizabeth landed a great job with Microsoft working on anti-corruption. The girls went back to in-person school. All was not rosy, however. The pandemic dragged on. A defeated president tried to overtake democracy. I hit some adversity at work which made me fairly miserable for a significant amount of time. And we also faced some health scares which luckily turned out not to be too serious. There really is a lot to be a grateful for, and this past year felt like an important lesson in resilience.

A few things I learned

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” -Milton

It's hard to get out of mind traps, especially ones that have to do with our social standing and sense of self worth. I had a rough spell with obsessive thinking in 2021. My first performance review at Stripe didn't go so well and that sent me into a spiral of self-doubt and negativity. Even with a very established meditation practice and my positive disposition in life, there were weeks where I could think about little other than my work situation. Luckily I had a lot of loving support from colleagues, friends and family, and I eventually came out of a hard time excited about the future.

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” -Nelson Mandela

Which brings me back to a theme for 2021, the lesson of resilience. Nietzsche has the famous saying about that which doesn't kill us making us stronger. However, that is not always true. Trauma, shock, and loss can often cause damage that takes years from which to recover. In our last two years, we have had to adjust to an isolated, frustrating post-COVID world. Society seems in a bad way. My take, as an optimist, is that resilience is the positive narrative you can tell about surviving your hard times. Resilience doesn't make these easier nor solve them, but at least it gives us a point of pride and confidence we can face hardships in the future.

“There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking.” - William James

We become where we spend our attention, and yet even in the best possible of environments our attention is not under our control. We get distracted, pulled on by annoyances and shiny things. Even when we are able to choose how to spend our attention, we are often unfocused, distracted by competing aspects of ourselves with incoherent goals (I don’t want to work all the time and I want to become a VP!)  And yet, we can become by simply thinking about who we want to be. We become good teachers, parents, poets, lovers, coders, builders, travelers through the act of thinking what it takes to be them, and this gives us the courage and permission to become.

Overall

This year I had 11 goals for 2021 (https://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/641795569738776576/10-goals-for-2021) Out of the 11 goals, 4 went well, 6 showed mixed results, and 1 didn’t work out. A pretty solid year goalwise!

Went Well

Launch my 'link share’ software project.

This has evolved over the year, but it's up and going and I've been sending out a newsletter with 5 daily links for the last few months. It hasn't exactly launched as I'm making some final tweaks to the website (you can DM me for an alpha subscription,) but I'm proud of the progress I've made on this side project - in 2021 I trained hundreds of machine learning models, wrote code in Python, node.js, Rails, javascript and React, and built a number of services that interact with one another to power the newsletter.     

Finish an album of 10 songs. 

This is another one complete - save for the final touches of making up an artist name, giving things a final edit, and posting the results on Soundcloud. My friend Gord says I also need to have a launch party. The reality of this 'album' is that making music is a fun hobby and I'm learning a lot, writing my own parts, playing guitar on the tracks, but it's nowhere near pro level. The songs are a mix of synthwave, prog rock, and psychedelic rock and are all instrumental. This will all get better as I keep learning, for now the music is listenable at my website: https://jimkleban.com/music.html.   

Complete 3500 minutes of focused reading.

This year I tried to move from finishing a certain number of books and instead to keeping up a daily habit of reading time. I blew away this goal with a total of ~12000 minutes of reading or an average of ~30 minutes per day. I read parts of 68 different books, but only finished six. I think there is still something to solve in how to get the most out of reading given the time I put in, and I'm currently in a rut where I read like 10 different books at once but don't really ever get through any of them. A muddle.    

Contemplation goal?

Is there really a goal for contemplative practice? And if so, what is it? This year I worked with Rob Burbea's Soulmaking dharma and imaginal practice. I started to listen to the late John O'Donohue a lot, and find his poetic description of Celtic spirituality in works like Anam Cara very beautiful. I also attended a meditation retreat at Cloud Mountain with Jason Bartlett, a most and very-well versed teacher. With each passing year, the sharp edges of the rock in river get smoother and smoother.

Mixed Results

Complete a full year at Stripe and bring a warm glow to the product area I own.

Well, I made it to a year (and vesting) and we had a couple of launches updating the reports we show to Stripe users about fraud disputes and the actions, my product Radar, takes to block fraudsters. The machine learning powering Radar got substantially better. So then why is this mixed results? Well as alluded to above, working for Stripe has been a stressful experience for me in my first year there. I found myself in the big leagues of a pre-IPO company with a lot of pressure coming down from the top. Resilience, folks, resilience.    

Be available. Improve the response time and breadth of communication.

I was a little better at this and got into a couple of positive habits: making a point to keep in touch with friends more if only via messages and of going through my emails as part of my morning routine. Still, things fall through the cracks a lot! At the end of the day I like the focus of working on one thing at a time and I think I find today's async communication distracting. If you reply to an email, you just create another reply back you have to respond to. I think I'd rather just be physically present with people or not.   

The mountains are calling. Spend significant time in the mountains and make one substantial climb.

I did not make it into the mountains save for a few hikes. When the weather was nice I did go hiking there and Seattle is great for that. However, a true alpine goal just never got off the ground, I didn't have the vigor and excitement that that takes in the Spring when preparation must begin. Why is this not a failure? Well I did pivot to running the Seattle marathon in the Fall, and I finished under four hours. Pivot and recover.   

Cook 30 meals for my family.

Only 30? Well, this goal wasn't just about scrambling some eggs or boiling water for mac n cheese. The goal was to make real delicious dinners, and I made 24 over the course of the year, so an average of once every 2nd week. Not enough, but I can honestly say I've enjoyed learning some culinary skills and I'm inspired to do even more in 2022. My favorite two recipes were a Moroccan lamb tagine and Turkish beef mince and potatoes.

Work remotely outside of Seattle for awhile

We spent a couple of weeks working remotely in Tucson and Hawaii back in February. This is a partial success because it could have been a lot longer and probably should have given the dark winter and remote schooling for the first half of the year in Seattle. After our year abroad, though, in 2019-2020 I think Elizabeth and I were both okay with more time at 'home' than others who started the pandemic in their homes. We didn't get back to ours until 4 months after that start in July 2020.

Didn't Work out    

Be the change.

This was the only goal where I can say I truly failed. Of all the lofty changes one can make - consuming less, volunteering, giving more to charity, switching to cleaner energy - we did exactly nothing. There is something frustrating and disappointing about this given all of the positive changes we have been able to make in our lives. Why can't we sacrifice a little for things that matter more than to ourselves? We acknowledge this and vow to be better.

[jimkleban]

10 Goals for 2021

It’s the time for the 7th straight year of bravely posting my personal goals (I’ve been doing these going back to 2015.) A review of how I did against the goals in 2020 is here:

https://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/641617400921571328/my-2020-in-review

Themes for 2021

2020 turned out to be an awful year with the pandemic, and 2021 is starting out just as bad with the political unrest. Still, things get bad and then they get better and I'm optimistic for clear skies and return to normalcy as the year goes on. Last year we were traveling, and this year we have returned to our home in Seattle and to jobs. It's a grow the garden year. 

1) Complete a full year at Stripe and bring a warm glow to the product area I own.

After not working for a year and finding it enjoyable (ideal?) to work part time for a startup and have time to surf every afternoon, it's been a pretty harsh adjustment to come back to the full stress of the tech working world. This career goal is a rather simple one - to finish a full year working at Stripe and doing my best to make the products I am driving succeed.

2) Be available. Improve the response time and breadth of communication.

 In a world where people are backing away from being always on, I want to back into setting rules around it and make myself more available. There is a phrase "bad at keeping in touch with people" which generally means you don't respond or reach out often to acquaintances. However, I value deepening relationships, so in 2021, I will establish some procedures for responding quickly to people who reach out. The root problem is that when I read the message I say I will reply later, but then never get to it. The goal for 2021 will be to always reply the first time when I receive an email or message, even to say "I will get back to you on this." I will also set aside time each day solely for the purpose of communicating: answering requests and participating actively & limitedly in social media.

3) The mountains are calling. Spend significant time in the mountains and make one substantial climb.

 The mountains are a beautiful place to be and right in my backyard. In past years I have taken the time to get into 'mountain shape' and do a few alpine climbs. I do well when I have a big physical goal. So this year the goal is to climb one big hill, maybe in Washington state, perhaps Mt. Adams, by the end of the summer. This should get me out often for hiking in the weekends as I train, so the side goal will be to get in at least 2 mountain workouts per month on the weekends - hiking or skiing. Ideally, I'd pull in a friend or two to join in the plan.

4) Cook 30 meals for my family. 

I spend a lot of time in front of screens, and I have a lot of different hobbies but one thing I am really bad at is making meals for my family. In an effort to become healthier and also spend time together and make my wife happy, I aspire to cook one meal a week - and since I'll miss some weeks I'll just say if I can get to 30 it will be a success.

5) Complete 3,500 minutes of focused reading. 

I've had a goal of reading 24 books a year, and instead of number of books I am going to change this to averaging at least 10 minutes per day reading. I'll still track the number of books but I think a number of books read is a silly goal, the goal is to learn and I don't want to waste time committed to finishing books. With the focused reading I will also commit to a process of recording what I learned from the books or articles when I am finished into my Roam Research notebook.

6) Get out of Seattle for awhile in a sunny place and work remotely outside of home before COVID ends. 

We had been on the road for a year before COVID hit, so when we returned to America it felt natural to come back to being at home. However, after 5 months of this it's felt pretty isolating and the Seattle winters are low on light. We want to go somewhere sunny awhile. Kindergarten may be opening in person for Jasmine in March and eventually the Stripe office will re-open, so the idea is to get away for awhile to get some sun and reset in a different setting while there is time.

7) Finish an "album" of songs.

 I've recently discovered how easy it is to make songs in GarageBand and have expanded my daily guitar practice into the composition of eighties-style synthesizer prog rock psychedelic songs. I have about 5 songs already, and I'd like to complete another 5 or so to finish an 'album.' This has already been an enjoyable exercise in creativity. It's fun to make music, especially when you have creative control over how you compose and arrange the elements.

8) Launch my 'link share' software project.

 I have also been working part time on writing software that surfaces the highest quality, thoughtful, sharable articles in one's web history. The software gives the user a feed of their past history with a chance to select, re-read, summarize, and share articles. I see this project as a democratization of newsletters, anyone should be able to send a mailer or share a set of annotated links quickly. The goal this year will be to get this project to a place where I can 'launch' it to the world and share it with others.

9) Be the change. 

De-politicize your identity. Do community service. Be generous. Create healthy ways of using tech. Adopt animal ethics by eating a lot less meat. Be an activist for conservation and preventing climate change. Donate to causes that make a difference. Change consumer habits. This goal isn't too crisp, but there are some opportunities here to question assumptions. Success here then will be 3 substantial major life changes made against the norm, but for good purposes.

10) Contemplation goal. 

What kind of goal is it even worth having when it comes to see how to live a full life? I guess this one would be to continue my daily meditation practice, exploring more of emptiness and seeing sacredness in the world. Opening to “life’s final miracle,... to have become a fairytale.”

Closing

2021 is a step towards renewing the dream lifestyle discovered in Australia, working part time and surfing everyday. It is a step towards life’s final miracle. 

[jimkleban]

My 2020 in Review

2020 was supposed to be the year of the far off future. Sad that it turned out to be a dystopian one. The year was exhausting emotionally with the COVID pandemic, elections, polarization, racial injustice, and isolation. 

For us, it was a notable year even when set against the turmoil. We started off 2020 living our dream life in Bali - five months into a dream family trip spending a year abroad. When COVID hit, we retreated to Byron Bay, Australia, and fell into the dream lifestyle, coding for a startup, surfing, fun in the sun. Finally in July we returned to Seattle and I started a new job with Stripe. 

For all the bad, it was also a year of flowering creativity as I made a podcast, wrote songs, started coding projects, and developed a set of positive habits. I also quit drinking in 2020, stayed off of social media for a good part of the year.

A Few Things I Learned

"One stroke doesn't get me far, but a million gets me across wide expanses of ocean."- Roz Savage

I have been using a habit tracking app for a few years now to keep me going with positive habits, and in 2020 I really came to appreciate how doing even a little each day can add up to big progress. I especially saw this when it came to progress on side projects. As we were traveling I had a lot more time to work on these and investments in music making, writing, coding have added up to tangible outcomes. Doing a little each day, a la James Clear's Atomic Habits, can make a real difference.

"I will go to the office everyday until I have enough to retire forever" is a poor narrative. 

I met a Swede in Bali who admired our trip off for a year and he remarked, "What I think would be hard for me wouldn't be finding a new job, it would be wanting to go back at all." 

A year off in your forties full time with kids might actually be enough to drive some people back into a structured work environment, but for me it taught an important lesson: there is a more ideal lifestyle. There are so many other ways to spend ones time: writing, consulting, part-time work, teaching, starting a business, contributing to community projects, opening a shop or cafe, and so on. The biggest win you can make with *just enough* financial independence, I think, is to gain a large portion of time back for yourself and become one's own boss. Life is just better when you have time for family, sports, hobbies, staying healthy. So for now, I've returned to an office job at Stripe, but I'm thinking of it as a hopping off point sometime soon. I don’t think you need to wait until you have enough money to not work at all to make this call.

Currents are powerful forces and it can be dangerous to paddle against them.

My friend Dmitry and I hired a boat on Moorea that took us out to a reef break. The boat was anchored and a strong ocean current pulled into massive waves breaking over the shallow reef. As we paddled to the waves you either lined up and went for a ride or the current would carry you away out to the deeper ocean. Fighting this current was eye opening, it took all the strength I had and I seemed to going nowhere until I paddled into the face of the rising swell. After failing to catch a wave, I was carried over the reef and paddled my ass off back to the boat.

We were in over our heads, but there a clear lesson here: when you are paddling against the current you will go nowhere in spite of how much energy you exert. Find the currents in life and let them take you where you want to go instead.

Overall

At the start of the year (pre-COVID) I set 10 goals for 2020 (https://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/190303747679/10-goals-for-2020) Out of the 10 goals, 6 went well, 3 showed mixed results, and 1 didn’t work out. I think this was my best year yet, a lot of that largely due to not being burdened for most of the year with a full time office job.

Went Well

Refresh, recharge, and enjoy the trip of a lifetime. 

We had a year off and explored SE Asia making a base in Bali and Byron Bay. I learned to work remotely, part time, while balancing a lovely life with yoga, travel, and surfing. The girls were happy in school abroad. It was a smashing success. We achieved our goals of: returning to ourselves, making connections with a place we would want to return to later (both Bali and Byron Bay,) escaping the craziness and work-centric America, experimenting with different working styles (we both had part time jobs.)

Invest in the children’s education and lifetime learning.

The homeschooling tailed off mostly even in Australia, but generally this was a success as I stepped in to teach in between enrolling the girls in schools. Chloe has started to learn to code and was studying Bahasa Indonesia, and Jasmine is well on the way to learning to read. For myself, I have been very active with learning, mostly by following curiosity, but also through apps like Yousician, O'Reilly, and LinkedIn Learning.

Rejoin the working world. 

I started working before the turn of the year for a startup called Supernormal, but with COVID and the opportunity cost it was clear I'd have to return to the working world for one last go around the merry-go-round for financial reasons. The role with Stripe was still open with the Radar team fighting credit card fraud, largely a machine learning team. Given the upside of Stripe, the size of the company, the allure of learning a new domain, we made the hard decision to leave a dream life and return to our home in Seattle and the working world.

Set revised and new atomic daily habits.

I amped up the habits, learning more about these through James Clear's Atomic Habits book (make it obvious, easy, attractive and satisfying.) I track these in an iOS app called momentum and have 28 that I try to do most days (although I average about half of that.) The habits involve learning, projects, exercise, eating healthily, and avoiding bad habits. I'm a big believer in small steps to complete larger goals.

Keep up the daily meditation & yoga practice.

COVID killed the chance to do any further meditation retreats, but I was able to get a few days in at the Bali Silent Retreat center. I've grown a lot along the path in 2020, coming to really admire the teachings of Rob Burbea, who sadly passed this last year of pancreatic cancer. Yoga is more of a moving meditation (and great for the body,) and I'm more into Theravadan/Insight traditions of meditation, and in 2020 I explored jhana, emptiness, metta, and imaginal practices to a solid degree, opening up many doors for future exploration.

Moderate and cultivate, especially around having a healthy information diet.

2020 was (mostly) a good year for this, and a good year to cull the bad given how hard COVID and the isolation has been for all of us mentally. At the beginning of the year I decided to quit drinking, I had my last beer on January 7th, 2020. I noticed an astounding increase in energy, intelligence, and health from this. Likewise, especially once the protests hit, I turned off social media, quitting IG, FB, and twitter from May until the elections (unfortunately I rejoined,) and instead I filled this time with reading and other learning. So much positivity accrues from taking these harmful, small escapes out of our lives.

Mixed Results

Read 24 great books.

 I read slowly and finished 17 books, which was short of my goal but still pretty good. I don't think I've ever quite gotten to 24 but it's about the right number for a goal for me. I also thinks it's a silly goal, like committing to watch 50 movies, as the outcome I am going for here is a creative, intellectual one and not some quantity of books. 

Ship some travel projects. 

I didn't get to all of the travel projects I wanted - I still have unpublished photos from Bali and Australia and I didn't do much in the way of blogging. I also pivoted off of my image filter project once the startup work started. However, I did with my atomic habits, make progress! I published jimkleban.com, made a half dozen songs in Garageband or so, and I'm well on the way on a new project that helps people learn more from the links they read online.

Improve in the art of photography. 

I did a fair amount of photography before COVID as we traveled through Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia. This stalled a bit however, as I didn't really get into building the artistic vision I wanted or take any courses. I've been a bit more into music making at the moment (I bought a guitar in Byron Bay,) so this got put to the side a little bit.

Didn’t Work Out

Kill social avoidance. 

My social goals are always the ones that don't work out. I guess I have to admit to myself that I'm pretty much a hermit. On the bright side, I like people and when it comes to interacting I'm social enough. For awhile I tried to work on the feelings that lead me to avoidance/withdrawal, trying to replace ones with negative feeling tones with positive ones. I don't think I was very successful with this, however.

[jimkleban]

10 Goals for 2020

It’s the time for the 6th straight year of bravely posting my personal goals (I’ve been doing these going back to 2015.) A review of how I did against the goals in 2019 is here: https://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/190303552014/my-2019-in-review.

Themes for 2020

2020!!!! The start of a new decade! 2020, should all go well, will have us enjoying the trip of a lifetime as a family as we complete our travels around the world and then settle back into jobs and lives in Seattle. This year’s goals are mostly about putting new interests, learning, and points of view developed in this time abroad into practice. The goals here aren’t particularly new compared to past years, but the balance of time (free time) means my investment in them is different than normal. Here’s to the start of a great decade!

10 Goals for 2020

1) Refresh, recharge, and enjoy the trip of a lifetime.

Last July, we embarked as a family on a trip around the world. Since August we have been living in Bali with the girls enrolled in a small school and have been taking trips around Southeast Asia. The original goals of this trip were to: 1) find space to return to ourselves and figure out where we want to grow next, 2) make connections with a place we would want to return to later, 3) remind us that there is much more to life than America, 4) explore what a different working style could be like, and 5) have key experiences like working or volunteering abroad. If things go well, perhaps we would do this again after some time. Most of these goals have been met with our new Bali lifestyle and Elizabeth working as a volunteer for Plastic Bank. In 2020, the goal is to complete the journey and make the most of our time on the road before returning in the Summer.

2) Ship some travel projects.

Leaving a full time job to go travel long term is a bit like retiring. When we are not moving there is a lot of time to extra learn, read, and work on hobbies and projects. I already started a coding project building filters for photographs. The goal in 2020 will be to land some of the travel projects by 1) continuing to publish photos and blog posts, 2) landing a website for the image filters, and 3) finding another start-up project until we’re back and employed.

3) Invest in the children’s education and lifetime learning.

Although the girls are enrolled in a school in Bali we do take a lot of time away to travel during breaks and visa runs. During these times I have been homeschooling Chloe and Jasmine, and this has been an eye-opening experience. Teaching is hard! There are so many educational resources available today and they are not just for teaching children. The goal in 2020 is to continue homeschooling as a supplement through to the next school year, understand and get the girls involved more in self-directed learning, and also to complete at least 4 online courses myself (like Bahasa Indonesia in Duolingo.) It took me too long that in today’s world schooling gets in the way of education.

4) Rejoin the working world.

We plan to be back in the US by July, and although part-time, remote, or some other alternative work arrangement sounds appealing someday for now I would like to start by seeking a conventional, full-time, grade A USA prime 100% tech job when I get back. The goal in 2020 is to research interesting tech areas and opportunities in Seattle and reach out in the Spring to apply and interview and get back to work!

5) Set revised and new atomic daily habits.

For awhile (2+ years!) now I’ve been using the Momentum app to track a set of positive/negative daily habits. Tracking these activities helps provide feedback as I build new behaviors. I came across the idea of atomic habits (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D23CFGR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1,) small things done daily to help change happen slowly compound over time. A new year means a reset for these and keeping some old ones and adding some new ones. The goal here will be to add 3 new challenging atomic habits and follow through: a social one, a learning one, and a project-based one.

6) Kill social avoidance.

I am an introvert and although I am very happy with the power of quiet. However, I don’t particularly like the awkward feelings I have about making small talk and approaching strangers. Too often I avoid people. Sadly, while traveling this means I miss out on many wonderful encounters. The goal here is to work with these feelings of avoidance and overcome them somehow. I’m not sure how I’ll measure this yet (talk to one new person each day?)

7) Keep up the daily meditation & yoga practice. 

I started my meditation practice shortly after turning 40 in 2016 and have been doing daily meditation and yoga for 3 years now. In Bali, I’ve had the time and space to deepen this practice by further developing the capacity of letting go. Spiritual goals are sort of silly, so the 2020 non-goal will be to keep up the daily practice, rejoin my Seattle meditation group when I return, and find at least one retreat to attend (I skipped this in 2019.) 

8) Moderate and cultivate, especially around having a healthy information diet. 

I love beer and coffee, and when you live in Bali and have no responsibilities it is all too easy to order either one or the other depending on the clock while foregoing water completely. And yet, I have enough sensitivity to see this acts as a major sink of energy. The same goes for social media. Sugar seems to be an apt enough analogy in the sense some use is fine, but these products are designed to be addictive and excessive (badges, notifs, emails, feeds that are like spinning a slot machine?) In 2020, I am starting the year with a monthly long detox from the alcohol, caffeine, and social media products I use: FB, IG, and twitter. After January, I will shift back to moderate use, so the goal is to stay within the limits I set there. As a surrogate for social media, I want to fill my information diet instead with a curated list of high quality publications.9)

9) Read 24 books.

Writing is thinking and reading done right is also thinking. Goal this year again (which I haven’t quite ever hit) is to read 24 books. Maybe with more time this will be the year. I also plan to do a review and try to identify at least 12 of the 24 as great books to read based on recommendations. Any books to recommend?10) Improve in the art of photography. I’ve really enjoyed photography as I travel as a hobby and I’ve learned a lot in the past year about lighting, lens types, post-processing, computational photography, and other trends. Everyone is a photographer now (thanks to Instagram) and while some pros complain this has taken the sex and money out of photos I actually think now is the best time ever to be a hobbyist. The goal in 2020 is to keep refining my photography by taking some courses and developing a style.

10) Improve in the art of photography. 

I’ve really enjoyed photography as I travel as a hobby and I’ve learned a lot in the past year about lighting, lens types, post-processing, computational photography, and other trends. Everyone is a photographer now (thanks to Instagram) and while some pros complain this has taken the sex and money out of photos I actually think now is the best time ever to be a hobbyist. The goal in 2020 is to keep refining my photography by taking some courses and developing a style.

Closing

If all goes well in 2020 we will have been successful in our travel abroad and in the adage, “One’s destination is never a journey but rather a new way of looking at things.” My hope is that a return to Seattle finds us looking at the possibilities in our lives around work, learning, love, and how we see the world in ways that are forever changed with a positive arc.

[jimkleban]

My 2019 in Review

2019 finds me filled with gratitude - living the dream. I am with my girls 5+ months into a trip around the world. This was a big year where I quit a very good job, processed the loss of my father, and found lots of time for thinking and reflection in Bali.

A Few Things I Learned

You can get a lot done when you push for what you believe in. Develop a point of view and fight for it. As I wrapped up my job on the misinformation team at Facebook, I came to realize that I both cared about the success of the program after I was leaving and that I also had nothing to lose (since I was quitting.) For the last couple of months on the job I became more vocal and active in pushing for the things I thought would help the team. It was a lesson I wish I had learned earlier in my career and a behavior I had often seen in the successful people around me. It was a good, final period of growth in my time working at a great company.

Long term travel is a beautiful bonding experience for a family. When you travel in your twenties the trip can be quite the trip. You encounter dangerous characters, near death experiences, and other thrills and formative encounters. Traveling with a family is much more benign, the risks taken are a lot fewer, and a good deal of it is about creating memories together. Sure, there are fun experiences, too, and lots of time for learning new things and reflection.

Learning is limitless and for the best of us will last a lifetime. When you are busy with a job, kids, a house, and other responsibilities it is easy to stop learning, stop doing new things. We all need comfort and time to chill out. After leaving work and moving to Bali, I have had much more time to explore interests that I’ve put aside for a long time. There is so much out there and the opportunities with online education are boundless. Learning itself can be an identity, and I hope we all can see ourselves as lifetime students and prioritize time for learning new things - not just when there is more free time.

Overall

I had 10 goals for 2019 (https://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/181761010059/10-goals-for-2019.) Out of the 10 goals, 3 went well, 5 showed mixed results, and 2 didn’t work out.

Went Well

Be more active as a parent. This wasn’t perfect in terms of all of the limits, chores, activities, and involvement a devoted parent can undertake. However, traveling with the kids blows all of that out of the water. In the past 6 months we’ve done so many things together - swimming, homeschooling, arts and crafts, building, playing - a real bond has been created. I’ll miss having so much time with the girls.

Decide when to embark on a year living outside of America. This was the year! We pulled the trigger on out life goal of living abroad for a year while the kids are young. We have been using the time way to reset, rejuvenate, get involved, and learn a new language. We are on target for a summer 2020 return to the States.

Keep up the daily meditation & yoga practice. I’ve had a daily practice now for 2 straight years without missing a day (and 3 years total.) Devoting time to sitting means changes in how one sees the world and at least some time each day to be pulled back into simply what is. Yoga, a moving meditation, enhances strength, balance, and flexibility but also I’ve found changes the way I move the body and lets me relax and breath vs. tensing up when stressed.  

Mixed Results

Read 24 great books. I read a lot but my attention was often scattered by internet reading. I ended up finishing 16 books and have made progress through 8 others. I didn’t do well mixing up the topics, though, and mostly read books on non-duality/buddhism.

Nurture my marriage. While there were plenty of sweet and kind moments, I still can be much better in this category. Elizabeth and I spent a wonderful 10th anniversary on a kid-free ski trip in Montana, and we also have the bonding of traveling together. It’s just so hard for me sometimes to have enough patience with those closest to us. I am learning.

Contemplate how my father’s death can lead to positive change. We held the memorial for my father in January and I wrote a long, touching eulogy. It was especially meaningful to see all of my aunts and uncles again who I hadn’t seen in a long time. This was a year of integrating the loss, and recently I had the vision that my father wanted me to end mourning and go on building my life and loving fully. This could be better if I was better at being there for my mother and brothers, but instead I reside on the opposite side of the world.

Design my surroundings to increase positive and reduce negative influences. I spent a lot of time learning about habit and contemplating the effect places and objects around us have on our psychology. I decluttered the house (object-wise) as a first step in the redesign, but then that was put on hold with the travel. We also were pretty selective with where we live in Bali in honor of this idea. This could have been better if coupled with more major changes to the house in Seattle.

Spend time getting fit in nature. I had the aim to exercise (hike or run or cycle) in nature at least 50 times this past year instead of doing any races. I spent a fair amount of time in nature (52 days), and while not all of them were working out I did manage to do a lot of swimming this year. This could have been better if I had done more hiking trips.

Didn’t Work Out

Improve at building and maintaining relationships. For my personality, traveling made relationship building much harder! When you are moving around a lot you might bump into people, but as an introvert I don’t often find myself talking with strangers. Also while moving there are fewer opportunities to make close friends. So this year I spent more time with family than I otherwise would have wanted to do with this goal. 

Grow as a coach, teacher, and mentor. This was hard too with moving, as this goal also requires reaching out more to others. I’ve influenced people in many ways over the years, and I feel like I have a lot more to give back.

[jimkleban]

10 Goals for 2019

At the beginning of every year (going back to 2015), I come up with a set of New Year’s resolutions and publish them as motivation. Here is my list for 2019. 

Themes for 2019

The 2019 goals feel different. There are a lot fewer achievement-oriented goals and a lot more commitments to be grander as a person in my relationships. I wonder what has caused this change. 

As for themes, this year has the kids sweet as ever (turning 7 and 4) and in school. Elizabeth is interviewing now and will likely resume her career. 2019 marks my 5 year work anniversary at Facebook, which means I am eligible for a one month sabbatical, which we are likely to spend in another country.

Here are my 10 resolutions for 2019.

1) Read 24 great books. 

Reading is a great habit. This year I want to make a reading list that comes from more diverse perspectives, consists of highly regarded/rated books, and includes a few books designed to get me out of 'group think.'

2) Be more active as a parent. 

There is room for improvement in the daily family routine. This year the goal is to systematize family planning, chores, and putting healthy limits on screen time. I also want to be aware of the girls' school calendars and find a way to be involved at least once a quarter.

3) Improve at building and maintaining relationships. 

I'm not particularly good at keeping up with people, and I would like to strengthen my IRL social network. Since my introverted personality doesn’t  have me spending free time with new people necessarily (especially as work and family already take up so much of it,) the goal here is to set up a process that gets me out and about more.

4) Nurture my marriage.

This year is our tenth anniversary! Nurturing to me means putting emphasis on helping each other cultivate more positive mind states. My intention is to make this year overflow with romantic, caring love and do what it takes to make everyday feel like when we first started dating. I acknowledge this takes work and so I made it a goal. 

5) Contemplate how my father's death can lead to positive change.

Losing a parent has not been easy, but there are lessons in the grief and a call to live more fully. We will hold a memorial in January, and after I want to take time to reflect and find ways to grow into a more generous person. I want to be available more for my extended family, my mother and brother Nick.

6) Decide when to embark on a year living outside of America.

Is this the year? Elizabeth and I share a life goal of living abroad for a year while the kids are young (before high school) as a way to reset, rejuvenate, and learn a new language. 2019 could be the year! The goal is to plan and make a call by the Spring on whether it is and if so bon voyage.

7) Keep up the daily meditation & yoga practice. 

I maintained my daily practice every day in 2018 and the fruits of this made a big difference in my life. I also feel ready for a 'next step' in the training although it isn't exactly clear what that means right now. I’m setting a goal to continue the daily practice.

8) Design my surroundings to increase positive and reduce negative influences. 

I’ve learned that many of our thoughts & feelings and even speech & actions can be influenced unconsciously by what we have in our environment. The goal is to use that insight to guide adjustments that are more aligned with my other goals and with my values in general. The starting goal, to give a tangible example, will be to rearrange the house - room by room - around a purpose with the idea of reducing distracting clutter. 

9) Spend time getting fit in nature.

I often have physical goals like climbing a mountain or running a marathon. This year, instead of specific events, my physical goal will be to spend more time 'exercising the body and mind' out in nature, aiming for 50+ sessions. The outdoors are calming, challenging, and beautiful and I want to take advantage of Seattle’s proximity to nature more often.

10) Grow as a coach, teacher, and mentor. 

Cultivate more opportunities inside and outside of work to spend time helping other people learn and grow. This may include spending time as a mentor in my local community, teaching kids how to code, or just helping people out more frankly. I have found the times I’ve done this in the past to be very rewarding.

Closing

Ten goals that (mostly) aren’t really quantified. I guess deep down my mood this year is wanting to be a better person instead of a more accomplished one. If I keep this up I’ll be a saint by 60, but worry not, sinners, maybe I’ll make next year’s goals pure debauchery. Happy 2019!

[jimkleban]

My 2018 in Review

2018 was a BIG year in terms of growth and change, and it feels like things that happened are just beginnings. I joined a new team at Facebook - fighting misinformation - leading to a thrilling, at-times surreal journey through the midterm elections. My father passed away at age 63 of cancer at the end of November, and I am still working through the grieving process. There were trips (all-domestic!) to New York, Alaska, Florida, Washington DC, Michigan, and Hawaii along with the many visits to California. 

2018 finds my girls splendid. Chloe, 6, started first grade, is an excellent reader, and creative and sweet. Jasmine, 3, is still wild but maybe a little less animal-like, and she is learning to show her sweet side.

Also this year, I did a lot of personal work through meditation practice. The practice brought me kicking and screaming into the realms of self therapy.

A Few Things I Learned

- Meaningful work is worth seeking. I spent time reflecting on ‘purpose’ in 2018, and almost by happenstance the chance to work on a ‘cause’ I believed in at work fell into my lap. I’ve never felt so motivated and proud of my work before, and I’m promising myself never again to work on something I don’t believe in fully as long as I have the power to choose. Being vocal about what you believe in attracts opportunities.

- Losing a parent is a major life event that triggers unexpected openings along with grief. I’m finding grieving to be a largely unconscious process, much of what is happening seems to be going on underneath the surface, so to speak, and happening in dreams. I didn’t expect my father passing to teach me so much about dying and lead to me to see my own role in life (as a protector) in new, positive ways.

- Sitting in a room every morning simply watching what’s happening on the inside leads to profound and wonderful effects. Meditation may be overhyped, but I’m an advocate. My life has changed in wonderful ways and I’d encourage everyone to, well, just sit. I’ll write up later a bit on what I learned in 2018, and I would recommend the book The Mind Illuminated highly to those interested in comprehensive self-instruction.  

Overall

I had 10 goals for 2018 (http://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/169204505004/10-resolutions-for-2018). Out of the 10 goals, 4 went well, 3 showed mixed results, and 3 didn’t work out.

Went Well

1) Beginner’s mind product management.

Professionally, I rebooted and built a lot new habits that felt effective. And although I feel like there is still a lot of room for growth a few things I did that I think really helped were: 1) maintaining a to-do list and weekly prioritization, 2) organizing a product management coaching circle at Facebook from whom I learned a ton, and 3) moving to a new team and taking the move to be a ‘restart’ in many ways.

2) Keep up the meditation practice.

I sat every single day in 2018. This led to an abundance of beautiful and meaningful insights. There is more to learn, and in 2019 the goal will be to keep up the discipline and find new ways to level up.

3) Reflect on the idea of living with a purpose.

I spent a good amount of time reflecting on what this means exactly, writing up some personal thoughts, and thinking about long term goals and values. I think this has led to some changes - in both what I want and the work I do.

4) Stand up for my country.

I’m passionate about preserving the institutions of liberalism: reason, science, humanism, and democracy - the gifts of humanity that could easily slide back into the norms of authoritarianism and superstition. This passion manifested itself in my role fighting misinformation and perhaps, in a small way, mitigating some of the harms to democracy brought about by social media by working from the inside.

Mixed Results

5) Learn what makes a great parent.

Although I gave up a lot of time I spent on solo activities (e.g. marathon, physical training) to be with my family more, I didn’t have as much energy and time as I wanted both to have more quality time and to learn more. Still more to do here.

6) Read 24 books.

I read 18 books https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/10483483.  

7) Keep the day-to-day energy level high throughout the year.

I tracked my daily energy level each day, and a histogram for the year isn’t too surprising: it’s probably normally distributed, and the average was 5.12. There were 150 days with energy level 6 out of 10 or higher, my goal was to have 300 of these. So I guess the mixed part of this is the exercise helped me learn what impacts this the most (surprise: low energy is often alcohol the night before.)

Didn’t Work Out

8) Not hit the wall this year in endurance events.

In 2018 I ran 0 endurance events! (Although I had trained (20+ mile runs) for the Rock n’ Roll marathon in June) Family and work took precedence, and this feels like the right tradeoff. The key will be to find other ways to get back into shape that don’t sacrifice so much family time.

9) Synthesis of synthesis.

I wanted to spend time on artfulness: composition, music, art, cooking, the like, so I can learn a bit on what it means to create by pulling together and combining elements. This never got off the ground, to be honest.

10) Travel to a new country.

Usually this is an easy one for us, as we prioritize travel. Although I went on a lot of trips in 2018 (see above,) somehow they all kept me in the U.S.... 

[jimkleban]

10 Resolutions For 2018

In 2015, my second daughter Jasmine was born, I climbed Mt. Rainier, and I took the family on a three month trip around the world. In 2016, I made the transition into product management at Facebook, I helped my wife Elizabeth start her business Craveries, and as I turned 40 I celebrated it trekking in a remote part of Iceland. In 2017, Chloe started kindergarten, I set up a daily meditation practice, and I chose to voice dissent.

What are the themes for 2018? Jasmine is turning 3 and Elizabeth will take steps back into a career. Success feels within reach at my work as the pieces fall into place for a greatly improved Facebook Search product. The mountains continue to call as always, and this year I want to push on some limits. Themes to explore include the art of synthesis, the meaning of purpose, and how to maintain healthy day-to-day energy.

Here are my 10 resolutions for 2018.

1) Learn what makes a great parent.

Almost 6 years into being a father, I have to admit I’ve just been winging it. I want to learn what makes people into great parents and what it takes to raise strong, independent, kind daughters. I’ll probably do some research on this, and one goal is to spend at least 30 minutes a week with the girls doing a high quality activity: e.g ski, sailing, drawing, cycling, science experiments, building, and so on.

2) Read 24 books.

Last year, I read 12 books and parts of at least 9 others. My reading tailed off in the summer as I as training more (falling asleep easily) and spending more time on social networks. I’ll try and spend at least 30 minutes a day reading.

3) Keep the day-to-day energy level high throughout the year. 

Last year, I detoxed (kicked habits) just to reintroduce them. How I felt between March and October were worlds apart. The metabolic system with caffeine, sugar, alcohol, poor diet, and device-mediated dopamine cycles ultimately reduces levels of energy and readiness, at the cost of living fully. The intention here is have 300+ high energy days as I find ways to balance these cycles.

4) Not hit the wall this year in endurance events.

Last year, I got crushed in the latter stages of my marathon and 70.3 triathlon events. I think was do to a combination of genetics, under training, and bad energy management. This year, the goal is to complete a full marathon without hitting the wall, tack on some triathlon, and aim to climb 2 new mountains (Mt. Adams? Shuksan?) Bonus would be to find time to do a back country skiing expedition (cabin to cabin) over a long weekend. Also, time to make this a family affair - run at least one race with my wife Elizabeth and my brother Chris.

5) Beginner’s mind product management. 

In 2017, I’ve thought a bit about what comes next in my career after Facebook. Tech has great potential as a driver of progress, but so much of it is a double-edged sword. We stay connected at the cost of the pull of screens. While I think this out some more, I realized I also have a *ton* to learn about what it takes to really lead a team building great software. I’ve made a list of areas where I’m relatively weak as a product manager, and in 2018 I’m committing to change my behavior to beef up these areas. I’m lucky to have some of the world’s best PMs as colleagues, so the other goal here is to actively learn more from them. 

6) Synthesis of synthesis. 

New skills keep the mind youthful. This year, I intend to explore the art of pulling things together, selecting the right elements, placing parts in the right place, combining them to make a cohesive, new whole. Synthesis in 3 areas where I’m basically a beginner - cooking, drawing, and music composition.

7) Travel to a new country.

Traveling is part of my soul. The goal in 2018 is simple enough. Pick a new country and go. I have been to very few places in the South Pacific and Africa. How about Palau or Ghana? I would also like to see the northern lights.

8) Keep up the meditation practice.

Over the course of last year, I set up a practice and made strides in concentration and mindfulness. I also learned a lot about what we experience moment to moment, just from committing to watching. There is more to learn, the goal is to keep the discipline.

9) Reflect on the idea of living with a purpose.

Free will may be an illusion, but our intentions lead to decisions which in turn lead to outcomes and a changed world. What guides our intentions? Why do we want what we want? I want to spend some time 2018 thinking about what it means to have purpose in how we choose to spend our time and resources. Is purpose just a story we tell ourselves? A delusion of belief? Or is there something real and powerful behind the idea of finding and having a life’s work?

10) Stand up for my country.

Last year I was vocal politically at a not insignificant cost. A large part of me detests it. Why do something so disagreeable? I am of the belief that the integrity of our democracy needs allies right now, and no one is too small to make a difference. As long as this belief remains merited by evidence, I will continue to speak and take action. 2018 elections are coming and may be a decisive turning point in our history.

Thanks for reading and as always I invite you to join me in any my follies. The optimist in me sees every year as the best year in human history when viewed from larger time scales. May 2018 be another pinnacle year for you, too. 

[jimkleban]

2017 Resolutions in Review

Every year I set some goals, this is a quick review of what I set out to do this year.

2017 was a great year from many perspectives. The highlights were Chloe starting kindergarten, seeing my father play a rock n’ roll gig in a backyard in New Jersey, trips to Hawaii, New York, and Scandinavia, and the humble feeling that comes with learning just how much there still is to learn about how to live. 

The lowlight was getting over interested in politics and spending too much energy following news outside of my control, and having to choose between being vocal about beliefs and risking alienating friends & family.

A Few Things I Learned

- Intentions are a powerful difference maker. Free will is likely an illusion. We make thousands of decisions every day based on whims, desires, and feelings outside of our control. However, intentions can be set (free will or no) and strong intentions can tip bad habits or learn new behaviors, which in term change outcomes.

- “It’s never going to be over, so stop waiting for the good stuff”. I asked a teacher of mine what I wasn’t seeing well, and she pointed me to a book on modern masculinity. I was carrying around an idea that ‘once X happens, I will free be free to really do Y,” and I learned that it’s utter bullshit. X never is done. The art is do to Y bravely right now without needed to finish X.

- The fullness of love that I have, others have had for me. I was simply blown away one evening when I realized that the overwhelming love I have for my child is just as my parents have felt for me. What a gift to be able to go through life free to give unconditional love, simply for having received it.

Overall Score

I had 11 resolutions for 2017 (http://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/155542225799/11-resolutions-for-2017), here is roughly how they worked out ... Out of 11 goals, 4 were completed, 4 were mixed, 3 didn’t work out. If it were a college GPA this year was a 2.5. 

Nailed It!

1) Alcohol, caffeine, sugar detox.

I went four months of varying detox-es - alcohol and caffeine, then sugar, then meat/healthy diet. Eventually I got bored, satisfied I could do it. Sadly, et the end of the year, I found myself needing another break and fondly remembering how great I felt earlier. Grade: B+.

2) Daily yoga & mindfulness practice.

I rocked this. Daily yoga made it as far as August (with less now), and I probably did 300 or so meditation sessions this year, nearly every day. I learned a lot from this practice this year. Grade: A.

3) Trick out the jeep a little.

Lift: check, new wheels/tires: check, running boards: check. It’s kind of silly. Grade: A.

4) Travel to a new country

We went to Norway and Finland for 2 weeks in Aug/September. Norway was expensive, the people much more friendly than expected, and the clean/small/woody aesthetic resonated well with us. We saw our friends Tommy & Ellen in Finland and stayed in their family cabin on a magical wooded island. Family sauna. Grade: A. 

Mixed Results

5) Read 20 books. 

Twenty sounded do-able. I got to 12, but with enough half progress of books I felt mostly engaged reading-wise. I gave reading more dedicated time in the beginning and end of the year, missed the middle. Grade: C.

6) Complete a long triathlon, marathon, and climb 2 mountains. Set new personal records this year in all categories. I completed all of the activities (one 70.3 length tri, 1 marathon, shasta & mt. st.helens), but wasn’t close to any PRs (except in half-marathon). Grade: B.

7) Teach Chloe to swim, sail, skate, and ski.

I gave a decent number of weekend afternoons to take Chloe skating or skiing. This would have been better, but the swimming/sailing didn’t happen in the summer. Grade: C.

8) Invest in relationships

Perennially on my list, but in the end I don’t ever do as much as this as I would like to. Work and family take up a lot of my energy, and I’m not naturally very social. Next year! Grade: C-.

Didn’t Work Out :(.

9) Mentor my brother Nick.

I had set up weekly calls with Nick, but these really only lasted a couple months or so. Also tried to get him to spend the summer in Seattle to no avail. I guess it wasn’t really my fault, but I could have tried harder. Grade: C-.

10) Complete deep learning side project.

Spent until May reading Longfellow’s book and taking most of Hinton’s online class. I did install Tensorflow and was able to run the examples on my Nvidia GPU, but lost steam & time as the summer came along. Grade: D.

11) Dive deep into photography hobby.

Took plenty of photos with the Fuji XT-10. I love the setup, but I didn’t really push myself to learn nor did I take any of the two online classes I wanted to. I had been planning to do this later in the year and by end of summer I pretty much wasn’t working towards these goals. Grade: D.

[jimkleban]

One Month of Detoxication

This last month, starting December 19th, I decided I would break my habit of routine coffee and beer drinking. My day-to-day had been full of fatigue, and each day started with caffeine and ended with beer. This is a quick post with observations over the last month and some tips.

tl;dr - I broke some habits (for now). I feel great. Tips for doing the same at the end.

Background

I started drinking coffee my freshman year in college, and I was immediately hooked. I felt euphoria in those early years, after a cup or two. Over the years this habit built and built until finally becoming the equivalent of 5-6 cups per day at work. With this much caffeine I was no longer feeling euphoria, I was feeling worn out. Beerwise, a couple of years ago I started  a foolish quest to drink 300 different beers in 300 days. The end result was I finished the challenge, (in more like 600 days,) but completing it left me with a drinking habit (I was having 2-4 beers per day.) 

I decided it was time for a change, and vowed one month of no alcohol or coffee.

Detoxification Progress Over the Month

I started by limiting myself to two cups of green tea per day and cutting alcohol completely. I added some healthy practices to my detoxication quest: daily yoga and meditation, figuring these would help me mentally along. I learned ashtanga yoga in India in 2004 and so resumed this as a morning practice. Every day I wrote down my progress.

The caffeine withdrawal symptoms were the hardest part of the month. For more than the first two weeks!, I felt a tiring mix of nausea, dizziness, fatigue, headache, and unease. I didn’t really have mental cravings, but the physical feeling was tough. For the first week or so, I periodically took 400mg of ibuprofen to ease the pain. Strangely, the withdrawal symptoms were worse at night and interfered with getting a good sleep. 

On the alcohol front, the hardest part was doing this over the holidays - a time when you see friends and people are drinking. I stuck fast to my detox story and apart from the occasional good-natured ribbing or booing, this was pretty straightforward. I didn’t have any noticeable physical withdrawal and few mental cravings in this first month, but lately at the end of a day or week when I am feeling tired I do seem to want a beer. 

Whenever I needed a break at work or a beverage, I chose to drink an herbal tea. For the first few weeks, instead of coffee I ate candies: chocolate bars, etc... I think I was going through sugar reduction, too. These candies were easy enough to quit eating, too, as time went on.

Observations

I feel like a new man. Granted, causality is hard to attribute (I made a lot of change at once: + yoga, + meditation, - caffeine, - alcohol) and this is a subjective report. However, there is no reason not to do all 4 of these (or similar variation) for yourself and see the impact. A few things I noticed:

- I started waking up real early (6 AM) despite never being a morning person. I no longer have a feeling of grogginess waking up.

- After yoga & sitting ends at around 7:30 AM, I have more time than usual to plan my day. I had extra time to intentionally read things of interest to me. By the time work started, I have clear objectives mapped out.

- Almost every day, I do not feel fatigued in the same way I did. The lots of ups and downs that come and go with coffee drinking are gone. Tiredness sets in only at the very end of the day when I am ready for sleep.

- I have a lot more intentionality throughout the day. I feel more capable of changing any habit or pattern in my life.

Tips

Here are some things I would recommend doing for trying to break similar habits:

- Caffeine withdrawal was tough. Ibuprofen helped a lot with the physical discomfort. I also didn’t go cold turkey. I started by dropping down to 2 cups green tea (~500mg/day caffeine to 100mg/day) and then to 1 cup.

- Try doing this during a non-busy time of year. I timed this at the end of the calendar year when works slows, before new projects started.

- Track. Every morning I added a row to a spreadsheet where I noted: yoga, meditation, exercise, diet, caffeine, alcohol, and notes. I felt proud to be adding the days, even when they were hard in the beginning. 

- Social Reinforcement. I told others, friends and family, what I was trying to do. This motivated me to keep going. People start to help you when you tell them your intentions. My brother bought me detox tea for Christmas.

- Add an exercise commitment at the same time. Working out in some form (I chose yoga, but it could easily have been running or something else) added to the overall feeling of positivity.

- Keep Going. Why go back when the month is done? Instead, I merely changed the detox to be more diet focused, by also cutting out added sugar. I now allow myself a drink or coffee once a week, but I don’t usually bother

[jimkleban]

11 Resolutions for 2017

Every year I come up with a big list of goals about half of which I typically end up completing. For 2017, I made an effort to decrease the number of goals and time required so these would be more manageable. I also plan on making these ‘monthly’ resolutions, as in each month I will check in, assess, and re-goal.

1) Mentor my brother Nick.

Nick lives in North Carolina where he is finishing a Physics degree at UNC. He’s at the point where he wants to find his way in the world. This goal is to make a plan to talk to Nick once a week. Help him through his coursework, help build up his self confidence. Find a way to collaborate on a project of some sort with him.

2) Read 20 books.

Every year I have a reading goal. The last 3 years the goals were: 50, 35, and 25 books, and I have ended up reading 22, 9, 14 respectively so I don’t quite make it. This year the number is 20.

3) Alcohol, caffeine, sugar detox.

In December, I started a ‘detox’ where I pledged to reduce caffeine (from about 6 cups of coffee a day to 2 cups of green tea) and abstain from alcohol for one month. Three weeks in I feel great! This goal is to keep the detox going into the year, staying away from added sugar where possible, too. Coffee and drinks would be for special occasions.

4) Daily yoga & mindfulness practice.

Also in December, I re-kicked off my yoga/meditation practice. Goal is to start each day with focused stretching & breathing.

5) Complete a long triathlon, marathon, and climb 2 mountains. Set new personal records this year in all categories.

My personal records for these shouldn’t be too hard to beat (despite my aging): Olympic length tri - 2:57, long format tri - 5:57, half-marathon - 1:48, marathon - 3:55. Here is an event calendar, anyone up for joining me?

Event Calendar:

- Rock & Roll Marathon - Sat, June 18

- Lake Meridian Olympic Tri - Sat, Aug 12

- Black Diamond 70.3 Tri - Saturday, Sept 9

- Seattle Marathon - Sunday, Nov 26

A few interesting mountains:

Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Shuksan, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. Shasta

6) Complete deep learning side project.

This is a stay relevant project. Read the textbook. Perhaps work through an online course. Pick up online tools like Caffe and/or Tensorflow. Train & build a net. Github the results, and offer as a service.

7) Dive deep into photography hobby.

I love making photos - especially travel, street and nature. I love how you can always improve how you see and compose. This year I would like to learn a lot more about cameras, optics, and printing, and gift some work to friends & family.

8) Teach Chloe to swim, sail, skate, and ski.

Lessons and time. Chloe will turn 5 this year, and this goal is about spending time with her and teaching her things that I love to do myself. Things that let you fly. Things that build independence.

9) Trick out the jeep a little.

Yes, I’m a sad techie urbanite and I rarely get off the city roads. Still, why not have a bit more fun? New tires/rims, running boards, and a suspension lift would look great. I saw this jeep (same color as mine, Sahara trim) in Miami:

10) Invest in relationships

Socialize more. Work & family over the last 6 months has left little time for friends & networking. I’ll try to not do any of the above projects alone. Find people online & offline to ask about photography, yoga, meditation, running/working out. Ask friends if they want to join. Find partners & classes for the physical goals.

11) Travel to a new country

Traveling is part of my soul. The goal in 2017 is simple enough. Pick a new country and go. I have been to very few places in the South Pacific and Africa. How about Palau or Ghana?

[jimkleban]

My Sixteen 2016 Resolutions

New goals for a new turn around the sun. This is the 3rd year I’ve published my New Year’s goals and I took a different approach this time. I started with the realization that, as I turn 40, the long term can no longer be indefinitely in the future. So I made a list of the achievements that I’d be happy with as life winds down in forty more years. I then filled in the steps to make these bigger dreams happen. So in 2016, this year’s list has a few of these mixed in with the usual short term goals. I won’t say which is which.

1) Make 2016 a year of making things together.

In 2016, I will work with my family and undertake 30-50 DIY projects (of mostly small scale.) These can be anything from cooking to carpentry, gardening, and artistry. The aim of this is to teach ourselves how things work and how to make them and to have fun doing this together. At the end of the year, I hope we have a few blog posts recorded what we’ve created.

2) Help Elizabeth launch her business.

Elizabeth left her job at REI last year with the birth of our second daughter. Now that we’re back from our family travels, she had the option of going back to a 9-5 job, being a full-time stay at home parent, or doing something in-between. We decided to give a small business idea of hers around delivering curated picnic baskets a shot. We’re in ideation phase and now and having fun already. In 2016, my goal is to do everything I can to get her dream business up and running and have this generating revenue by end of year.

3) Embark on the Facebook recruiting world tour.

I love telling stories and I want to get more experience with public speaking. In the field I work in (applied machine learning,) I believe there is an instructive story to weave about how Facebook uses ML at scale to do things people are very familiar with - like decide which stories to show in news feed. A few places I can think of giving this talk (i.e. places I have some friends) include UCSB, UWashington, MIT, QMU London, and MLConf Seattle.

4) Ponder the Universe and Life on a 40th birthday Iceland summer hike.

Why feel old sitting indoors at home when you can feel old outside in a tent instead? Especially if you can do it in an amazing otherworldly place like Iceland? As a special way to observe hitting the top of the hill in October, I am planning a week long trek with some family and close friends. Laugavegur? Somewhere else? Not sure yet but let me know if you want to come along.

5) Bring the Brothers Kleban together.

Family is irreplaceable and I’m lucky to have two brothers (one of whom is already living in Seattle.) The goal this year is to help our youngest brother Nick get on his feet as he graduates college and get him to move to Seattle if possible. He’s a physics major at UNC and I think he’d make a great data scientist (although he doesn’t know it yet.)

6) Complete a 50 mile ultra marathon.

Ah, a physical goal. These are my favorites. In my past five years in Seattle I have been slowly counting off endurance goals: marathons, triathlons, climbing glaciated mountains. Ironically, it turns out that the farther I run without my family the more I love them! The next step for 2016 will be an ULTRAmarathon. This goal gets me training again this year and should really test my stamina (I’m completely spent after a standard marathon.) Old man strength and having daughters should get me through. As part of this goal, I’ll try and hit 365 miles of running this year.

7) Finish a draft of my sci-fi novella, Cetea.

This last year while on paternity leave, I spent a few weeks drafting the plot, characters and themes for a science fiction story about an artificially intelligent celebrity whale who stuns the world by vanishing. This year, I’d like to iron the cliches out of the story, develop the main character more, and then get to writing the damn book.

8) Complete my quest to drink 500 different beers and post their pictures on the web.

As of today, I’m 220 beers into my quest to reach 500. The plan is to keep at building my appreciation for beer, make a catalog of beers I love, and fuel my running with fermented carbs. This Christmas, my brother bought me a home brewing kit so I’m throw in the kicker goal of making my own batches of beer.

9) Nerd out with neural networks.

There have been a lot of fun generative RNN projects where neural networks trained on a corpus of work can synthesize outputs that are almost humanlike in their creativity (for instance, Bob Sturm’s Eight Short Outputs.) I’d like to dig into the code Andrei Karpathy has shared and see if I can find a fun way to apply it in the area of image processing (photographs.) This could be a fun project to do with Nick and perhaps set up an interactive website.

10) Ski in the backcountry.

Get trained up on avalanche dangers, properly equipped, find some mates willing to take a n00b along, skin up and shred down. I’ve been snowboarding a while, this year I want to get going with my Madshus cross-country downhill setup more. Success here looks like at least 6 backcountry trips in 2016.

11) Read 25 books.

I tried and failed to reach 50 books in 2014 (read ~21). I tried and failed to read 30 books in 2015 (read a meager 9.) In 2016, the goal is 25 books. I have quite a collection at home already, and I’m about halfway through 5 so I’m optimistic this year I’ll exceed this goal.

12) Celebrate my father’s 60th birthday & retirement at Disney World.

Last year while we were traveling, my father turned 60, retired, and he and my mother moved from Raleigh to Jacksonville, Florida. He has had a lot of heart problems, so we have to cherish whatever time we have. The goal here is to make a visit in April, bring the family to Disney in nearby Orlando, and set up something special for this new phase of my parent’s life.

13) Continue learning by MOOC-ing it up a few times. 

Complete 3 or more courses or sequences online. These can be Coursera, Udacity, Khan Academy, Duolingo, etc. A few areas that interest me: statistics, data science, graphical modeling, R, Spark… as well as courses in languages (French ?) and music. It’s important to keep on learning.

14) Publish 200 great photographs on 500px.

500px is an online community where people upload their best photographs for feedback. As a develop my interest in photography (I bought a Fuji XT-10 with some nice lenses in Japan,) I wish to create a set of really nice photos this year that keeps me growing with the camera. 

15) Do one thing everyday to stay healthy in body and spirit.

This can include exercise, yoga or stretching, mindfulness meditation, yoga, playing hockey, reading something inspiring, or simply eating right. I think the key is that I feel like on that day I took time aside for myself to keep the world balanced.

16) Volunteer by teaching or tutoring.

I signed up to be a volunteer for code.org, in 2016 it would be amazing to teach a class for children to learn an ‘hour of code’ or something similar. If I don’t hear back through code.org, I’ll look for a different opportunity to give back to the community. After all, our children are the future of the world.

[jimkleban]

2015 Resolutions in Review

It’s the end of the year and time to reflect before looking ahead to new and awesomer things. 2015 was a pinnacle year. The highlights were the birth of our second daughter Jasmine, climbing Mt. Rainier, and traveling around the world with the family. Here is a review of what I set out to do in 2015 at the beginning of the year (http://jimkleban.tumblr.com/post/106976358609/2015-goals-and-resolutions-biting-off-more-than-i).

Overall Score

Out of 17 goals, 5 were completed, 7 were mixed, 5 didn’t work out. On a GPA-like scale of 0 F, 1 D, 2 C, 3 B, 4 A, my final GPA for the year was 2.27. Since I shoot for completing ‘50%’ of the goals, this actually isn’t too bad. Looking closer, I did well with the physical/travel/family goals, but not as good with the personal skills/learning ones.

Not Even on the List

1) Climbing Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier

In lieu of participating in the sailing race to Alaska, I went mountain climbing instead. First, there was a 4 day intro to mountaineering course on Baker, and then a guided climb with RMI on Rainier. This is something I always wanted to do living in Seattle, and I didn’t think this would be the year. Grade: A.

Nailed It!

2) Wow! Such parental sabbatical. Very travel.

3 months of family travel achieved - this was a wonderful, wonderful trip across 7 countries: Iceland, England, Greece, Italy, Spain, UAE, and Japan with our 3 year old and 6 month old, meeting friends along the way. Grade: A+.

3) Welcome our 2nd daughter into the world.

Jasmine was born in March and she and her mother are healthy and doing great. Grade: A.

4) Support the R2AK Race to Alaska.

The race happened and I went out to Port Townshend to support the crew. They ended up getting de-masted a couple days into the race in Queen Charlotte Sound. It was a miracle no one was hurt. Looking back, it was a wise thing not to go sailing, consider I have zero experience at this. Grade: B.

5) Ride the Seattle-to-Portland bike race in July.

This was great fun with my friends Cam and Gord. They are both faster cyclists than I am so it was a push and I think we finished with a high average speed near 17 mph. The summer had me mixing training for climbing and riding. Next year do the one day??? Grade: A.

Mixed Results

6) Cook 100 different meals.

I estimate I made it to about 40 meals, 22 of which I logged on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jimkleban/cooking-100-meals-in-2015/. I just didn’t keep this up past April. Grade: C-.

7) Write a science fiction novella.

I at least started to write my novel, called Cetea, about a superintelligent celebrity whale that goes missing, while on paternity leave. I realized that the story’s main character needed more development and rather than write a book needing major revisions I would instead think this out. The other thing I needed that I didn’t have was solitude. Grade: C+.

8) Build a mindfulness practice.

Meditation was on and off throughout the year but never consistent. Grade: C-.

9) Drink 365 different beers in 365 days.

I made it pretty far, drinking 200+ different beers before I gave up (while on paternity leave.) If I could get my act together and find the right logging system I might resurrect the larger goal of 500 in 500 days.  http://www.pinterest.com/jimklee/500-beers-in-500-days/. Grade: B-.

10) Focus on strengthening my team by fostering connections.

This was a work goal, which I think I actually did okay at before my last 6 months became about paternity leave. Particularly, we had some good results by bringing the statisticians in to contribute to our A/B testing tool more. On the other hand, there were other areas of work I’m playing catch up with now. Grade: B.

11) Encourage Chloe’s creativity.

The goal in 2015 was to conscientiously spend time playing with Chloe every week. I more or less did that, and I would even play with her every day on the paternity leave. What was missing, maybe, were more sessions where I’d organize something for us to build and make together. Without planning, the goal itself was a bit too vaguely defined to be impactful. Grade: C.

12) Minimalize.

My goal was to declutter by getting rid of items we own that have not been used in over a year. I never applied the one year litmus test and so still own things like musical instruments that go untouched. On the other hand, as we moved back into our house we did get rid of a lot of things in the house. Grade: B-.

Didn’t Work Out :(.

13) Read 30 Books.

Only finished 8 (started another 5 or 6.) Although I had two meaty ones in there with Sapiens and Superintelligence, I really should have covered more ground. Grade: D+.

14) Learn to read sheet music so I can play music with my family.

I think I took some time for this 2-3 times. I just couldn’t work it into my daily routine. Grade: F.

15) Complete French via Duolingo by practicing daily.

Another fail. Just didn’t get too far, although I did this more at least than the sheet music exercise. Grade: D.

16) Mentor someone (outside of work.)

Another worthy goal that I didn’t put myself out there to do. Grade: F.

17) Fix my house.

I did some minor repairs, but the big ones on the list: new windows, repairing the weathered side of my house, finishing the deck restoration, etc. went undone. Grade: D.

[jimkleban]

"I'll take a vodka tonic, a Bloody Mary, a scotch neat, and 3 Icelandic lagers." #babytraveler #jasmine #thetravelingklebans #babyboozer