What the heart and mind desire

(The 2023 Plan)

3 months; That is now the amount of time that has passed since I changed my life after 19 years in the Software Industry. Luckily it has been 3 really good months and they have flown by which I see as a positive thing… They have been full of me “rediscovering” myself and though I’m still largely the same “me” it is a more relaxed and happy “me” with a bigger perspective on life that the “old me” was way too busy to notice.

So now we stand in a new year with a new “improved me” and the committed original “3 months think period” now over… So what now; what’s in store for 2023?

To find that out I sat down for 60 min to come up with a set of statements that came directly from the heart and mind… Here are the statements that came out of that (in the order they arrived) and I will allow those to define my 2023…

“Remember to enjoy life. Not everything needs plans and checklists”

“Unity Game Development is fun but more in a hobby way than a full-time job”

“Health and Fitness do not feel like a chore anymore so embrace it. It is good now and for the future”

“I still want ties to the IT industry but in a less committed role”

“Work areas of Agile and Usability are a joy to work with”

“#Give’ism feels awesome”

“I want to be my own boss controlling the tempo”

“I don’t want a full-time job anymore”

“Give travel a try”

“Embrace slow living and minimalism even more”

Given above are here the Rasmus 2.0 plan for 2023…

Work 🏢

I will return to the work-life, but not in a traditional sense…

I started my own one-man company around Agile Coaching and Usability Testing. The untraditional part is that I will offer the initial services to companies for free (aka #Give’ism; later people are allowed to pay me if they so desire, but only after they feel I have brought them value). On the flip side, I will be very opinionated on who I choose as clients and have every right to say no or end a working relationship if the passion disappears or the client does not commit to self-improvement (this is a partnership toward betterment after all).

In this way, I can contribute to making the IT Industry better, but on simple terms and with very low binding commitment (as in I will still be ultra professional and work hard, but without the ties of money, employment or partnership can have).

I created this dedicated page for this where you can learn more about my philosophy of this and how to contact me for an initial meeting: https://www.rwj.dk/business

Hobby 🕹️

My passion for creativity and code will be satisfied day to day by keeping Unity Gaming around as a Hobby … Game Development is really fun, but I also need to be honest with myself and acknowledge that the passion comes in bursts and are not there every single day so Game Development fits better as a Hobby than “work”. My goal is still to build and release a Tower Defense game, but, it will take longer to complete in this form, and will not give me guilt feelings if there is a day/week here and there where there is no mood to code. You can get more details on my games here: https://www.rwj.dk/unity-game-development (and in this blog post)

Health and Fitness 👟

Reserving more time for this part of my life will persist as it brings balance from working, so I will keep all the good habits from the last 3 months as is. I will also experiment with focus weeks to allow travel and slow living. You can get more stats on my health and fitness here: https://www.rwj.dk/fitness

Other Tweaks

I will try to focus less on Weekly Goals and checklists and instead feel and reflect on what feels right at the moment to further break my too-structured habits.

What about the blog in 2023?

That is a good question… I started it as a tool to help with the transition, and it has helped immensely so its purpose is essentially over. I could do various things:

  1. Close the blog down entirely
  2. Keep it but with an ad-hoc posting, schedule know I might run out of things to say soon.
  3. Give it a new focus in the area of Agile and Usability

But I will leave it up to you readers so please write in the comments what you would like to see here for 2023

So that is the 2023 plan… Will it work (I hope)? Is it naive (Perhaps)? Will it need change (likely)?
Only time can tell, but right now I feel good about it, so let’s all hope for an awesome 2023 for all of us
Take Care… 🧠❤️