Year-End Review for 2022
2022 has passed, and I miss it.
Self-Realization
Procrastination, a perennial topic. The completion is not good, and I understand the principles, but I struggle to integrate knowledge into action. I won’t delve into this further; I feel I’ve analyzed it deeply enough in my 2021 review and procrastination coping strategies. In 2023, I plan to employ additional methods to overcome procrastination and cultivate good habits.
Problems don’t vanish after January 1st. Initiating a plan doesn’t have to wait for New Year’s Day or some specific moment. You can start your new plan at 2:27 PM on December 24th.
I know, and you understand too. Starting to learn doesn’t require a clean desk, neatly folded books, or comfortable desk and chair settings. It’s just an excuse for procrastination 🙄.
Similarly, this year-end summary doesn’t have to be posted exactly at the year-end moment. As long as it reflects on the past and envisions the future at the beginning of the new year, the purpose is achieved 🤪.
Personal value. This year, the internet has been relatively cold, prompting me to consider my value from the perspective of company operations. “Reducing costs and increasing efficiency” is an eternal goal, especially since most of the time, the R&D center is a cost center.
Therefore, as a technical person, it’s crucial to understand the importance of business realization, grasp the goals and actions of the business, and then use strong technical skills to implement technology-driven solutions. This involves creating products with good scalability and stability, helping the business achieve unexpected incremental value, and ultimately achieving “reducing costs and increasing efficiency.”
Understanding what is crucial for our business partners is essential. Just translating requirements or working in isolation is not advisable. Many architectural problems can be solved by adapting to business needs. They often focus on whether goals can be achieved, not the specific details of the implementation path 🤔.
So, how to align the development goals of the business with the evolutionary direction of the technical architecture? Evolutionary design might be a good solution, but the key is confirming the direction of evolution, i.e., how to confirm the top-level planning of technology. In 2023, I need to continue strengthening my learning in this area.
Obsidian and e-books. Since 2022, I have gradually transitioned from physical books to Kindle. Combining Obsidian’s note synchronization plugin has made it more convenient for note management. Most books are now fully digital, including reading, notes, and knowledge integration.
However, in 2022, Amazon China announced the cessation of operations of the Kindle eBook store after June 30, 2023. Looking at my Kindle Oasis 3, I can only exclaim: Kindle, you’ve let me down!
Nevertheless, I didn’t stop the migration. Eventually, by the end of 2022, I completed the migration, keeping only some technical physical books. The experience was good, and the prices were acceptable. The money earned from selling books couldn’t even buy a copy of “Designing Data-Intensive Applications” on their platform (I didn’t sell this book; it’s worth reading multiple times).
Buying books is like a mountain, and reading books is like drawing silk. In the past, buying books gave a sense of accomplishment, self-deceiving myself into believing I was a hardworking person. However, when it came time to use the knowledge from the books, not having them on hand was awkward. Apart from the less satisfying experience of flipping pages for location, e-books have clear advantages in terms of accessibility and quick reference. “Accessibility” includes ease of purchase and quick access to use when needed, making books quickly available and easy to use when you need them, reducing the threshold for use and significantly improving efficiency. Multi-platform synchronization also takes advantage of your fragmented time, making small contributions accumulate into significant results 📚.
Currently, there are two issues: technical books are temporarily irreplaceable in paper form, and the availability of Kindle resources may not keep up after its suspension in China; alternatives need to be considered.
Career Development
This year, I officially started leading a team, entering a new field in my professional career.
Team management resulted in a successful debut. With the help of the leader, I smoothly completed the transition. During this period, more than half of the team members, including myself, faced a new business direction. Therefore, I not only had to quickly learn business knowledge but also understand the business context. I had to help team members adapt to the new direction, maintain the team’s combat effectiveness, and ensure that organizational adjustments did not affect business progress. Fortunately, we not only stabilized the team but also clarified everyone’s growth direction. The overall business support of the team was also strong, and the team’s overall eNPS was among the best 🥳.
The allocation of energy in team management exceeded my expectations. Due to lack of experience and receiving a lot of new information in my job responsibilities, I needed to quickly understand a large amount of management knowledge, almost common sense. Despite deliberate control, I couldn’t manage it, and my energy consumption exceeded my budget 🤯. Although I had some exposure to management knowledge before, starting to practice made me realize that “paper cannot replace practice.” Similar to coding, just reading books without practical coding makes it challenging to make progress. I am currently exploring and summarizing, trying to take control and hope to improve efficiency in this aspect in 2023.
The accumulation of management-related knowledge is not enough. I’m in a “problem-driven” state, pushed forward by external rhythms. Even though the results are good, when I review it, the accumulation of related knowledge is not enough, and specific cases and experiences are not digested. This makes it challenging to have cumulative effects on past experiences.
Technical summary articles have been delayed 🌚, but I’ve been continuously learning. After all, this is the focus of energy.
On specific technical tools, I organized the knowledge systems of Kafka, MySQL, and Redis using Obsidian. Double-linked notes can meet my sorting habits well. For example, all three can be linked via the fsync technical point. Although the underlying technology is ultimately the same, MySQL is much more complex due to transactions, and it becomes straightforward to compare the persistence mechanisms of each by linking other middleware through fsync. Analyzing the differences in persistence mechanisms allows for a balanced comparison and understanding of trade-offs.
In the field of architectural design, I mainly read books on distributed systems, architectural patterns, and Domain-Driven Design (DDD), but I haven’t had the chance to solidify these learnings. Distributed systems are still waiting for a better mainline. In the era of microservices and Docker, many things naturally come with distributed capabilities. So, as a basic capability, it involves too many things. If you only explain things from a conceptual perspective, there’s too little. I have collected a lot of material, but further integration is needed. Architectural patterns and DDD are not very new things. This time, it’s mainly a second review based on my practical experience, making it easier to understand.
In the new technology domain, I mainly explored Web3
, Rust, and eBPF (cloud-native applications) but haven’t found suitable practical opportunities yet. Still observing.
The planning for 2023 in the technical domain is relatively simple, maintaining deep cultivation of old technologies while strengthening reserves of new technologies. I aim to publish five technical articles in 2023 and engage in more discussions with everyone 🫡.
Financial Situation
How was 2022? The stock market broke various lower limits, the defense of 3000 played out again, Hong Kong stocks were a mess, and Chinese concepts were even worse. Towards the end of the year, there was a slight recovery, allowing you to truly experience what it means to be “friends with time.” Since it’s mostly long-term dollar-cost averaging, stable investments have occasional significant drawdowns only during bond declines. Apart from that, I don’t pay much attention to it. I belong to the “lie flat” school.
The overall financial strategy remains unchanged. It’s still four funds, as detailed in the 2021 review. Due to the epidemic, cash reserves have increased slightly. Currently, the distribution is: active funds: stable funds: long-term funds = 2.5:4.5:3.
I’ve been sustaining losses for two years. The overall return is still negative. I can only say that the loss in 2022 was less than in 2021 😭. Fortunately, at the end of the year, Chinese concepts warmed up, or it would have been worse.
The habit of dollar-cost averaging has always been maintained. After the Spring Festival, it’s highly likely to break even. Experiencing a round of volatility, I realized the stability and peace of mind of dollar-cost averaging. Just be friends with time quietly.
The habit of keeping accounts has been consistently maintained. Referring to the classification of national residents’ consumption expenditures, I optimized the expenditure classification, making it more accurate. After seeing it clearly, it has some impact on consumption behavior. It can roughly predict the consumption cycle and level, making reasonable financial planning, such as reserving cash, advance discount storage, and flexible consumption. However, it cannot increase your income, so you still need to strive to improve your income ability 💰.
Interpersonal Relationships
This year, with managerial responsibilities, there are higher requirements for interpersonal relationships. Although sometimes I can’t be completely indifferent, I can consistently pursue win-win situations by putting myself in others’ shoes.
Whether establishing connections between the team and superiors, external connections, strengthening two-way information exchange between the team and the outside, or choosing the right way to communicate with members to avoid communication obstacles caused by expression problems, I am constantly learning and trying to communicate and collaborate with people with better communication skills.
Perhaps the nasal tone of Mandarin still holds me back, but it is no longer my biggest obstacle. I believe I can overcome it. Currently, the biggest confusion is how to confirm the comfort boundary in communication. This is the direction I need to learn in 2023.
In fact, there is no silver bullet for communication; sincerity is the only weapon, supplemented by empathy and nonviolent communication, which can generally achieve good results.
Personal Happiness
2022 seemed to be the year with the strictest epidemic control measures. The duration of working from home far exceeded previous years. When it was relaxed in December, I unfortunately caught a cold, recovered after two days of fever 😷.
Many plans for this year, including fitness and medical check-ups, didn’t happen. The overall amount of exercise this year is less than last year. Running and swimming were non-existent, and even the number of steps was less than in previous years. In 2023, I need to catch up on progress 💪!
Travel plans didn’t materialize much. Beijing’s epidemic control was strict, and there could be a pop-up warning 😨. In 2023, I must go out more.
