Doing Something Every Day for 10 Years

In 2016 I started a project to learn something every day of the year, eventually evolving into a life logging habit that I’ve kept up since then, which includes these year end review posts.

I guess this is the 10th year of my Doing Something series, so that’s something!

2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

Usually I start working on these posts in the final week or so of the year and have them mostly ready to go by the new year, but I didn’t this time and it threw me off my game, so I’m still struggling to finish it up at the end of January…

Doing Things This Year

The end of 2024 had a pretty big impact on how my 2025 went… getting COVID and then herniating my back did not set up the year for success.

Health

I started off the year with the primary goal of taking better care of my back and general health, and that at least I think I did do, though it was a mental health roller-coaster.

I ended up walking more in 2025 than in 2024 despite – indeed due to – now having a herniated disk. Moving and staying fit is even more important, and walking is more comfortable than standing or sitting for long periods. Lying down is nice too, but not great on the fitness front.

peoplemaking.games

In the spring, I saw that the Mastodon server peoplemaking.games was thinking of closing down due to the cost and time required to deal with the technical issues they were facing. I approached the admin to offer to help out, and we agreed that I would take over operation of the server.

So now I run one more Mastodon server! I migrated PMG onto the same hosting configuration that sunny.garden uses, so keeping it running and up to date isn’t that much additional work.

Learning, Technology, Cooperatives

I spent the majority of the first half of the year investigating the possibility of starting a cooperative to run some online services such as email. I knew this would be a long shot, but I think it’s an important and worthwhile thing to pursue, so I thought I would give it a good try for a year and see what became of it. Ultimately I didn’t build enough enough momentum in either myself or others for it to make sense to continue, and I’m calling that experiment concluded.

During the summer I took a bit of a tangent on some technical learning… I did some Rust programming; I expanded my knowledge of Linux admin, LVM, and LUKS; I set up a git server using Forgejo and even contributed some fixes to the project, making what I think was my first substantial contribution to an active open source project (as opposed to just publishing my own code).

And then I burned out… couldn’t manage to think about much of anything technical through the fall. Perhaps some of the seasonal change had an impact as well, I’m not sure. Then I was busy with family, and then I was tired, and then it was 2026.

Doing Things This Decade

It would have been nice to write a bit more about observations from the whole decade of this project, but that’s going to delay this post even more, so maybe I’ll get to that later.

By the numbers:

Picking up a bit again on the kanji practice at least.

Onward 2026

Last year I was intentionally focusing on “serious” technical projects and things that might turn into concrete services to offer to other people, especially those like me who are also trying to escape Big Tech.

As a result, I didn’t do much of anything art or creativity wise, or even gaming related all year. That probably contributed at least partially to burning out.

Either way, I’m planning to give creative endeavors more priority again this year.

Bonus

A thin branch of a maple rises up from the bottom left, full of orange-golden leaves, some shadowed and some illuminated by sunlight. Other branches reach in form other sides in out of focus layers. Through the open spaces between the branches, several sloped tiled roofs of temple buildings fill in the background slightly out of focus, a higher one in the top left in shadowed blue tones, and a lower on in the bottom right lit brightly in the sun.

A break in the torii gate path at Kiyomizu-dera Temple, with a rustic souvenir shop to the right, a large single gate to one of the shrines on the left, and a large beautiful red maple towering over the gates of the path. Several visitors are taking in the sights or heading along the path.

The golden pavilion of Kinkaku-ji Temple, the top two stories of which are entirely covered with gold leaf. The gold building shines brightly in the clear mid-morning sun. A maple tree with bright red leaves stands in the foreground to the left, and reaches out over the top of the image, framing the building. The ground is green with moss and covered in a layer of red maple leaves.