Many people find setting new year’s resolutions to be a daunting and cumbersome chore. However, creating resolutions doesn’t have to be intimidating. They really are just goals for the new year.
More often than not, people angle their resolutions toward diet, exercise, and breaking a bad habit, such as smoking. However, we see no reason why new year’s resolutions couldn’t be related to WordPress or career-oriented. After all, who doesn’t want to expand their skillset?
We reached out to our talented team to find out what their work-related goals for the new year are. Below, nine of them share their resolutions. Who knows? Maybe they’ll inspire yours.
Learn More Coding
“I’m going to learn more about coding. While I don’t want to be a developer, actually doing things and getting in the muck helps me explain things better to clients and also it helps me make better recommendations.”
–Jodie Fiorenza, Director of Business Development
Ship a Plugin, Write a Web App
“My goals for the new year are to ship my social media plugin and write a web app in Next.js and WordPress. The social media plugin is one that I want to use to manage my personal social media accounts, and I’ve been working on it for too long. I want to write a web app using Next.js and WordPress because I’m excited about the possibilities they provide when working together, and I hope to solve a personal problem with that app.”
–Evan Hildreth, Backend Engineer
Create More Content
“In 2022, I plan to create more content, such as talks, blog posts, tutorials, and videos, and contribute to WordPress core, plus translate some plugins. By creating content, I get a better understanding; it also helps me to set personal deadlines and deliver on time. Contributing to open-source and WordPress will be more fulfilling. WebDevStudios provides the resources, and there are people here who can guide me when we’re contributing to Five for the Future.”
–Lax Mariappan, Backend Engineer
Learn by Doing
“I plan to learn more about how things are being done on the frontend, using Tailwind, Gutenberg, and Next.js. I also want to learn more about some of the new PHP features by building some trivial things with them, and learn a new programming language.
The reason these are my goals for the new year is because I want to level up! We can all get really busy at work, and that leaves little time (or energy) for leveling up.
I’ve always considered myself a full-stack developer, or a jack of all trades-type, that can dabble in a lot of areas. As of 2021, I do not feel like I can wear that badge with honor. But, I hope to change that by doing some work in 2022-2023 to level up!
First, I’m going to start with making sure I understand what the frontend-ers here at WebDevStudios are doing. Then, I want to make sure I know what the hot new features are in PHP today and in PHP 8, so I’m ready to use them when the time comes.
Lastly, I would like to learn a new language, and Python has always been on my list! All of this is going to be done with the spirit of ‘learn by doing,’ not just courses, but by building things, even if they’re useless.”
–Aubrey Portwood, Senior Backend Engineer
Keep Being Awesome
“This year, my goal is to use up more of my PTO because I work too much. Another goal for the new year is to abstract out some functionality in one of my websites that does a lot around reading tracking, so that it could be distributed and others could use it. I’ve had at least one person express interest in the code and functionality. Lastly, I plan to keep being awesome.”
–Michael Beckwith, Backend Engineer
More Talks, More FSE
“In the new year, I would like to submit more WordCamp talks. I love WordCamps, and I cannot wait for in-person camps and talk about full-site editing (FSE). This year, I will finish up my series of FSE blog posts, too. I will also be taking more advanced React and PHP courses. I want to expand my knowledge on both technologies.”
–Alfredo Navas, Frontend Engineer
Expand on Dev Ops
“I want to further my skills in dev ops. I enjoy finding solutions to help automate as many portions of our processes as possible. For example, currently I’ve been looking into GitHub Actions and automating our deployment capabilities using those versus trying to share two Buddy pipelines. With all of the other projects we have running concurrently with support, we sometimes find ourselves waiting on one another for our turn in line to get code deployed and tested. With GitHub actions, we can run our automated tests and code deployments right from the project’s repo and potentially move away from Buddy.”
–Allen McKenzie, Support Technician
Build and Contribute
“My goals for the new year are to build or contribute to a WordPress plugin and NPM package because I need more experience in WordPress scripting and would like to contribute to NPM more often.”
–J.R. McCann, Frontend Engineer
Stand, Co-work, and Write More Modern JS
“My resolutions for 2022 are to stand more and sit less. I have a standing desk that I rarely use in standing mode, and I’d like to work on my posture a bit. I want to co-work and get out of the house. Pre-pandemic, I used to go to a co-working space in town at least once a month. I think it’s time to get back out there.
I would also like to write more Modern JS (i.e., React, Next.js, etc.) because, being comfortable with Gutenberg, it’s time to increase my general comfortability with React and all the projects based on it. Finally, I plan to learn and implement IPv6. It presents some unique opportunities for distributed companies, and I’m hoping we can put some of those opportunities to use.”
–Justin Foell, Engineering Manager
