Reflection on my 2023 goals

As every year, I reflect on the goals I set for the year before I plan the upcoming year. So, let’s see how I did in 2023:

Work goals

Writing: Submit 6 journal papers (I outlined the topics for these). I submitted two of the papers from the original outline of 6. However, I did publish a fair number of papers: 16 listed in Google Scholar and 12 in Scopus. I got sidetracked from some of my own writing plans and prioritized the publications of my PhD candidates and post-doctoral researchers.
Research: spend 5 weeks in Delft, report experiments, deliver phase 1 of fire project, start EU project. I spent indeed 5 weeks in Delft, delivered the first reports of the fire project and started the EU project. We had delays in the lab so the report of the experiments is not fully finished.
Teaching: teach new MSc courses (2), teach new BSc course, supervise 3 BSc students, graduate 6 MSc students, graduate 4 PhD students. 2023 was a teaching-intensive year and I taught in the 2 new MSc course and developed a new BSc course. I graduated 2 MSc students, 2 PhD students, and 0 BSc students.
Service: get the journal ACI Avances into Scielo, work on committee documents, role as IABSE SEI vice-president, tasks with IABMAS, attend 3 conferences in person (limit myself to 2 trips per semester maximum). We need to redo the Scielo application for ACI Avances as a result of the cyberattack on USFQ late December last year. I progressed on various committee documents, and advanced with IABSE and IABMAS tasks. I attended one conference partially online, and traveled to one conference.
Admin: maintain inbox zero. More or less, yes. I’ve accumulated some backlog at some points.
Blog: increase podcast downloads, get speaking engagements, get more newsletter subscribers, have a positive balance and donate to PhD candidates in need. I achieved none of this.

Personal

Average 8 hours of sleep per night. I’ve averaged 7h35min this year, which is a bit less than the 7h37min from last year. I still have the bad habit of not sleeping enough during the week and crashing on the weekend.
Read 52 books. 110 books 🙂
Daily meditation or other form of contemplation. No – I did something here and there, but it is not consistent.
Work out at least 4 times per week. Mostly yes, although I had a long period of illness from January-March and then late October-December.
Play music with others. Didn’t happen.
Organize our new house. I finished organizing all the cupboards in the beginning of 2023 and now they are all messy again. We still have a number of things to finish fixing.
Take online courses. Yes, I took a wide variety of courses.
Go hiking once a month. No – safety has been an issue in Ecuador.
Spend 4 weekends outside the city. We did two trips in early 2023.
Have a summer holiday as a family. Yes, we went to Mexico.
Host at our new house. We’ve hosted a few play dates and our daughter’s birthday party. Nothing much for the adults though.