[Yearly Review] Part 2: did I achieve my goals in 2016?

Every year I set myself a set of goals for my work and hobbies. Things that I want to achieve, ideals for the amount of hobby time I'll set aside for each pastime, etc. Traditionally I've not had much success, whether from lack of time or excess of ambition, but 2016 has seen more success than the previous couple of years. Let's take a look at how well I did.

General

7.5/11 for my general goals is much, much better than last year!

• Save a net £1000 (Success! I actually saved nearly £2000, or will have done once my last set of expenses come in.)
• Keep my weight between 12st and 13st. (More success! I've not exercised as much this year, but I've been eating more healthily again, and eating less too.)
• Go swimming once per week for more than half of the year.  (Even more success! My attendance at Friday evening swimming has been dropping, but thanks to early Monday morning swims I've been able to keep up the swimming in general.)
• Swim 2km in a session at least once.  (Nope. Although I've been going swimming semi-regularly, I've only been doing 1km to 1.2km during a lot of my sessions, as my time in the pool has been more limited than previously.)
• Go on one or more cycle rides of at least 10miles. (Failed again. I was hoping to get out on my bike over the summer but the weather, and lots of diary-filling events, conspired against me.)
• Resurrect the blog - post at least five posts, not including the end of year review posts. (Yay! Though they were pretty much all in the first half of the year :-/)
• Buy a house.  (Didn't make this one, but I've been looking. I put it on hold because my girlfriend and I will likely be moving in together, and it made more sense to delay buying somewhere for a year or so until we were ready.)
• Attend at least one Wasps match. (In January! It's becoming traditional)
• Attend at least one Blaze match. (See previous item ;-))
• See at least one musical in the West End. (I'm giving myself partial credit on this one. I didn't see a traditional 'musical', but I did see three plays, at least one of which had some singing.)
• Attend at least one BBC Prom (not counting Proms in the Park).  (We made it to two this year, both good.)

Work

3/6 for work, not too bad. But once again the really important one, publish more, was a failure.

• Publish at least two peer-reviewed papers (I managed to publish one paper, and have two more in progress. Not good enough.)
• Attend at least one international conference.  (This was a softball really. I went to the Exoplanets I conference in Davos, Switzerland)
• Go on at least one observing run.  (No telescope time for me this year unfortunately. I was signed up to do an observing run, but had to pull out when it clashed with an important PLATO meeting.)
• Propose (and run if accepted) an exoplanets session at NAM 2016.  (I seem to be becoming the Exoplanets person at NAM!)
• Arrive at work before 9:30 for more than half of the days I'm in the office.  (Great success! I did really well at this one, mostly due to my girlfriend staying with me quite a lot though I must admit. She gets up at 05:00 to commute to work, so I ended up getting up early too.)
• Drive to work less than 1/3 of days I'm in the office.  (I drove too much this year, for reasons that escape me)

Reading

2/4 is better than last year, but I read far, far less than last year.

• Read 35 fiction books.  (I barely made it past 20 :-( My lowest total since I started keeping records)
• Read 5 non-fiction books.  (Finally achieved this one! It's been a few years.)
• Buy fewer than ten physical books.  (Space saving efforts were successful)
• Read all of the books in my bedroom that I haven't read before (as of January 1st).  (The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson has proven obstinate and time consuming, but I'm close. I have two left.)

TV and film

2/4 for TV and film as well! Again, I actually saw a lot more television this year than in any of the previous five years (and possibly all of them combined), it's just that none of it was from my collection. Ditto with films.

• Watch one TV show from my collection (that I haven't previously watched).  (I watched War Planets: Shadow Raiders, which I had seen some of when it originally aired but haven't seen for years)
• Watch at least three complete seasons of TV shows (different or the same show)  (8 seasons finished! Including three of Castle. And several more that were started but not finished.)
• Watch at least one film from my collection (that I haven't previously watched).  ()
• Watch more than 30 films (combined between cinema trips, home, film nights, etc. (So very close. I watched 26 films, but only 7 at the cinema. My girlfriend was seriously ill a lot this year, and unfortunately her bouts of illness coincided with the releases of many films that we wanted to see together.)

Wargaming

A very, very poor showing on the wargaming front this year. 

• Paint 26 models.  (I only painted 11 models, but that's 11 more than in 2015)
• Compete fully painted at at least one tournament.  (I only played in one tournament, at Smogcon, and I was nowhere near fully painted)
• Paint my MERCS miniatures.  (All my painting has been for my Circle Orboros army for Hordes)
• Build my WW2 tanks.  (I've built a lot of Warmachine and Hordes models, but the tanks remain in their boxes)
• Build my Battlestar Galactica Viper  (The Viper also remains in its box)
• Play at least one game of at least two different systems.  (Nearly all Warmachine and Hordes this year, though they did go through an edition change. But I did squeeze in a game of X-Wing on Christmas Day.)
• Attend at least three tournaments (excluding SmogCon)  (I didn't get to any Guardians of Tyr events this year sadly. I did find a great new games shop in Daventry though)
• Place in the top three at a tournament.  (No attendance means no top three placings)
• Win a tournament.  (See previous failure!)
• Acquire some more X-Wing models.  (*)
• Achieve a Warmachine/Hordes win rate of at least 50%  (47.6% in MkII, but 53% in All New War, so I made it!)

Board gaming

Better than wargaming thanks to the Wednesday board game meetings, though I'm not going to those as much as I used to.

• Play at least fifteen new games.  (17 new games played.)
• Acquire at least three new games.  (I got four new games before Christmas even happened!)
• Achieve a win rate of at least 50%  (I'm giving partial credit on this one; although my win rate is below 50%, there were a few games that were draws or incomplete, so my loss rate is also below 50%, and lower than my win rate!)

Computer gaming

I started several games, but didn't finish any. The story of my computer gaming life.

• Finish 2 games single-player.  (Not even close.)

Lifesaving

Complete and utter failure really. I continue to aim for more RLSS participation, and did actually officiate at Crawley Open this year. But I've found myself dropping out of BULSCA again, not deliberately so much as having other things to do

• Attend a local Lifesaving Club training session.  (Still no, and I don't think it'll happen any time soon)
• Maintain / renew my Survive & Save TA status.  (I'm giving this a failure because I'm not sure what my status actually is at the RLSS. I think my membership has lapsed, despite having set up a Direct Debit.)
• Teach a lifesaving course.  (No chance)
• Compete with an old boys' team at a BULSCA competition.  (Warwick Old Boys at the end of year Loughborough competition, and we won! Take that youngsters)
• Be Head Referee at two or more BULSCA competitions.  (I was signed up for two, but it turned out they were consecutive and that's frowned on, so I only did one in the end.)
• Write one wet SERC and one dry SERC.  (I wrote the wet SERC for the Student Championships.)

Overall then I completed 20/46, two of which were partial credit. Not too shabby, but still below the 50% success rate that I'd like to achieve. It's been a busy year though, and it's not as if I just missed out on completing some of these. Most of the failures were complete and utter failures.

Ah well, onwards an upwards.