Happy New Year everyone! It's January 1st, 2012 and it's time again to review last year and make some resolutions for this year.

The Year 2011 in Review

Last year I started the year with a blog article about my resolutions, business-wise.  How did I fare? Well… some good and some not-so-good answers on that!

  • Blogging once per week: that certainly sounded easy a year ago, but I quickly found out, after about 4 months, that life and clients take priority! I just wasn't able to keep it up, and I continue to be impressed by those who can blog regularly, it takes a lot of commitment. I counted 28 articles last year… well short of my goal!
  • Update my GP certifications: this was an easy one. I don't write new exams every time they come out, I simply don't find value in doing that but I do always want to make sure I stay current by taking the exams again when older exams expire. Last year, I re-wrote and passed my Dynamics GP2010 Financials, Project Series and Inventory & Order Processing.  Goal achieved!
  • Read more books: I wrote about not wanting to be on a computer all the time so with tongue firmly in cheek, I can honestly say I read more last year than I have in recent years - except it was mostly ebooks! (LOL) Well, the resolution was about the reading, not the method right? My actual measurable resolution was to read 1 book a month… I read 10 books, just short of my goal.
  • Learn 5 new GP things: This was a two-part goal, to learn 5 new things, and part two, to blog about them. I'll start with part 2 - that was a complete failure!  I did learn some new things but I didn't get around to blogging about it. In Part 1 though, while I didn't write each new thing down, I'm quite sure I achieved this, even if the things I learned weren't major modules.

What's in the plan for 2012?

This year I have resolved to make some more reasonable goals! I also read an interesting article about making monthly, not yearly, resolutions. So, for some of my personal resolutions, I plan to do just that - set a goal for a month and see how I do it, adjust if necessary, and continue in subsequent months. Here are some of my goals for this coming year:

  • Blog 3 times/month. Weekly is a little hard for me to manage but this year I plan to do a better job of getting regular articles written. Heck, I might even finish the Report Writing series I started last year (LOL)!
  • Read more. That was a good goal last year, and I plan to continue that one this year - business or pleasure, reading an average of a book a month. I've also got piles of magazines to catch up on so taking time to read will be a priority for me.
  • Re-immerse myself in development. This one is more of a personal goal with professional benefits!  A few years ago I wrote a Windows application to track a little home head-to-head NFL weekly pool VB app with SQL data. It was a ton of fun to write, and forced me to learn a lot of development things I had never known about before. I'm proud to say the application still works like a charm, four or so seasons later but it's time for version 2.0! I'd like to push myself and make some improvements so I plan to find time to re-write the application from scratch in time for the 2012-2013 season.
  • Dig into SQL Reporting Services. I've taken the courses but way back in SQL2000 when it was first introduced.  Since then I've had limited opportunities to continue playing with it to learn more. When I don't use something, I simply get out of date with it. This year, no excuse! I'm going to dig back into it and stay up to date with it by moving one of my clients onto it this year.

That's a good start… and lots of things to achieve!