Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 290. 2025 Year in Review and Looking Ahead to 2026

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290. 2025 Year in Review and Looking Ahead to 2026 · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is easy in life to just put your head down and get through one day at a time.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that one day you'll pick up your head and wonder why you didn't get to where you wanted to go.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Getting where you want to go takes time, but it also takes intentional effort.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Part of that effort is reviewing what you've been doing and seeing where you can make improvements.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: In the spirit of that idea, I'm going to do a review of the content that I've put out and my overall life and discuss where I want to go from here.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about it in today's episode of DevQuestions.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Software development is more than just writing code.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the rest of it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically, let's talk about my year in review, what I'm looking forward to in 2026, and how you can apply these same principles to see greater improvements in your own life and career.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's take a look back at 2025.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: My personal opinion is that looking back and being critical isn't really helpful.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't encourage you to do better, it tears you down, makes you feel miserable.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: So instead, I like to look at the things that I accomplished in the past year before looking at what I can do to accomplish more or different in the coming year.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So in 2025, I released 112 full-length videos on YouTube.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: That includes 52 dev question episodes.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're keeping track, that's about one per week.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: That is one per week for dev questions.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't miss a week this year, which is awesome.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also more than one per week for my Monday videos and others.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So every Monday I try to release a coding video of some type.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: This might be a 10-minute training video, it might be an hour-long video on a certain topic, or it might be somewhere in the middle.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then Thursdays, I release a dev question episode, which is both a podcast episode as well as a YouTube video.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I released 112 full-length videos on YouTube this year.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I hit my goal there.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I also released 100 or approximately 100 YouTube shorts.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that means YouTube Shorts, which is also TikTok, which is also Instagram Reels, which is also LinkedIn, whatever they're called.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, I put those short videos on a bunch of different platforms.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this is something new that I've been working through and trying to figure out how does this work and can I make this work and can I do this without adding a whole lot of overhead to my already busy training schedule.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll probably see if you watched any of my shorts, that you'll see, you know, I'm in the truck.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm sitting somewhere in a parking lot waiting on something.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'll just record two, three, four shorts as they come up or as I've had them in a list.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I do this a lot.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do this in hotel rooms or other places where I'm just kind of fitting into places that I wouldn't otherwise be recording, but I have some time to do some content.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So this has been hit or miss for me.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to find a better rhythm for this, but at the same time, I was able to get almost a hundred YouTube shorts out the door.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying almost or about because I haven't got to the end of the year yet.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually recording this before the end of the year.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping to get a full 100 out there, but we'll see.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: I also released six courses this year.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I released the Accelerate Dapper course, which is all about learning how to do data access with Dapper.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I launched the Navigating AI course, which is about understanding what AI is, how it really works, how it's built, and then understanding how to be empowered by AI without being overrun by AI.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the second course I released.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: I released the 100 interview questions course where you go through a hundred different interview questions and how I would answer them in groups of five.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So 20 different groups of five that allows you to practice that part of the interview process, not just about answering the questions, but about giving you the time to practice, where I give you all five questions up front and then show you how I'd answer it so you can kind of see, oh, that's that's how you might do that, and get a handle on practicing that process because your first time doing an interview or second time or third time shouldn't be the real thing.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: You should have done this over and over again so you feel confident and comfortable.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: That was the third course.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: The fourth course that released was hands-on refactoring.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is a course about refactoring an existing application, how you might do that, how you can think about refactoring, what are the different ways of doing refactoring.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And this is actually a course I give away for free.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I might not always give away for free, but right now it's for free on my site.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you go to imtimcore.com, you'll find it there on the home page.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you can get the whole thing for free and try it out, which also gives you an opportunity to try out my teaching platform where I do other courses and see how that works, including getting things like downloadable content and certificate completion.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another course I released.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I also released a course called Building an Embedded AI Application, where we took a C sharp application and said, hey, this is a case where it would be helpful if we had an AI.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you built an AI, an offline only AI, into our application so that we could say, hey, I've got an API that I need to have this schema of data.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can you generate some sample data for me?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it creates a JSON structure of sample data based upon whatever schema you give it.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a really cool experience in how to utilize an AI in a practical manner in C sharp, how to use an offline AI.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not paying for tokens or anything else from one of those mega models.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another course I did this year.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, just recently, I released the upgrading to.NET 10 course, which is actually a companion course to my upgrade to.NET 9 course.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're not, it's not a replacement, it's actually a supplement to that.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the upgraded.NET 10 course covers how do you take your application from.NET Framework or earlier versions of.NET up to.NET 10, how do you think about the new changes in.NET 10, how do you reset your mind or think about things differently now that things are different in.NET versus what they were in.NET Framework or earlier versions of.NET.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: So six courses in total that I released this year, but I also released a number of modules for the game development master course as well.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're finishing up that master course and just about done.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Depending on how my month goes, we may be almost and completely done by the time this video comes out.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: So hopeful there.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: But either way, did a lot of work in that as well.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Adjusted to the new Unity 6 and all the changes that came along with that, and make adjustments to how things work to make sure we're always on the cutting edge of the best way to do game development with C sharp.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: I also added a mobile app for those of you who buy courses or get that free hands-on refactoring course.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you can get an app for iOS or for Android that's that's mine specifically.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's a DevForge app.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to imtimcry.com and go to the resources page and get a link for Android or iOS to take you right to that app.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can watch the courses through that app.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: You can do things like market as complete, you can go through the whole process, watch it offline, and so many other things.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we added that mobile app this year.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: We also added learning paths so that those of you who need to know what's next, know what to do next in your learning process.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's again on imtimcory.com under learning paths.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke at multiple conferences and user groups this year, including the Kansas City Developer Conference or KCDC and Orlando CodeCamp, among others.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: That was a lot of fun.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love speaking in front of people, and it allows me to, you know, do something different, get out of the office, and at the same time meet people.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the next thing, which is I met hundreds of people in person at events this year, had a lot of fun, met a lot of great people, had a lot of great conversations, which is also another way that I'm able to keep a finger in the pulse of what you need.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um I try to answer as many YouTube comments as possible, and those are helpful.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have a suggestion site, suggestions.imtimcorey.com, that I can see what you're looking for for new content.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: But talking to you in person is also really helpful.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I love doing it.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I love to be able to just be out in the community and meet new people, even though I'm a bit of an introvert as well.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my year for work.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: In a lot of ways, I really want to get more done this year.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I felt like I didn't get enough done.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: I always felt like there's always something else to do.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: My task list is miles long.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure you can relate.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't feel like I got enough done.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I just feel like you don't accomplish anything throughout the day or the week, or you look back on, you know, a period of time, you're like, man, I just feel like I'm getting nothing done.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: But looking at the list that I just listed out, I'm pretty pleased with myself.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's an enormous amount of work on top of the everyday tasks of running a business.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: So by looking back and looking back over a year, there's a lot there, even though there's times where I'm like, man, I could have done more, or I wish I'd done that differently, or I wish I had added that one extra thing or accomplished that one extra thing.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: But by looking back, you're like, wow, I did get a lot done.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's important because when you're always looking at what you have yet to do, when you're looking at the mountain you have not yet climbed, it's easy to get discouraged.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're discouraged, you get less done because you just don't feel like you're accomplishing anything.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: You feel like your fear molasses and you just feel like you're dragged down.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: But by turning around, looking down the mountain and saying, wow, that that car is a long way off.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've come a long way since I parked at the base.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: That makes you feel like you've made accomplishments, which you have.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: That makes it feel like you've done something of value, which you have.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so by doing that, it gives you more of a sense of accomplishment, more of a sense of feeling like you have been able to make an impact, which allows you to say, and I want to do it again.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you can feel like you're feel better about yourself because you have done positive things.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's been my year in 2025 for business, but it's also important to look at how you're spending your free time.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm convinced that people misuse their free time.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm guilty of this as well.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if what I mean by that is sometimes you spend your time on short-term relaxation things like watching TV or scrolling TikTok.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And while that is good, and I will not say don't do that, because I think it's important to disconnect your brain, allow yourself to relax, allow yourself to have a good time.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I personally love sports.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I love watching football, I love watching baseball.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: I will watch almost every baseball game the Mets play this next year.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've done that for a number of years.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I might not watch the whole game.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I might not be able to watch every game, but as much as possible, if the game is on, I'm gonna try and schedule things around watching that game.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that ends up usually being more like 50% or 70%, uh more like probably 50% of the games as opposed to every game, but as much as possible I try to.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because, you know what, that downtime is important.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that there's a difference between doing short-term relaxation things that are kind of just mindless, and doing things that will give you a long-term good memory.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: So there's nothing wrong with short-term relaxation tasks, but I firmly believe there's a benefit to doing long-term things as well.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Things that you can look back and go, boy, that was fun.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Even if it's for a couple hours or for a day or two, or a weekend.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to do woodworking as a hobby before I found out I'm allergic to sawdust.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so with that, I create some long-term memories where I built things, or I fixed things, or I did other things that that gave me some long-term value, and I can look back and say, wow, I'm glad I did that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this past year, since I can't do woodworking anymore, I took up the hobby of photography, specifically nature photography.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that gets me out of the office and it gives me a fun way to enjoy wherever I am.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that's especially important because my wife volunteers for an organization called CASA, where she works with kids in foster care.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And as part of that, I typically drive her to visits that are over an hour away, which happens monthly at least, if not multiple times a month.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I could just go and just kind of hang out and wait and you know, kill time, maybe create some TikToks.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but and I do that sometimes, um, which is why I'm in the truck a lot.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I also now take my camera with me and see what shots I can get while I'm waiting on her.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it gives me a new challenge, it gives me something to look forward to and something to do.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it having that hobby turns a day spent only on focus on driving into something where I can also look forward to doing something of interest as well.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I do, and that's you know, one of the ways that I do long-term memory things.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I like to travel.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so that kind of works in as well.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this year, we were able to go to Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, California, Alaska, Missouri, Washington, and I solo went to Montreal.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So most of those things were a mixture of work and personal.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just how travel in the world because it's fun, although a couple of those, Alaska was just for fun.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that was awesome.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, speaking of a great place to go with a camera, Alaska's the one.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, some of those things were for just work.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I took a camera along and was able to, you know, spend some time relaxing and unwinding my mind and just getting some downtime while at the same time creating something that's more of a long-term positive rather than just scrolling my phone and going, I don't remember what I did for the past three hours.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: So while my year was busy getting all the things I done I did for work, I also had a chance to experience some cool destinations even while on work assignments.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I was kind of happy with that as well.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of happy with all the places we could go and the things we could do even while being busy.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my year in review.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Looking over all that I did, both for work and for relaxation, I'm happy with what I was able to fit in just the last 12 months.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So now looking ahead of 2026 and what I wanted to accomplish, this is the kind of list that I came up with.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And let's focus mostly on work, although we'll talk about um personal a little bit too.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: So for work, I want to keep a similar pace on YouTube.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's reasonable.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, two videos a week is a lot, while at the same time, it allows me enough time to put the effort I need to into those videos while still having enough time to work on other things and actually do things that make me money because YouTube does not make me money.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um yes, I have ads in my videos, but they do not bring in a living wage or even close to part of a living wage.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: YouTube is really just to help people.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I do it, and I want to continue doing it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I also want to put out about six courses again this year.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: A course every two months.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: A course is a lot of work.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of work.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: This year, I do think I want to increase a bit the amount of work that I put into my courses.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Not meaning do better, although I always want to do better in my courses, but more about the there's one course that I want to do, it's gonna take a lot of time, which is gonna really mean spending more time building courses this year than last year.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that is, this is kind of a bit of an announcement here, but I'm going to create the C Sharp Master Course 2.0.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, it is a 2.0, it's a new version.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you've purchased the C Sharp Master Course recently or you're thinking about it, don't worry.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm not sure how far back I'm gonna go, but for a while, for a number of months at least, I'll give anybody that purchased the C Sharp master course the original one, I'll give you a 2.0 for free.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna try and milk you for you know twice the money.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it really is a ground up start-to-finish, brand new course from you know.NET 10 focused, and it's gonna be redone entirely.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: The original course, just so you're aware, was actually the foundation in C sharp.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it was built entirely in the.NET framework because that's what was out when that originally came out.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I have updated over the years for free and continue to update that over and over and over again.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: It now has content, I believe.NET 8 or.NET 9, I think.NET 8 was the last time I updated it with new content.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, just a side note here, um, so you can start thinking about this and not worry.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll answer one frequently asked question that I'll probably get.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the C sharp master course, the original one, uh, is still super valuable.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: It still is valuable.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: It does use.NET framework still in some places, intentionally.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I could have replaced all the places with.NET framework.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: I chose which ones to replace based upon is it necessary?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is it gonna be a different code compared to uh what is in the.NET framework?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if it was different code, then I changed over to.NET as opposed to.NET Framework.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: But the new C sharp MasterCourse will cover the.NET framework.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we'll still do most of our code work in.NET 10 and Visual Studio 2026 instead of um 2019 was some of my videos, now 2022 for others in C Sharp Master Course.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: But we're going to you know redo all that stuff with the latest and greatest while still referencing the older things because when you get into an actual job, you're going to work on older code.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna work on the latest and greatest of everything.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um that's part of what I'm gonna work on this next year, is getting a C Sharp Master Course 2.0 out the door, which is a big project.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: The original C Sharp Master Course is, I think, 73 hours of content.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I intend to have at least the same amount of content.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: If as far as hours, I'll probably have more.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really trying hard not to make it this massive hundreds of hours thing.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to keep it as focused as possible.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: But we're also gonna change the format to you know be even more broken apart into chunks so you can get a chunk and see some success.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Again, looking back at where you've come, as opposed to just looking at the mountain you have to climb.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it is still gonna be a I know nothing about C sharp when I come in.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to know anything about C sharp when you come in, all the way through I'm employable as a C sharp developer by the time you're done, just like the C sharp master course is.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a tall order to add to five other courses that I'll get done next year, but that is on my to-do list.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's gonna get bump up, um, whereas YouTube will stay about the same, but I think I can accomplish that next year.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also going to build and release one software as a service product.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not releasing what that is yet.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about that yet, but that is my radar to do, both because I want to do it as a side project, something that needs to get built, but also because it'd be a great opportunity to kind of show off some of the things you can do with C sharp.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, I want to upgrade the company website and finally move over to devforge.com.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if you didn't know, I amtimcorey.com is where everything is.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the YouTube channel is, is I am Tim Corey.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: The reason it says I am Tim Corey is because when I first started YouTube, way back, it's been almost a decade or over a decade now, um, I did it just for a class I was teaching at a college.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I did it just to have recap videos.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's the whole purpose.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was not to help everybody in the world, which I'm doing now, uh, but instead just to help the 20 or so people in my class.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it escaped those bounds and it started to grow.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And at that point, the name is the name.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it really is weird to say, well, I'm, you know, I attend, you know, I take classes from I Am Tim Corey, but you're not Tim Corey.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Tim Corey is Tim Corey, right?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um I have been slowly switching over, you probably have noticed, uh, to devforge.com.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we're finally gonna transition file fully the website to devforge.com.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing else changes.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's still me, but it's going to be devforge.com, which is a big boy business name as opposed to just, hey, I'm Tim Corey.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: So still me.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing's going to change that way.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: But we're finally going to transfer over to devforge.com for our website and kind of upgrade that as well.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I want you to notice that I'm not making a crazy list.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, there's some changes, and yes, there's some upgrades in certain areas, but in fact, this list could represent about the same amount of work I did this past year or even a little bit less.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's because I'm okay with where I'm at.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: More doesn't mean better.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you need to create more things next year because you created a certain number this year.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Find out what works for you and figure out how to maybe hit the plateau you need to of where you think, yes, that's a good amount of work or a good amount of output or a good amount of growth this year.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then work on just being better at that.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be more, you need to be better.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: So get more efficient.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe next year you'll say, you know what?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I got more efficient.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now I can do more.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: But work on being better.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I'm going to try to do this next year is to create better content, not just more content.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, on the personal side, I want to improve my photography skills.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hobby, but it's also something I want to get better at.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I'm okay with the fact that I'm not perfect.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'm not great yet.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm okay.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's okay.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay not to be perfect.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: And this is also something I want to make sure that you understand as a developer.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you're at, you might not be a great developer yet.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay not to be at the pinnacle of your career.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: The thing you need to do is just work to get a little bit better.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I'm going to model with my photography skills.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can actually follow me on Instagram if you want.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't show off my Instagram or even care about, like, I don't hashtag or anything else.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just put things there that I think they're fun.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'll post things every once in a while as I take new pictures and find something fun and new to do.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's my way of being able to then look back at my Instagram and go, oh, I have improved my skills.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: I have changed how I take photographs.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I have changed how I edit them.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I've grown over this past year.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: So my goal next year is to improve my photography skills.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: I also want to take a road trip across the south of the U.S.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: I live in Texas and I'm going to take a road trip over to the East Coast.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it'd be fun.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to take a camera along.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to have some great time with that with my wife.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, I want to hit a beach somewhere.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love the beach.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I love the beach.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um usually go to Virginia Beach.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um that might be in the cards this year, maybe not.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Depends on how things work out.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but somewhere I want to hit a beach.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And whether that's for a weekend or for a week or for two weeks, whatever it is, I want to be able to just relax and take some time to decompress in the sun on the on the shore.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's me.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I want to do over the next year, both personally as well as professionally.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, how about you?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: The trick will be to not compare yourself to me or to anyone else.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're at different stages of life.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have different goals, we have different incomes, and generally are in different situations.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's not going to be helpful to compare you to me or you to anybody else.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, review where you're at and where you want to be.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So let's go through a list of questions.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, what did you accomplish last year?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so I showed you what I accomplished last year.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: What did you accomplish last year?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: What things did you do outside of work to create memories?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you have young kids, did you spend time playing with them?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Did you go to the park with them?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Did you do something else that that builds a long-term memory besides just say, I can't right now, I'm busy?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you do outside of work to create memories?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Number three, are you satisfied with your progress last year?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: You can say yes.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can say, you know what?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm happy where I'm at.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can say, you know what?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I just coasted through last year, or some bad things happened and it just threw me off track and I never really got back on track.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: So just identify, are you are you happy last year?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then number four, what do you want to accomplish this coming year?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe you're not happy where you were last year.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, you know what?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get back on track.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: I want to do these things.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you say, you know what?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, last year was great.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: So this year, I want to do the exact same thing.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go two for two.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want to have two great years in a row.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, number five, what do you need to change to make that happen?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes what you need to change is nothing.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're right on track, you're you're satisfied where you are last year and how you grew, and you're right on track to do the same thing again this year.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the time, though, you need to change something to make that happen.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: You need to maybe adjust how you use your phone, or maybe you need to adjust when you get up, or when you go to bed, or what order you do things in, or how you reward yourself or not reward yourself, depending on how things are going.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: So figure out those five things.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: What did you accomplish last year?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: What things do you do outside of work to create memories?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Are you satisfied with your progress last year?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want to accomplish this coming year?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you need to change to make that happen?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you feel like you accomplished what you wanted to in 2025.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't say that about 2025, I hope that you can make the adjustments necessary to be able to say that about 2026.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: As always, I am Tim Corey.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcorey.com and enroll in a course.