This year, this article is being released "Just In Time" 👌

In 2020 work-life balance became an issue

Because of pandemic (COVID-19 😓) hundreds of thousands of people all around the world became remote workers. Some of them was happier than ever, some of them was devastated. While this new situation was a real challenge for many people, I was actually happy.

As you might already know, I'm a huge advocate of remote work. I've been working (in my spare time, besides full-time jobs) as a freelancer with clients from all over the world. For the last couple years I've finally started working remotely full-time which was somewhat my dream come true thing.

If somebody would ask me to self-esteem, I would say that I'm a rather hard working person. In 2020 I've worked more than ever. But not because I had to, it's because sometimes I've felt that I needed to add those extra hours to achieve something that I will be satisfied with in the end of the day.

Unfortunately, most issues I've worked on this year was - because of variety of reasons - pretty complicated/difficult (you name it!). To achieve progress I've worked longer many times, but never complaint about it (as I'm doing such things only when I feel necessary so nobody will have anything to complain about my overall peformance).

In addition, I've started working on various side projects in my spare time.

So yeah, this was a pretty tough year, in terms of work-life balace.

PS. Regarding workplace itself, it was a year of change. In the beginning of the year I've switched projects and joined a newly formed front-end team at HICX.

Lessons learned

While Vue.js framework doesn't have any secrets for me anymore, I've learned a lot about working with advanced, pure JavaScript-based libraries and their pain points when trying to do something veeeeery custom with them (I'm talking to you, ag-grid😒).

Thanks to my side projects, I've learned also how to integrate Vue with NW.js in a pretty unusual way.

Personal growth stats

564 contributions (235 more than in 2019) - that's the amount of commits I've made solely to my own projects (not counting those from my full-time job) 💪 🔥 I hope I'll manage to keep similiar level next year 😎

My StackOverflow profile basically lives its own life and gained (mostly) by itself extra 576 points this year (4545 in total right now).

This website has been seen by ~24k unique visitors in total (+6k more than last year).

twitter: (@lukaszkups): +19 new followers (106 in total)
instagram (@lukasz_kups): +38 new followers (117 in total)

Entertainment

Books:

As weird as it might sound - I consume tons of business/tech/lifestyle related articles every day, but haven't finished any book this year (yeap, it's a shame, but I've decided to make this fact public anyway 😛).

I'm an active subscriber to classic Transformers comic book series though 📖 😎 (finished 40 issues already! 🤣)

Movies:

Referring to last year note: I've seen Joker (it was great!) 🙂 Still haven't seen Ad Astra & Parasite though 😐.

It's difficult to mention any particular title that was extraordinary as many movie premieres has been postponed because of Coronavirus 😒.

But if not relying solely on 2020s productions, I'll say that 37 sekanzu (from 2019) totally nailed my movie lists seen in 2020! Even if you're not into Asian cinematography I recommend it to see just for the views.

Knives Out (2019) is worth to mention as well (it's my last movie I've seen in cinema so far! 😮) - great crime comedy with multiple plot-twists and an awesome cast.

Destination Wedding (2018) - oh gosh, this movie have soo great comedy dialogues 🤣 Totally recommends this for good laughs!

Zombie express (original title: Busanhaeng) - one of the greatest zombie movies that has been recently made (and this one is from 2016!)

The Two Popes (2019) - I was expecting something different (a mockumentary maybe?) But realising that it's a bittersweet comedy driven by two great actors was a positive surprise.

The Shining - yeap, I mean THIS movie, from 1980 - I've finally seen it 🙌 (and I regret I've postponed this for so long time!). Great thriller/horror, but I'm not sure what was the scaries thing there: sounds, Jack Nickolson or Shelley Duvall? 🤔

And last one: Hurricane (also known as Misson of honor) (2018) - despite poor CGI this movie is worth seeing (even just for the Iwan Rheon's creation sake 🙂) (IMPORTANT! Don't confuse this with Squadron 303 movie - that one was awful! 😖)

I've started watching The Crown serie on Netflix with my wife - I was every sceptic at first, but then positively surprised.

While being on (TV) series, I've watched also Dorohedoro anime - a really crazy fantasy/horror/comedy creation, great to relax mindlessly on the couch.

Games:

Spider-Man (PS4) - damn, this game looks beautiful! And I'm really impressed how fast this game loads - kudos to developers from Insomniac Games! 🙌

While I play mostly on PS4, in the end of this year I've also started playing Stardew Valley on PC (soo relaxing experience!) 🙂

Besides those two, I still play from time to time Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4), trying to beat it for 100% 😎.

Small wins

I've managed to keep up with writing my own weekly summaries for the whole year!

I've beaten my life record (and goal to reach before the end of 2020) of doing chin-ups - I can officially announce that I'm able to do 10 reps! (before starting, my life record was 6 and it was from my teenage times!). Plan for 2021 - be able to do 10 reps of pull-ups (I'm at 4 at the moment 😓) and 20 of chin-ups! 💪

Small failures

Due to lack of time (or bad time management 🙄) I've ran only couple times during this year (and I think it was LITERALLY a couple (2!) times 😓).

Despite the fact of spending many days on research & prototyping Lem desktop app, I haven't reached the point I've imagined to (MVP at least 💔)

Plans for the 2021

Someone wise said once, that telling God about your plans is the best way to make him laugh 🙂 but I've decided to share it anyway:

Release Tavuelo 1.0 (non-beta) version
Reach at least MVP state with Lem development
Rebuild/redesign my website, using Lem app 😎
Achieve my workout goals, run more again, loose weight and keep it under 80kg (I'm 81 - 83kg right now 🙄)
Spend more time with my family 💑

Summary of the summary

Do you remember when I've wrote that the year went so fast in my last year summary?

Well this one has gone like:

January, February, March, Pandemic - and here we are, 2020 is over already

Please, go to sleep 2020, you're drunk.

I hope we all have way better 2021, I wish you all the best and a happy New Year! 🎉🍾🎆

-- ł.

Summary of the Year 2020