End of year review and thinking about 2026

As another year comes to an end, I find myself doing what I do every December: reflecting on the year that’s passed and thinking about the one ahead. There’s something special about this time of year that invites deep reflection, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you.

Looking Back: More Than I Realized

When I look back at everything I’ve accomplished this year, I’m genuinely surprised. I’ve done way more than I thought I did.

I think this is something many of us experience. We’re so caught up in the day-to-day hustle, shipping projects, meeting deadlines, juggling responsibilities, that we rarely pause to recognize just how much we’ve actually achieved.

But when I step back and look at the year as a whole, I actually did achieve most of my goals. It’s a good feeling to sit back and acknowledge: yes, it was hard, but I got there.

This year, I shipped new apps and new games. I released lots of updates for existing projects.

I also made the difficult decision to close down the Compile Swift podcast. That was bittersweet, but sometimes the right thing is the hard thing. Now, as the year winds down, it’s time to think about what comes next.

I’m not someone who creates detailed, rigid plans. The reason is simple: like many of you, I have a full-time day job that takes priority.

Then there’s home life and everything else that matters. So instead of strict resolutions, I set loose plans. I tell myself: I would like to see this happen. And I also acknowledge that it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t. This approach keeps me motivated without setting myself up for unnecessary disappointment.

I do miss the Compile Swift podcast, though. I miss it really badly. It turns out a lot of the audience misses it too, and I’m grateful to everyone who reached out to tell me so. Creating technical content on a regular schedule is tough.

Producing something technical every two weeks is challenging because some weeks you just don’t have anything new, or you haven’t had time, or there’s simply not much happening in the space. I didn’t want it to become overly scripted either. So I decided the best thing to do was end it on a high note. I still regret it, of course, but I also know it was probably the right decision.

Looking Ahead: Plans and Challenges

For next year, I have some new project ideas brewing. I want to push heavily on updating my existing apps with new features, things I never quite got around to implementing. But here’s something I’ve had to admit to myself: marketing is a massive weakness for me. I know the basics, like I think most developers do, but that’s not the same as being good at it.

I’m not a specialist, and I think what I need to do is give myself a schedule. Something like: you will spend one hour a week figuring out how to market your apps and games. Easy to say, I know. But I think that’s the only way forward. Dedicate one hour where I’m going to learn something new about marketing.

Whether that’s research, actually implementing marketing strategies, or experimenting with different approaches. I expect most of it will be research at the beginning, and I expect a lot of it to fail. I’m not looking for overnight success, despite what the internet wants us to believe is possible.

I’m also moving my journaling to full time analog rather than a hybrid combining digital. I find that writing with pen and paper gives me the necessary focus and clarity that I don’t always get from digital tools where I can type as fast as I think.

I will be starting something new though that I have already tested over the last month, a developer journal of things I’ve done and learned, that will be digital since it will include code and snippets that I’ll want to refer back to and have easily searchable. For that, I will continue to use my favorite journaling too, Day One.

I hope you have had a great year and look forward to sharing more content in 2026 with you all.