JL NICH blog beats article, Year-End Review of 2023. blog cover image, close up of woman's left eye with rainbow sun reflection

Year-End Review of 2023

Throughout 2023 I tracked and logged my progress in three areas: Writing, Exercise, and Work.  I am primarily following James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, the process of answering 3 questions.

  • What went well? 
  • What didn’t go so well?
  • What am I working toward?

This is my 2nd self-review, see my first review here for 2022.  While this may be less messy than my first, it is still a little ragged around the edges.  As I tracked 2023, I started using a spreadsheet.  Woah, high-tech!  I swore my 2022 tracking was horrendous, so I built my own little Career Best Effort (CBE) profile for myself, similar to what Pat Riley introduced in 1984 for the Lakers.  I began the year tracking daily, weekly, and monthly improvements in my CBE portfolio.  However somewhere in March or April, I stopped using the spreadsheet.  Note to self make an easier spreadsheet.  

Auto-tracked data:

  • SLEEP TRACKING (Garmin Watch) – my sleep consistency average is 8.16 hours in bed at 10 pm/up at 7 am – granted I have to drive 3 hours twice a month to get to my job and that has made sleep tracking difficult.  Recommended is over 7 so I think I’ve been doing well with length.  My problem is waking up repeatedly in the night.  I’m using more meditation to combat this issue.
  • COURSE/LEARNING – I purchased these courses this year. 
        • Dictate Like an Author by Nick Thacker
        • Plotting And Planning Your Novel by David Daniel Wallace
        • AI For Authors by Joseph Michael 
        • Weekend Book Warrior by Joseph Michael
        • LaTisha Styles – 7 Figure 
        • The Abundant Author by Clarrisa Andrews
  • MONEY (aka-Fico Score) – my Fico has gone from 651 (Fair) to 669 (Fair) over the year.The scale is like this image that I grabbed from Shutterstock (also found on the Equifax website).

    Note: I did have all three credit scores rise higher in November and I expect to have my Fico at Good going into 2024.  I’m currently showing:

        • Experian 705
        • Equifax 693
        • Transunion 715

The idea behind tracking my Fico score is to improve it over time.  My new goal in 2024 is to pass 740 (into Very Good).  I am expecting this to happen.  I’m paying down my student loans, and my mortgage and will be shooting for a HELOC to build onto my house.  I need to want that 740.

  • CERTIFICATES (LinkedIn, Coursera):

I took an entire RPA course this year on Coursera to learn more about automation tactics my company is using.  I have not completed it yet, but I received certificates for 5 of the 6 modules.

I also took some Self-Improvement courses:

Experian: 705
Equifax: 693
Transunion: 715

JL NICH blog beats article, Year-End Review of 2023. Credit score range image, sitting at good 670-739

Writing 

My speed did not change, but by incorporating ChapGPT, I was able to increase blog volume.  I wrote over 50 blogs this year.  I expect more in 2024.  An estimate of my writing speed is 400 words per 30 minutes, on average.  So, a 100K word count novel still takes 125 hours (25 days if I write 5 hours straight each day).  

What went well?  This year:

  1. I worked on three new novels: 
    • Sparrows Legacy, SF Fantasy (Complete), 
    • Soldiers in Arms, Lesbian Historical Romance (Unfinished)
    • Cavel’s Colt, SF Fantasy, unfinished (Unfinished)
    • NaNoWriMo Novel – Spirito: The Canid Warrior, unfinished (Total wc 52k)
  2. I submitted my Drayton’s Discoveries Book 1, SFF, 104K wc, to the editor for publishing
  3. Tracking of specific numbers
    • I posted 54 of 54 chapters of Sparrow’s Legacy under JLNich on Kindle Vella. (92,380 wc)
    • I posted 16 of 25 chapters of Soldiers-In-Arms under JLNicky on Kindle Vella. (30,683 wc)
    • I wrote 30 of 35 chapters of Cavel’s Colt (80,248 wc)
    • I wrote 5 of 40 chapters of Spirito: The Canid Warrior (52000 wc)
    • I wrote 16 of 25 chapters on Homeless for JLNicky (22,949WC)
    • I posted 36 blog articles for Blog Beats on JLNichauthor.com 
    • I posted 21 blog articles for Sexy Scholar on JLNickyauthor.com
    • I participated in the 2023 NaNoWriMo challenge writing on Spirio: The Canid. 
    • I created 3 YouTube tutorial videos for PLOTTR software.

I’m sharing this blog again because it just makes sense.  The Ultimate Writers Higher Productivity Tips

I, also, wrote 10+ various topic #vss365 word prompt poems on Twitter under @jlnickymaster and @lesbianspecfic (see a few below):

 

Social Media

Overall, I hired a company RightSide LeftSide Consulting to handle the websites but I found running two websites was killing my writing.  I stopped writing posts on JLNickyauthor.com in 2023 to focus on the SFF website jlnichauthor.com. I am still learning and plan to expand to include social media advertisements on Pinterest, and possibly video advertisements on YouTube/TikTok. 

I hired a company to support my social media and websites and their stats show I have:

      • 54 Mailchimp subscribers
      • 0 Patreon subscriber 
      • 1,000 Facebook followers for JLNich
      • 2,256 Twitter followers for JLNich

My first writing goal for the new year 2024 is to get my dictation software AND send Cavels Colt to Beta Readers.

JL NICH blog beats article, Year-End Review of 2023. Mirror with motivational sticky notes. don't give up, be kind to yourself.

End-of-Year Reflections:
Use motivational memes to really rock your day. I look them up daily just to get me in the right mood.

Writing – What didn’t go well
      • I have only 11 followers in Kindle Vella for Sparrows Legacy. With 29 thumbs up.
      • I only had 6 followers in KV for Soldiers-In-Arms.  With 4 thumbs up.
      • My FB followers are +900 but I’m still not seeing any conversion for readership.
      • Journaled haphazardly.  Will be tracking this more closely in 2024
Writing – What am I working toward? 

In order of importance:

      • Publish 1 e-book, if not 2. Post 2 more Kindle Novels (JAN and AUG)
      • Add 52, weekly blogs.
      • For my own guilty pleasure, I’ll be adding poems to Twitter.
      • Create a video(s) -Youtube or Canva shorts.  At least 10.
      • Begin an E-course for the PLOTTR tutorial.
Exercise – What went well?

My entire tracking began when I decided to lose weight.  I bought a Hero’s Journey book to track my daily health and fitness goals.  And I bought a lifetime subscription to the Fabulous App.  I have slowly been becoming fabulous.

      • Mirror Time – 15 sessions for LuluLemon Mirror (Strength, Dance, Cardio, Stretch, Bar, Boxing, Yoga, and Pilates).  Way down.  I think I did more Meditation and Meta Quest Saber Beat routines that were not tracked though. 
      • Duolingo –3000 + minutes (Spanish)
      • Dumbbell weights 15 lbs 3 days a week, 3 lbs 3 days a week mostly from Jan to Mar, then died out.
      • Weight watching – started 2023 192lbs, currently weight 202lbs. This is not working.  I did fasting all year and obviously, my diet is a mess.
      • Steps average 3000-5000 four days a week, my Garmin stopped working so I bought an Apple Watch and cannot figure out the steps history so I’m going to guess I walked about 100 miles this year which is actually down from last year.
      • Sleep average of 7.50 hours a night.  I still need deep sleep.  I’ve started meditation.
      • Meditation – 59 sessions for 397 minutes (average length 7 minutes)
      • Vitamins – taken daily for the whole body, which includes multi-vitamins, eyes, calcium, GNC Vitapak® Program 50 Plus, and Prevagen.  This habit is in place.  I might stop tracking it.  I stopped hot-flash meds and moved to HRT estrogen patches for the next 3 years.
      • Logged 4 days a week (average) JAN through JUN daily goals in my Hero’s Journal.  Lost my journal during a move.  Lost part of the year of journaling.  Super bad. 
Exercise -What didn’t go well?
      • I am not doing cardio as well as I’d like.  I had a leg injury and am still in PT as of DEC.  
      • Walking dogs is still off the chart.  See above injury.
      • I gained weight.  I haven’t tracked days of workouts either.  I need to be more diligent.
 Exercise – What I’m working toward.
      • I’m still tracking my habits and increasing my strength training program.  I should track my food and exercise workouts.
      • I need to walk and train my dogs in 2024.
      • I want to improve my deep sleep pattern.  I bought an Apple watch and I’m figuring things out.
Work – What went well?
      • Completed Legacy Leader course.
      • Onboarded a couple of co-workers.
      • Integrated another dept into our ServiceNow support.
Work – What didn’t go well?
      • I did not finish my AI training like I wanted. 
      • No promotion. My overall review was not good with my supervisor.  He felt I was not focusing on the right priorities.  This issue has been resolved by his removing all my projects.  Horrible year, basically.   
      • No raise due to the “needs improvement” rating by my supervisor.  No closer to 7 figures.
Work – What am I working toward in 2024?
      • Increasing LinkedIn Learning coursework quantity.  I should get more than 7 certificates a year.
      • Going to finish my Coursera UIPath training. And do some additional projects on GitHub with this application.  
      • Following an AI Learning path on CodeAcademy.com toward AI automation.
Summary:

The year’s review is complete.  With these three areas of Writing, Exercise, and Work, I am attempting to move me toward a better me.  I’m using habit tracking, automation reminders,  and atomic habit improvement to sustain my progress or improve upon it.  I focused on emotional improvement more than physical improvement, and it did not seem to help keep my health and outlook positive, so I’m going to shift my focus to physical in 2024.  I’m doing quite well on reading more self-improvement books and reading in general.  Check out that article here to see what I read this year.  I still feel a bit exposed about sharing this type of information with others, but now that it’s out there I can see why James Clear submitted it for public review.  It is quite freeing and binding to my commitments at the same time.  I’m interested in any feedback but still don’t expect much.  I really only have 54 followers, more or less.  Tons on Twitter and FB, but my websites have a low volume of visitors.  I was thinking of adding a relationship category of some kind as I’m still single and hate it.  But I need to figure out how to improve that part of my life and still do all these other things, lol.  Hopefully, someone who is interested in some of these habits and lives nearby and decides to pursue reaching out…will happen soon.  I’m taking one day at a time about that.  I’m also working on improving the messy layout of this review.  I want it to be easier to read and write. 😀 Anyway, Happy New Year!  See you in 2024.

Jeanne Nicholas

End-of-Year Reflections: Use motivational memes to really rock your day.  I look them up daily just to get me in the right mood.

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