2024 in review
My goal for 2024 was to write a blog.
I originally envisaged the blog as being primarily about showcasing my work within data, which was definitely the tone for the first half of the year, e.g.
- Most controversial movie opinion
- How to create professional figures in Matplotlib
- An interactive guide to linear models
As the year progressed, I began to prefer longer-form essays over data visualisation which reflected my discovery of short essays from writers like A.A. Gill, Anthony Bourdain and George Orwell.
The last two examples actually got quite a bit of organic traffic just for including keywords the internet cares about.
In the end, I managed to write 14 blog posts and 51 TIL (only publishing 10 on this blog) - meaning I actually hit my stated goal from the beginning of the year! Thanks to a strong final push in December, and some 100 page novellas, I also managed to read 52 books and watch 52 films which I’m pretty chuffed with.
Moving forward into 2025, I want to continue to write essays about any particular topic that piques my interest, whether than be food, photography or data. I see many blogs that try and have a unique selling point, but I want this to be a reflection of what I’m thinking at any given time. In the interest of writing down a goal to be accountable come 2026, I want to:
- write 12 essays
- write 52 TILs
- read 52 books (with fewer cookbooks padding my stats)
- watch 52 films