Throwback 2023

2023 was a pivotal year in my life and more of a transitional period where I spent most of my time staying home and focused on work compared to the previous years. In this article, I would like to walk down the memory lane and recollect some of my notable achievements and learnings.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Personal Life

• One of my goals for this year was to prioritize my health and lead a healthy lifestyle. In the early months, I hit the gym in my condominium and made sure I did at least 7k steps a day. I did try to maintain a healthy diet and I hope to pursue this healthy lifestyle for the next couple of years.
• This year I had a goal to clear off the debts I’ve accumulated since debt keeps you awake at night and also restricts you from taking calculated risks. I also wanted to start investing in some assets which could provide me with a side income. I mostly led a lean life this year and with careful financial planning and a ton of patience, I managed to become debt-free and invested in assets that could break even in the future.
• It was a big dream for my parents to visit Thailand and experience the country’s unique culture and traditions. I could fulfill their dream this year as the long COVID-19 travel restrictions were finally over. To make it even more special it was my dad’s first international travel and flight journey.

Family in Thailand

Work

• I’ve moved to a leadership role this year after my promotion to an Associate Development Manager role and this makes it my 3rd promotion at Agoda. It was completely unexpected and I am not sure if it’s right to call it a promotion since it was more like a career transition from an Individual Contributor role to a Leadership role. Overall, it has been a great experience so far, and I learned a lot this year mostly on the people management and technical leadership part.

Linkedin

Hobbies

• Unfortunately, I lost my writing spree with my medium articles this year. I aimed to write 10 articles in 2023, but I just managed to write 3. I guess it has something to do with adjusting to my new role as a manager. I couldn't manage my work-life balance during the transition to the new role as it was extremely demanding at the beginning. My previous articles still get good traction and I’m very happy that I’ve gained a total of 615 subscribers so far and I’m determined to get back at writing next year.
• I have been very excited about getting back at solving algorithm puzzles on Leetcode since 2022. But around early 2023, I decided to give up on my Leetcode daily challenges and contests as it was too demanding in terms of time and the ROI was not worth the effort. Given I’m in a leadership role now, I reinvested my time into getting better at other skills. This is my Leetcode summary for 2023:

Leetcode Rewind 2023

• I always wanted to contribute back to the developer community and ADPList was a perfect platform for me to offer free mentorship to software engineers. I feel a sense of pride that I managed to complete around 15 mentorship sessions on adplist.org this year. It is one of my favorite achievements so far as I got to meet a lot of new people and it was a rewarding experience when you receive heartwarming feedback. On a personal front, these sessions helped me to get exposed to the diverse perspectives and personal struggles of mentees and allowed me to think deeply and provide a structured action plan.

ADPList 2023 summary

• I was always relying on video sources for learning or gaining knowledge and I realized that to gain more depth I need to start reading. Moreover, as someone trying to get better at writing, reading helps me to be familiar with different writing styles and appreciate the thought processes of the authors. I’m happy that this year I gradually started to gain momentum in reading and making it a habit. It was always hard for me to get into the rhythm of reading but this year I did manage to persist on a few books which are mostly technical. A few of my favorites were:
  1) The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier
  2) The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo
  3) Refactoring by Martin Fowler
  4) Clean Code by Robert C Martin

As 2024 is approaching, I am excited about what’s coming ahead. I’ve got some big plans lined up for the next year and I am hopeful that everything will fall into place. My primary focus for 2024 will be on leading a healthy life and spending more time with family. I’m hoping for an amazing 2024 and I wish you all a happy new year!!

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Throwback 2022