It’s the last day of the year on the modern calendar.

I published my #YEARINREVIEW this morning, which I captured what I “shipped” this year. It is a yearly tradition that I have been doing for a decade now. I am always struck by all the things that make it onto the list. I am equally in awe of, how each year, there are projects in the queue for the next year. It is good to see the growth, as well as the seeds you have planted.

2021 was different. No new books. No big interesting projects. These months needed a different kind of energy. Much of my year was spent setting up and configuring processes that will run Bard Press for the next several years. I told people that transitioning to our new distributor felt like starting a new job with all the new people, new terminology, and so many new systems.

I keep a document called Running Notes that I start anew each year. I used the document to collect links and quotes. I also use it to do all of my rough drafts for newsletters and important communications. I looked today, the last day I will be using it, and it has over 75,000 words in it. I wrote the equivalent of a book this year in many smaller pieces.

I read extensively: The Millionaire Next Door, The Simple Path to Wealth, Automatic Millionaire, Lotus Sutra of the Wondrous Dharma, Peaceful Action, Open Heart, The Passion Economy, The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, Everyday Millionaires, Training the Mind, No One Succeeds Alone, Professional Troublemaker, Traction, The Inner Game of Tennis, The Inner Game of Work, Full Catastrophe Living, The Mindful Athlete, The Energy Medicine Handbook, Saga Book Two, Premonition, Twenty Bits I Learned About Making Fonts, Made To Stick. Chatter, The Progress Principle, Presence, Courage to Be Disliked, Surrounded by Idiots, Getting Things Done. Get Everything Done. QBQ, 2034, Bibliostyle, Deadline Effect, Black Widow (Thompson), Wanting, Limitless, Etiquette of Illness, What I Talk About WHen I Talk About Running, For The Love of Books, Batman: Last Knight on Earth, The Conversation, Backable, Risk Forward, Boundless Vows, Positioning for Professionals, Miracle Morning, The Best Cover Design, Cover (Mendelsund), Chip Kidd: Book Two, The Science of Happily Ever After.

The bolded titles are the ones that stayed with me. Michael Lewis’ Premonition was his book on another view into the long, unseen arc of thinking that impacted how we reacted to the pandemic. The Progress Principle shows small steps motivates people to accept more difficult challenges and to persist longer, while setbacks increase negative emotions and further inhibit motivation.

The Conversation by Robert Livingston was the single book that came out of my annual look at the year-end business book best-of lists. The book is about racism and how the real conversation begins when we start to see and discuss how prevalent racism is and how we treat others in a racist manner. You can read my longer review on Medium.

Homebound for most of the year, I seemed to be attracted to off planet TV shows: For All Mankind, The Planets (Documentary), and The Expanse. The Book of Boba Fett is off to a good start.

Our go-to boardgames during the year were:

• Wingspan (two players with my wife and with a slightly larger group of friends)
• Terraforming Mars (more off-planet interest, dueling with my son)
• 7 Wonders.
• We play Wits and Wagers with my parents over zoom (it works pretty well).
• We got Roll Player and Fantastic Factories for the holidays, both are interesting but need a couple more runs to see how they fit into our rotation.
• Honestly, our family go-to continues to be Uno using the alternate pirate rules.

And I am thankful for vaccines, still miss Jack, and hope to get back out into the world more in 2022.

Best wishes to you and yours!

Happy New Year!