2015 was a great year for me. I was able to work with some amazing people and learned a lot in my industry.

In this post, I would like to go over some of my future goals and personal projects that I'll be working on throughout the year. One of the upcoming features of my site really excites me to be able to help out the Squarespace community with my new section, the Code Shop (more details below). 

Personal goals for this year

Below are some of my personal goals that I would like to try and build into my daily life this year.

• Work on two big personal projects (project "Should You" and project Storytelling)

• Work on managing work stress and don't let it have such an impact on my personal life

• Write more blog posts and keep a more active site

• Keep improving and adding more unique and custom features to my site

• Read more developer and design blogs to keep up with Industry standards

• Weekly development training sessions on codeschool.com

• Live a more active and healthier lifestyle

Project "Should You"

Project "Should You" is a personal project for me to learn my first real solid javascript library, ReactJS. Being a front-end developer, my one weak point is my knowledge of javascript libraries.

In a nutshell, I'll be creating a single-page app that will calculate whether or not you should hire someone as a developer. It will have a series of skill-based questions that will be rated off of the candidate’s current standing skill-set (their answers) and see how close of a fit they are. Once the potential employer reaches the last question they will then get a detailed breakdown of the results explaining whether or not you should hire that candidate.

Once I've made some solid ground in the upcoming months I would like to write up a detailed blog post on the progress of this project. I think this would be really helpful for anyone in the same situation for me to explain any large roadblocks that I came across while learning ReactJS.

Project Storytelling

Coming in a few weeks I will be showcasing a personal branded video (Project Storytelling) about myself. This video will highlight my background and my passion for my industry. This has been a personal goal of mine for some time now. I'm fortunate enough to know someone in the video industry that will help me make this a reality.

Cory Cross is the Owner and Founder of Lotti Dotti, LLC. His company focuses solely on creating films, branded content, and strategic planning. And more importantly, captivating others through it. Cory works enthusiastically with the client, brand or agency on creative ideation and the production process. Able to maintain cordial and professional relationships with everyone involved within the production. I urge you to take a look at some of his work at lottidotti.co.

Thanks to my viewers

Being featured on Squarespace.com, I get a decent amount of traffic every month. This has had a big impact on how I look at my site as a whole and how I'd like to expand moving forward, as you can see in the graph below.

Now I understand that majority of this traffic is only here to view an example of the Squarespace Bedford template in action. However, this traffic has definitely affected the number of freelance offers I receive monthly. 

On top of the increase of freelance, I also have received a great number of emails from passionate people who tell me how inspired they are by the work that I've accomplished throughout the years. This has really changed how I think of myself in my industry and where I want to go moving forward. With that being said, I would just like to say thank you to all of my viewers and I really do appreciate hearing from you.

Upcoming blog posts

As I said above, one of my goals this year is to write more blog posts and to drive more active users to my site. Below you can get an idea of some of the blog posts that I'll be working on in the upcoming months.

• Squarespace tips & helpful information

• Product reviews

• Industry tips & news

• Progress on personal projects 

• Personal achievements

• My story into this industry

• Also, a giveaway event later this year (thoughts or ideas are welcome, please comment below)

Code Shop (coming soon)

Interested in Squarespace video training to help you learn more, or would you just like some code snippets for adding new features to your already existing Squarespace site?

Well, you're going to want to check out the Code Shop this March. In this new section of my site, I will be providing some in-depth Squarespace video training on anything from understanding the basics to adding some advanced developer mode features as you see on my site.

This will take some time for me to put together a good amount of content for this section, but I'm planning on at least launching with 3 or more helpful training guides. If you have any thoughts or ideas on what guides you'd like to see in the Code Shop then please post a comment below.

Final thoughts

Once again, I would like to thank my viewers for keeping me motivated and passionate about who I am and what I do in my industry.