Back to Basics 2025

It is officially 2025! My first emotion for the new year is joy. Mostly joy that 2024 was finally over.

My 2024 was a dumpster fire. The year started great. Then it just went downhill from there.

Normally the holidays are my favorite time of the year. However, this year I just had a hard time getting and staying in the holiday spirit after being bombarded by a terrible year. By the time December started, I was over 2024 and anxiously awaiting for the new year to start.

2025 Roadmap

2025 isn't just a brand new year. It is a brand new chapter of my story. Before I turned the page to 2025, I did a lot of self-reflection of whatI want to do for the new year.

As I looked back at everything that happened in 2024, I realized that throughout the year I had strayed away from the woman I had become when I started learning how to code. She was confident and knew what she wanted. She was less concerned about the destination and more about the journey she was on.

I missed that girl. So the theme of my roadmap is "back to basics" or getting back to my coding roots. I figured the best way to reconnect with the woman I want to be is to do the things that helped me become that person.

Coding More

Last year, I didn't do as much coding as I hoped to do. A lot of that is from the health issues that popped up. This impacted my vision so now it is blurry and spotty.

Although I'm on the mend, I'm still on the road to recovery. However, by the end of 2024, I could finally open up my laptop and start coding again. Right now I'm revisiting coding tutorials I have done and am building projects I've already made again.

Reviewing old lessons and building these projects again is different this time around since my vision isn't the best right now. So it feels like I'm learning how to code again. This time I have the extra challenge of my current vision state.

I'm dealing with these challenges using as many accessibility features as I can. So I've been playing around with the accessibility features my devices, text editors, and browsers offer. Although I'm reviewing the basics, I feel pretty accomplished that I was able to build two websites in CodeSandsBox despite the vision challenges.

I might not be learning anything new right now, but I hope by the end of the year I'll be ready to learn a new language again. When June comes around, I will see how I'm feeling and what progress I made to see if I'm able to handle learning a new language. I don't know which language I'd like to learn, but I have plenty of time to start looking.

Writing More

I didn't do much writing in 2024 other than editing posts I already wrote. By the end of the year, I started to get back into writing a little bit by writing daily posts of what I learned about today in the tutorial reviews and what the experience is like with the way my vision is now. I took a break over the holidays, but I managed to get some posts written during this time off.

One of the things I would like to do more in 2025 is write more. I think the best goal I can set for now is just getting one post published on DEV each week while writing a little bit every day.

Build More

Most of the projects I made in 2024 were for Coding with Kids and the classes I was teaching. So it has been a long time since I did any personal projects. I would like to change that this year by putting aside some time to build personal projects of mine. These are projects that are fun and let me play around with the skills I have learned about.

Professional Development

I have a bad habit of saving blog posts and articles to my Pinterest board. Last month I started to get around to cleaning my social media profiles and finally got around to reading coding articles I had saved for years. This year I'd like to read more stuff off of DEV and freeCodeCamp.

I would like to start listening to more podcasts. I would particularly like to catch up on the CodeNewbie podcast as well as catch up on some of the other tech podcasts I subscribed to over the years.

Two big things I want to accomplish this year are updating my resume and LinkedIn. I especially want to use LinkedIn more and build my network. I plan on being more active in some of the tech communities I am a part of. This means attending more Virtual Coffee events besides the weekly chats and talking to other Skillcrushers in the Skillcrush slack workspace.

Coding with Kids

I have been taking a medical break from Coding with Kids since September. I am hoping some of the unresolved medical issues get some solutions so I can be able to return to work this year. I'm considering doing some subbing before I take any classes. That way I can test the waters before committing to any classes for a session.

Mental Health

There is already a lot of attention given to my physical health. However, I want to make sure I set aside some attention to my mental health. This means taking more breaks and not pushing myself too hard.

It is a lot more than being kinder to myself. It means being ok being a little bit selfish and thinking of myself for a change. I will still continue to do self-care and more things like crafting and working out. However, it also means working on myself and leveling myself up to be the best version of myself.

I realized last year that I am going to need some more help with my mental health so I would like to start therapy sometime this year. I am starting to look at therapists right now and hopefully, I'll be able to start therapy before June.

Conclusion

I plan on revisiting this post in June to see the progress I have made and set new goals for the last half of 2025. I learned that what works best is having a general idea of how the year can be then breaking things down into more manageable chunks and seeing where things go. It after all less about the destination but the journey itself that makes a great story.

Life is unpredictable and I am sure there will be some surprises that pop up in 2025. While I have a big plan for the year, I still have some flexibility mixed in just for anything unexpected to happen. All that matters is that I'm getting started.

The biggest takeaway you can get from my plan is that is 100% ok to get back to basics a bit. Although everyone is at different places in their tech stories, sometimes revisiting where the story started is the best way to get out of a rut, remind yourself why you continue to code, or just see how much progress you have made along the way.

So don't be afraid to go back to an old tutorial you did when you started learning how to code. Take some time to look back at projects you made and pick one to rebuild again. It is ok to pay your past self a visit a little bit.