2025 year in review

It’s hard to accept how quickly the past year has gone – maybe you feel the same way.

Some moments feel like an eternity ago, whilst others feel like they happened just yesterday.

Someone recently told this is due to a lack of variety in my day-to-day.

Which makes sense, I spend a lot of my time at home – both working and relaxing.

So next year I want to wedge some variety into my weeks.

But I also realised this year, I’ve had a massive craving for quality.

This extends to the work I produce, the products I buy and the content I consume.

(The last one being a struggle at times).

This idea may have emerged from the book  Slow Productivity by Cal Newport, but I also feel like it’s influenced by the amount of mediocre content being pumped out by AI.

But on with the reflection…

Business

Financials

Financially, 2025 was very similar to 2024 and 2023.

But in the spirit of celebrating the wins.

It’s actually been my best year financially since going self-employed 5 years ago.

So like last year, a huge financial success in my eyes.

Projects

The year started off very dev heavy (that has been my focus for my entire career afterall).

But since Q4 of this year, I’m shifting into more design work (including dev).

I used to shy away from the fact I could do both design and dev – but I’m fully embracing it.

I’m enjoying the projects so much more, and I feel like I deliver more value doing both.

Here’s a split of my projects this year:

In 2026, I’m actively looking to help clients through both design (including visual identity) and development (so aiming to increase that design %).

Personal projects

Side projects have seen a huge nose dive compared to previous years.

I have many projects I’d like to work on, but time is finite and so is attention.

Amongst those ideas:

But it’s hard to justify the time and effort required, if no one finds the content (am I just talking to myself).

I’ve been backing further and further away from  Stryve this year, and I’m not sure what the future holds for it.

It heavily relies on good recipes and I’ve largely moved away from a plant-dominant diet, so at the very least, I would need to pivot away from vegetarian/vegan recipes.

If I had the time, I’d like to work on all of the above, but unfortunately, that’s not realistic.

But I also realise a decent chunk of my time and attention leaks into useless activities like doom-scrolling through Instagram.

So even if I can direct some of that attention into personal projects, I suspect I might gain some traction with them.

Health

Walking

The one consistency from year to year:

I also purchased a new pair of Vivobarefoot shoes.

They’ve been my go-to shoes for daily walks over the past four years. But my current pair have seen better days, so an upgrade was needed.

I suspect I must’ve taken at least 5 million steps in my old pair.

Weight training

For the past 5 years, I’ve struggled to develop this habit.

But I finally started to build it up again.

Joining a gym that I actually want to be in massively helped.

Before, I worked out in my garage, but I moved house and so my garage is no longer a gym, nor do I want it to be, as I just didn’t enjoy being in my old one.

It also helps that my new gym opens at 5am.

And, in the spirit of promoting good brands, next year I’m aiming to upgrade my tired Gymshark clothes with those of Boldwill.

I used to be a huge fan of Gymshark’s, but with each purchase over the years, the quality has taken a nose dive (something Boldwill seem to pride themselves on).

Diet

As mentioned above, I’ve moved away from a plant predominant diet (eating a lot more fish etc., but still not in huge quantities).

One big change, is that I’ve started buying better quality food.

I used to think much of it was down to marketing for the increased cost.

Especially when it came to “natural” ingredients.

Because how much difference can one tin of tomatoes be compared to another? Well a fair amount.

Bevel

I also discovered Bevel this year.

I noticed when I stuck to it, it really helps me land those healthier habits.

You can track:

I definitely found it helps me with that last 20%, but only when I use it to fully track all of the things mentioned above.

Supplements

This hasn’t seen any change from last year.

I’ve stuck with  Vitals⁺ from Heights.

But I noticed when tracking my diet in Bevel (along with my  Vitals⁺), my magnesium levels were lacking.

So I’ve started taking  Magnesium⁺ from Heights, too.

Which goes to show, even if you prepare your own meals, using real ingredients, you’ll likely be short on important vitamins and minerals.

But data aside, the biggest thing I’ve noticed (which is likely a culmination of all my healthy habits), as I write this, there are a lot of coughs and snotty noses around – of which I’ve totally avoided (even with my kids coughing in my face).

Personal

House

A big change this year, is that my wife and I moved house.

Something I wasn’t expecting is how much this would impact my mindset (less scarcity minded).

We lived in our old house for 7 years, and even before we moved, we knew it wasn’t the place we wanted to stay long term.

As a result, any updates we made to the house, meant spending as little as possible.

We’ve taken a complete 180 with our new house though.

Being intentional with the choices we make and investing in good quality products and brands.

Holidays

I fully expected to go on less holidays this year with us moving house.

But we still managed to go on 2 holidays:

I was fairly pragmatic about this.

Last year we went on a lovely (but expensive holiday to Crete), and yet I enjoyed my wholesome family trip to Poland more (which cost far less too).

Also, I love a good holiday in the UK, especially when the weather starts to take a turn.

And so we focused on those 2 and thoroughly enjoyed them.

We probably compensated for holidays with various weekend activities too (thinking back, I don’t think we’ve had many quiet periods to even fit any other holidays in).

Family

The reason I’m so conscious about time escaping me, is that with each year that goes by, my daughters get older.

And to see how much my eldest has changed in 7 years scares me (in the sense I will never be able to get those moments back again).

Maybe it’s a millennial thing? Or a me thing?

But I try to be there for them, taking moments out from work to go on little day trips with my family.

Closing thoughts

Another good year in my book.

It’s hard to complain when looking back, but I also know I had moments of uncertainty.

I’ve learnt to trust my gut and bet on myself (as I’m far more capable than I give myself credit).

I’ll leave you with 2 areas I want to focus on next year: