I’ve always either ended or started the year with the MRW Web Design Annual Staff Retreat Blow-out Palooza.

“But!,” you cry, “MRW Web Design has only one employee.” Indeed.

For the annual staff retreat, I bring on my best friend, charge a couple drinks—or waffles, historically, it’s mostly been waffles—to the company charge card and start talking. With the friend as dedicated note-taker, I get to talk through the accomplishments of the past year and goals for the upcoming one. She’s great at probing into anything I blow by or  overlook. After an hour or two later, I feel great about the new year.

While I won’t bore you with the details, I did want to publicly share a few of the accomplishments of the past year and goals for the new one. I rarely set goals in public, but I’ll do so here so you can hold me accountable. The next time you see me, feel free to ask how any of these goals are going.

2013

In 2013, I felt comfortably established in Seattle, WordPress, and my business, so it was time to keep pushing forward:

• I built the 13-site network for Communities In Schools of Washington. This was by far the biggest project I’ve ever take on single-handedly, but it was also one of the most successful.
• I attended InfoCamp Seattle (third time), AccessibilityCamp Seattle (second time), and the Washington Digital Inclusion Summit (first time!). I missed WordCamp Seattle, but attended most of the Seattle WordPress Meetups. I presented about the WP Inline Access plugin/idea at InfoCamp and a WordPress Meetup.
• I launched a maintenance plan for clients. It takes care of backups, updates, and security. The roll out went very smoothly and I sleep better at night knowing that those on it are much less likely to experience a massive site failure.
• I passed the review and gained entry into the 501 Commons Consultants Directory.
• As of December 2013, I’m a 5-day-a-month member of The Impact Hub Seattle! “The Hub” is an awesome coworking spot and community of people working to make the world a better place through entrepreneurship and technology.

2014

In 2014, I hope to continue expanding my business and my contributions to open source projects. Some of the goals I’ve set for myself include:

• Continue blogging at the pace I set last year (53 posts). I blogged at least once-a-week, usually on Tuesdays, except during the summer and vacations. I’d like to blog a bit more during the summer, but generally feel good about the writing I’ve done here.
• I want to support Seattle nonprofit staff using WordPress better. I’ve got an idea that I can’t share yet about how to do that, but you’ll be the first to know once I have details.
• I want to release v2.0 of the Feature a Page Widget plugin by February. This update has made progress in fits and starts over the past six months and it’s time for it to get finished.
• Continuing something I’ve done with the Feature a Page Widget and Advanced Custom Fields Repeater Collapser plugins,  I want to turn at least one client feature request into a plugin. Ideally, this time I’d like to do it more collaboratively with the client so they can feel connected to an open source contribution their project resulted in.

Let the Blogging Continue

I can’t wait to start blogging again this year, and that will start again next week. I’ve got 60 draft post ideas, 4 pending posts, and plenty of other ideas. Some old ideas will finally see the light of day and I’ll continue to blog about the topics that my clients and I run into as we build better websites for nonprofits.

As always, thanks for reading.