In reflecting on how 2024 went and thinking on my hopes for 2025, one thing stood out to me: I started a lot of things in 2024, but few of them get across the line — basically only the things with deadlines. (That’s not quite true, but it’s close enough.) In 2025, I would like to be a bit more disciplined about “shipping”: about actually putting things into the world.

This is not (though I know it might seem it) in contrast to my distinction between working effectively and productivity. Rather, it is a recognition that I have been ineffective in a certain way: by not committing to “shipping” I have not been forcing myself to make hard choices about priorities. It is one thing to say I would like to do some project or other, to make some open source contribution, to learn something. It is something else to make that concrete by choosing which of those to commit to making real, and which to set aside in favor of the ones I commit to.

So, thematically, I am aiming for 2025 to be a year of shipping. Starting tonight, with a new release of True Myth with a feature I have been thinking about for the past seven years. What I “ship” may be many things: writing, especially essays published in serious venues; code, whether open source or actual apps; videos, about code or music or other things; and music, whether mockups or full recordings or otherwise. The focus at any given time can ebb and flow throughout the year. But I can and will ship.