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Join me on a journey exploring the ups and downs of being a creator. I make things across many mediums including apps, games, and podcasts. Along the way, I take the side roads to motivation and inspiration. Navigating the winding paths that try to stop us from achieving our dreams and goals.
What's up, everybody? Welcome to the last episode of twenty twenty five of the p w podcast. I'm your host, Peter Witham. You can find me and this podcast at peterwitham.com. So something I do at the end of every year, like many folks, I start to think about next year, but I also reflect upon the year that's gone by.
Peter:And it's funny when I look back at all the things that I've done, and I realize I've done way more than I thought I did. And I think this is a common thing. You are so preoccupied throughout the year shipping things, doing whatever it may be, that you don't stop to recognize just how many of those things you've done, whatever context that may be for you. And then when you look at it as a whole, you realize, wow, I probably did achieve all of my goals or certainly most of them. And it's nice at the end of the year to sit back and go, okay.
Peter:Yeah. It was hard, but I got there. I shipped new apps. I shipped new games this year. Lots of updates for the other ones.
Peter:Yes. I closed down the compulsive podcast, but I've got this one going and the UI Buzz podcast going still. And now it's time for me to think about my plans for next year. Now I'm not a big one for detailed plans on these things. And the reason being is, like many of you, I have a full time day job.
Peter:Right? And that takes priority, and then, of course, home life and everything else. So I set myself loose plans to say, basically, I would like to see this happen, and also acknowledge that it's not the end of the world if it doesn't. So, for example, I want to get better at regular podcast episodes for this one, and UI Buzz again. Now that the compile swift podcast is wrapped up, I don't have to publish and produce and create that every two weeks, but I do miss it.
Peter:I miss it really badly. Turns out a lot of the audience miss it as well. So thank you for letting me know on that. That is a tough podcast to do. Right?
Peter:Anything I think that's technical like that, doing it every two weeks is tough because there is some weeks where you just don't have anything or you haven't had time or there's not much going on, those kind of things. And I didn't wanna overly script it either. So decided, okay. Best thing to do for that is end it on a high. Still regret it, of course, but also know it's probably the right thing to do, maybe.
Peter:For next year, I have some new project ideas. I want to push heavily on updating the apps that I've got, new features in there, things that I never got around to. Interestingly, one thing that I recognize is a massive weakness for me is marketing of apps. I know how to do it like I think everybody does, but I'm not a specialist at it. And I think what I need to start doing is giving myself a schedule to say, whatever it may be, you will spend one hour a week figuring out how to market your apps and games.
Peter:Now easy to say, but I think that's the only way to do it is to say this is one hour where I'm going to learn something, whether that is going and doing research, actually pushing the marketing, or whatever it may be. Certainly, most of it's gonna be massive amount of research at the beginning, and I expect a lot of it to fail because I don't expect it to be an overnight success despite what the Internet wants you to think. And we'll see how it goes. And, of course, I'll be reporting back on that. If you are interested in hearing about that, reach out to me, peter wyndham dot com, and let me know.
Peter:And, of course, compile Swift on the social networks. Let me know because I really this is a new thing for me in the sense of taking it seriously as a major thing, but I think it's needed. Because we all know that you can have the best product on the planet, but if nobody knows about it or you don't spread the word, it's probably not gonna go anywhere unless you get exceedingly lucky. And not many of us get exceedingly lucky. So that's gonna be something I've really gotta figure out next year and try hard on, because I know I've got at least one app that my subradar.
Peter:App that I feel is a really good quality product and useful for just about anybody these days. We all have subscriptions to track, right? And I've also validated it for myself this year. Not to sound like an advert, but I've saved hundreds on recognizing, oh, these subscriptions I have are about to renew, I don't need them. And so it's proven itself to me, and hopefully it'll prove itself to other people.
Peter:So marketing there is gonna be one of the things. Something else is also going to be thinking about other platforms. I have some apps, some games, actually mostly games that are on Android and iOS. My apps are primarily on iOS because that's my background, But I think I do need to stretch more into Android because folks do ask me, hey, is this app available on Android? And I have to give exactly the wrong answer, which is no, it's not.
Peter:And we all know that if someone's asking, is this available on something? That's your sign that you should be doing it. Right? So I gotta look at that. Now I don't wanna get heavy into learning the nitty gritty of Android, so I'm going to evaluate different ways of doing that.
Peter:Of course, there's also cross platform technologies, all of which these things I've used, but never really used them to ship personal apps, just worky work apps. So we'll see. I don't know how that's gonna go yet, but I recognize the need for that. I'm also gonna be doing, I think, trying to do more regular livestreams. I've got quite a few done recently, but we've been having a lot of fun where the chat room would challenge me to do something new.
Peter:And that's always a double edged sword. Right? Because take for example, recently, I I tried Pygame, which is a Python gaming library. I had never used it. Never really done much Python to pay too much attention to it.
Peter:And I was like, alright. Let's give this a go. So we did it on a livestream. Luckily, worked out really good, But it could have gone the other way. I could have been sitting there scratching my head for an hour and people watching me going, this guy is going nowhere.
Peter:Right? But I think it's worth the risk. And, again, as I've said before, because I also on my livestreams and that, I want people to see who are interested in doing things, maybe apps or whatever, that have never done these things before that I believe anyone can do them. And it may seem like magic when you watch people do it, but it really isn't. We all struggle with some of these things regardless of our skill levels.
Peter:And that is an important lesson that I try to get across on my livestreams and all the content that I put out there. So I've been doing a lot of that. This year, I did pie game, we did some rust, we did some other things as well. All new to me, all a lot of fun and very interesting, and I think it's good for stretching the brain. So I think we're gonna do more of those as well.
Peter:Even if it's just one or two streams and never gonna do it again, just to explore it and understand it. Right? And like I say, you never know what you're gonna find. Right? You may find your next big thing that you really enjoy doing.
Peter:You just don't know unless you try it. So I'm gonna do those as well. Keep that going. Live streams are hard. And for me, they're hard because I feel the need to entertain while I'm doing it.
Peter:I'm not a streamer who, you know, just does the thing, doesn't have a camera, doesn't say much, doesn't interact with the chat room. I'm one of those that believes, everybody always says, oh, turn the oh, you don't have a camera this week. So it's noticeable. And we have folks come to the chat room that ask questions and new folks and what are you doing and all those kind of things. And for me, that's what it's all about.
Peter:Right? It's the interaction part. That's why I started doing livestreams. Not because I wanted to show, look how flawless my code and everything else is, because that's just not gonna happen. But to have that interaction there and to reach out, because it can be lonely as a developer.
Peter:Even when you're on a team, there is a certain amount of time you spend in your own headspace. And that's arguably, I think, what makes us good at what we do. But there's also that need to get it out of your head and share it with other folks because I think that demonstrates to you, you really know your stuff. Right? You've, like, clearly understood it because you can communicate it to other people, and I think that's an important thing.
Peter:Plus, live streams are just fun in general. But, of course, the downside is, okay, you're gonna be sitting in front of a camera for a couple of hours, and that is a lot harder to do than you may think it is because you have to be very conscious of what you're doing in front of the camera, and you also have to be very conscious of what you're doing on the screen because you don't wanna accidentally share some information that you don't want out there, whatever that may be. And so it can be stressful. I still find it stressful. Even after all the time I've done it, I find it stressful.
Peter:But I find it to be something that that is good. It stretches me. It teaches me things. And it's, like I say, it's just a lot of fun in general. And thank you to everybody that attends the livestreams.
Peter:So that's a lot of what I've done this year, a lot of what I plan to do next year. I'm interestingly a two, and I'm gonna talk about this probably as well. I've been doing a lot more analog content, recording of things. Right? I have moved away from a digital journal back to I never left a paper journal, but making that the main focus.
Peter:Because as I think I've mentioned before, it's interesting, and it slows me down because I'm putting pen to paper. And I'm I got terrible handwriting, but I write a lot slower than I type. Right? I can type with the best of them at speed, but that just allows you to just brain dump whatever out through your fingers onto the screen and edit afterwards. Whereas with the writing, of course, yeah, you can edit, but it's best when you're doing, like, journals and stuff to think about it as you're doing it, and it slows you down.
Peter:I always think back to maybe a little bit of nostalgia. Remember when we couldn't just make copies of things, and copies were done by hand. Right? And so it slows you down. It slows everything down.
Peter:And maybe it's a little bit of romanticism about that, but it's nice to sit with a pad of or book of paper and look at what you've written and just put it in there. It for me, of course, it's also a lot of fun with inks. I have some fountain pens, and I try different inks, and that's just fascinating. That appeals to my the visual aspect of different colors, some of them look different, the way the ink dries on the paper. I've spoken about this before.
Peter:Yes. It's all romantic and nostalgic and everything else, but I just enjoy it because it's very different from what I do every day. Every day, I have to run at a crazy pace like so many of us in this world. And this is one of those things, just like my photography, that forces me to slow down, be in the moment, and do that. And this is, I think, something I need more of.
Peter:I have massively enjoyed it this year just like I have every other year. But this year, for some reason in particular, it's just really allowed me to center myself, and I think that we all need more of that in this crazy world. So that's what I've got. I'm just starting. This is the first day of my vacation.
Peter:I'm I'm off now until the January, so I'll probably be doing a bunch of content and not necessarily putting AI out, but maybe just recording stuff in flow and then editing later and releasing. But this is my this is the one time a year I get to relax, spend time with family, and just go at my pace. Basically, ignore a calendar, which is massive for me. I don't have to live with a calendar and be at meetings and all of this in certain places and so on constantly every day. And that is a huge stress release for someone like myself.
Peter:So anyway, that's what I got. I'm gonna be thinking a lot about next year before it gets here over the next week or so. A lot of fun for me. Maybe that's the same for you. If you celebrate the holidays out there, go spend them with friends and family, right?
Peter:Take time to relax, enjoy the company, and, we will do this again soon. Speech isn't.