Every time I awake on January 1st, I always open up my music streaming platform of choice and play U2’s “New Year’s Day” much to the chagrin of my wife. It’s become a weird, automatic tradition of mine to play this song each New Years Day. I know U2 gets a lot of hate, but frankly I don’t care. I’ve always been a big fan of U2 and much of their music has been major touchstones in my life. Regarding this particular song, it’s something that has been with me my whole life (since the album it came out on is older than I am.) I want to say the first time I actually saw the music video for the song was winter of 1989 when I was five years old. 1989 was a big year for me in regards to music videos as it was the first time I saw the videos for Thriller, New Year’s Day, One, and Straight Up (which as my favorite song at the time.)
I’ve always had the feeling about U2’s “New Year’s Day” being a song about renewal. That’s always been an innate feeling I get whenever I listen to that song.
So in my past fashion, I decided to restart my design blog efforts on this updated site (another yearly tradition: update the professional site with a new WordPress theme) and share my thoughts, hopes, and dreams for this renewed effort for this year. A renewal of effort in thanks to U2’s relevant track.
I won’t go into bold predictions or statements of what 2026 will bring. Suffice to say, there are a plethora of horrid things happening in the world that desperately need attention, understanding, and action. Overall, there is a lot of work to do to improve the world. If you’re interested in that sort of articles, check out my other blog. But from a professional standpoint, here’s what I am going to work towards in 2026.
- More focus on making systems that actually work for people to do their best work.
- Personal systems for me to keep ahead of items in my weekly and monthly tasks and milestones.
- AI <insert tired sigh> tools and practices that augment my systems and preferred working approaches.
- Clearer goals and measurements for my colleagues (and myself) to achieve their desired outcomes.
- Making the word “No” second nature.
- Making whatever I say “Yes” to even more relevant and outcome driven.
This list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a start for the new year.