My new year’s resolution at the start of 2020 was to get this blog going. Like any good new year’s resolution, this isn’t the kind of goal that changes your life, but it is the kind of goal that builds the habits you need for bigger changes. Like recruiting an exercise buddy or committing to cook a new dish each week helps you build the habits–the “muscle memory”–for a healthier lifestyle.
For me, the muscle memory I want to build with this blog is simply getting something “good enough” and putting it out there for the world. By nature I’m a perfectionist, and I want to use this blog as a small way to become more comfortable with publishing things that are “good enough.” I want to strengthen the habit of being comfortable with publishing good work after a limited amount of time, rather than keeping good work labored over for hours hidden away in my file drawer because it’s not perfect.
My plan is to make some occasional posts on ideas and applications that interest me in statistics, social science surveys, and data science workflows. My first posts will be web-friendly adaptations of previous projects I’ve worked on in my master’s program at JPSM. I’ll also be writing some original content related to the role of implicit assumptions in data analysis which I’m writing mainly to help me think through these ideas. To the one or two people who read this, I hope you’ll comment or shoot me a message on any of the ideas here that you find interesting too! While this new year is undoubtedly as imperfect so far as 2021, here’s hoping it will be at least ‘good enough.’