Looking Ahead: What I’m Focusing On in 2024

Less code. More coaching. Smarter choices.

A new year invites an ambitious list of improvements, usually written before the first normal week has interrupted it. My focus for 2024 is deliberately smaller: coach more effectively, make clearer decisions and write code where it genuinely helps.

Predictions are most useful when they reveal what we value now. I am less interested in guessing the winning tool than in asking whether the web ahead will be more capable, more humane and easier to build for.

This matters because small choices repeat. What feels harmless once can quietly become the normal way of working.

Keep curiosity attached to judgement

New technology is easiest to discuss at the extremes: either it changes everything or it is pointless. Most useful tools live in the less dramatic middle, where they solve some problems well and introduce a few new ones.

I prefer a small experiment with a real constraint. Build something, measure what became easier, notice what became awkward, and decide from evidence rather than atmosphere. Curiosity works best when it is allowed to say no.

Curiosity opens the door; judgement decides what comes through it.

A practical way to start

A few questions help me decide what to do next:

• Is the simpler option genuinely insufficient?
• Can somebody new explain the decision back to us?
• Have we left a safe and affordable route to revise it?

None of those questions produces an automatic answer. They do make the trade-offs visible, which is usually the point where a team can stop arguing from instinct and start making a decision together.

Being interested in what comes next does not require abandoning what already works. The skill is knowing what deserves another look.

The details will change from project to project. The underlying habit of paying attention travels well.