2025 in Review

Another year is over, and it is time to follow the annual tradition.

I finished my previous review with a brief mention of year compass. Although I haven’t opened it at all since then, it still influenced my life. Some important things I wrote there were: spend more time with the family ✅, travel more ✅, say ‘no’ to new projects more often ❌.

All in all, I had a lot of great moments this year, and this is how I remember 2025.

Personal

In general, I’d rate this year as good on a personal level. I’ve made some improvements here and there, but nothing to brag about. My smart home and homelab projects are doing great, and I still have plans to share more about them on this blog.

There were sad moments too. Our car has passed away at a solid age of fifteen years. Rest in peace, Ronnie. We will always love you.

Work

My team worked tirelessly on two major releases this year: announcing Compose Multiplatform as stable on iOS, and beta on Web. The trip to KotlinConf was again one of the highlights of the year.

With a workshop, talks with colleagues, partners, and users, and the official conference app rebuilt from the ground up, I was so busy before and during the conference, that I needed some time afterwards to realize how much we have achieved.

I had much fewer business trips in 2025 compared to the previous year, however it still felt too much. I value in-person collaboration a lot, but often all business questions are better resolved asynchronously, and the time together is better spent just hanging out. And we had enough of it this year.

Electric car

One of the biggest changes for my family this year was a new car and not just any new car, but an electric one. I enjoy driving it whenever I can and am absolutely excited about the future of electric mobility. I learned a lot about EVs this year, and can assure everyone that the infrastructure for them is already there, at least in Western Europe. If you’re still weighing when would be a good time to get an EV, don’t wait, the time is now.

It took me a while to choose one. A major factor for me was to support a European, and even better a German, manufacturer. Unsurprisingly, I decided for Volkswagen, who are together with their other brands are dominating European EV market.

Just a side note: I still commute to the office by bike mostly. And I cycled 1300 km almost exclusively between home and office this year.

Travel

And while I traveled less for business, we made quite a few vacation travels. Not at last because of the new spacious and very comfortable car.

We’ve been to Italy (for the fourth straight year) and this time I bought a transponder for toll roads. What a great idea it was, it saved us at least few hours of traffic jams before the toll plazas during just this one trip. Totally worth its money!

Together with my son we visited Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix and witnessed Lando Norris’ win on his way to F1 World Championship triumph.

And finally, we’ve traveled locally this time a lot, including a round trip through almost all Germany’s federal states.

My homepage and social media

This year I finally realized that I no longer want any social media. Instead, every time I had a spare minute, I improved some detail on my homepage, my very own place in the World Wide Web. I keep saying it every year, but I’d like to write more about it, and post more to my blog as well.

I had some failures too. I started the year with “One emoji a day” and did well for a few months, but then somehow forgot about it and only remembered when it was too late. I’m going to repeat the challenge in 2026.

Fitness and sport

With all the stuff happening in both personal and work life I completely missed all sport events. Wings for Life World Run was sold out faster than I expected, so I missed it despite having a great time there in 2024. I did not ride my road bike even once, and hiked less than I wanted too. The obvious plan for next year is to fix this.

Still, I got not one, but two perfect months on my Apple Watch, and completed all monthly challenges. (And 23 out of last 24, I failed the previous December one because I got terribly sick and had not enough time to catch up)

And this year I reduced my alcohol consumption to almost zero. I can’t yet say I quit drinking completely, but I do it so rare and don’t miss it at all.

I wasn’t as successful in avoiding sweets, I’ll take another attempt starting tomorrow.

Entertainment

Games

I didn’t have much time to play video games this year. In fact, I played only four games in total: completed a Platinum trophy in LEGO Horizon Adventures and Spiderman 2, and finished Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, with platinum trophy there still in progress.

But my personal favorite was the co-op game Split Fiction from the authors of It Takes Two. Together with my wife, we enjoyed their previous game, and their new creation did not disappoint.

Overall gaming gave me what I wanted: a way to relax in the evening without much thinking.

Movies

In the past years I went to the cinema only once a year, and 2025 continued the streak. I haven’t had big hopes for the F1 movie, but it was better than I thought. Fast cars and some Easter eggs for long time fans is a good recipe for a summer blockbuster.

Overall, there are less and less exciting movies I’d like to see, let alone go to a cinema for it.

Series

Last year we watched Silo and Severance and enjoyed their second seasons early this year. We also finally binge-watched 4 seasons of the Stranger Things and are ready for the epic finale.

I appreciate authors going for a risk of producing of a new original story. So, I also have high hopes for the new series from Vince Gilligan (of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fame) – Pluribus.

But, yeah, it’s all mainstream.

Books

Absolutely unexpectedly I started listening to audiobooks a lot. Three books last year were just the beginning. This year I listened to nine full-size books, mostly during my commute.

My favorite book of the year was, for sure, the Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I finally get to read (yes, I read it, not listened) it after YouTube suggested me to watch a trailer for the upcoming movie. I marked the trailer to watch later, and swallowed the book in under a week, which is a great result, given I didn’t have time for anything this year. It was the same feeling as with The Martian by the same author, who masterfully blends sci-fi and entertaining story.

LEGO

We’ve got annual passes to the LEGOLAND Deutschland (just 1 hour by car from Munich) and visited it multiple times with kids this summer. It could have been my dream as kid, and I’m happy I can share it with my children.

2025 sets joined my LEGO McLaren collection just in time for the second consecutive Constructors’ World Championship.

And I started a small personal project of building my apartment in minifigure scale, but it is not finished yet.

2026

The past year was great, eventful, exciting, and satisfying. It was so intense that my energy level towards the end of December was permanently at zero.

My wish for the next year for now is to keep all things as exciting and great as before, but tune down intensity a bit. We’ve planned fewer family trips (but they will be no less scenic), I expect fewer releases of a smaller scale, but even more stability and quality at work.

Overall, I’m looking confidently into the next 365 days and can’t wait to write the next review looking back at how great I spent these days.

This is post 40 of #100DaysToOffload

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