The best part of my year was definitely finding out that I’m a father. A tiny little human is developing into a slightly less tiny human, and getting ready to meet the world.
Baby Holmgren is expected to arrive in June 2019, and we couldn’t be more excited!
This year, I made a point to set goals that I could measure. After all, what good is a goal if you can’t tell whether you achieved it?
This year was a busy year for travel, including our first anniversary trip to the Oregon Coast, taking a 15-passenger van to Seattle, and visiting Upper Michigan for a wedding. One of our goals for this year was to visit Katrina’s family in Florida twice, and we checked that box in November when we took a one-way flight to West Palm Beach to spend the holidays with the Lampinens.
Travel is fun, but I’ve also come to appreciate the comforts of home. My environment shapes my habits, and it’s tiring to constantly re-adjust to new circumstances. I’m looking forward to spending more time at home next year.
I started off 2018 with a goal to read a lot of books this year. In my personal notes from last December it says one per week, but in this post I said I was shooting for 70 books overall.
I didn’t come anywhere near my goal, but I did manage to read more books than I have in past years. I’ll adjust my goals and try again next year. In the meantime, here’s the list of books from 2018.
For a more detailed look at these titles, plus other books I’ve read before 2018, visit my Reading List.
2018
33 Seasons
This year I spent over four hundred hours watching serial content. In retrospect, I think I could have spent some of those hours better.
Unlike books, I didn’t start the year with a movie goal in mind. We finished out the year at 46 movies, which is less than one per week (I’m pretty sure we watched more than that, but they weren’t memorable enough to make the list). Our last movie for the year was Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse, ending the year on a high note.
I started 2018 as marketing manager at Direct Plumbing Solutions. We were starting to get the hang of Housecall Pro, our new FSM software, and I dove into that community, writing a few posts here on my blog to help other Pros. I rebuilt the website and set up automations to make running the business easier.
2018 was a year of major changes for Direct Plumbing, and changes can make a job obsolete. In July, Eric made the tough decision to lay me off. After a month of exploring other options, Katrina and I decided that the best move was to start a business.
We started Labtorio to serve contractors and home service professionals with their marketing. We built websites for clients, but we also spent time developing products, like the Marketing ToolKit, Growth Teams, and Home Service Tools.
It’s time to recognize the people that made this year awesome.
Home service pros love to ask questions about flat rate pricing, but they rarely give out detailed answers. What are home service companies actually using,
While I try to highlight the local marketing strategies that work, sometimes it’s necessary to point out the ones that don’t. The Real Estate Folder
As I’m setting up emails to send to customers, I often wonder what emails my competitors are sending. By competitors I mean other plumbers in
This year we decided it was time to bring SEO in-house. Last year we hired an internet marketing company to optimize our website, and we
I’m reading through 70 books in 2018. This is one of them. I’ve read a lot of Seth Godin over the years, and this review
If you’re in a home service business you know that getting reviews is one of the hardest customer interactions, ranking up there with getting a
Copyright © 2018 Isaac Holmgren. All rights reserved. Here’s what I’m doing now.