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The Best Of 2023 ✨

Jason and two youngsters sit in camping chairs with their backs to the camera, looking out at nature.
From the archives: Mount Yale (14,200 ft.) in Buena Vista

For those who know me well, you know I get somewhat reflective this time of year.

Even though there’s a lot of chaos that’s always a part of the end-of-year fun, there’s also more unstructured time.

And I like to take advantage of that time by getting outside and letting my mind revisit the past year.

A colleague shared this article of 20 ways to help us refresh for the New Year, and I spent some time with #8: Reflect on your accomplishments.

It’s waaay too easy to remember what we didn’t cross off our annual lists—and even easier to forget what we did.

So why not take some time to pat yourself on the back for checking off a few things that were important to you this year?

I’ll start! Below are my top three “did”s for 2023. ⬇️

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⓵ We built a CRM!

A calming stack of round, cray rocks. The main text reads: JustRightCRM beta

For a number of years, I’d been (very casually) searching for a super simple CRM for solopreneurs.

It seems, however, that finding a CRM web app that offers that level of simplicity is a bit too much (or too little!) to ask.

So I built my own. 🤓

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⓶ And we wrote about it!

Siamese cat sitting on a laptop with a menacing snarl

The aforementioned JustRightCRM was built on the Laravel framework, and hoo-boy did we learn a ton while building this sucker!

Our two-part blog series takes you along our learning journey, from Laravel’s basic structure to showing data from different models and controllers on the same view.

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⓷ And somehow, I still made it to the mountains. 💚

Jason taking a selfie in front of snow still on the mountains in August

Even though Mad Cow logged lots of screen time this year, I still managed to play a little hooky in the mountains to refresh my mind and soul.

One of my favorite hikes was this one with my dad in Mancos, CO.

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So, what are some of your “did”s that you’re proud of this year? We’d love to hear about them!

Happy holidays and cheers to a brand-new year,
– Jason (and the rest of the Mad Cow herd)


Already got some website to-dos on your 2024 list?