Are Yearly PiPs Too Long?

I have my own Pragmatic Investment Plan that I’ve been (remarkably slack) in following. It’s the first one I’ve done and it covers a whole year. Which I’m starting to think is a mistake.

My circumstances have changed a fair bit since I wrote that PiP and a number of the tasks, such as learn Mono and write a CPAN module, are no longer very relevant to me and where I’m heading; although the fact I couldn’t pick goals that were valid for a whole year might say something about me :). Instead of staying annual I’m thinking of doing shorter, three- six month PiPs, that allow me to keep a constant eye on what I’m doing while also being more focused and, probably, themed (RPM, Oracle, Apache etc.). I think the short term approach, with it’s constant small corrections, is a better idea than waiting a whole year for feedback.

The obvious problem with this change is a lack of an overall career path, but I don’t really have one of those yet anyway (I’m 25…). I suppose I should follow the conventional wisdom that every job should make you more prepared to work for yourself and go from there; but I’m not that happy with such a fuzzy end goal.