Recap 2025

This is primarily a personal recap of my year, mixed with some notes on work and side projects.

Personal

Other Side of the Globe

This year began 7,800 km from home in Northern Thailand, marking the halfway point of a motorbike trip through Southeast Asia with my girlfriend. It was an amazing experience, we saw many beautiful places, met wonderful people, and immersed ourselves in the culture of these countries. However, it was also exhausting. Riding over 15,000 km two-up on a motorbike with luggage over bumpy roads in high humidity, with lots of sun and temperatures reaching 35°C, took its toll over time. Constantly searching for accommodations, vegan food, and sightseeing activities while trying to squeeze in some work added to the stress. My "well-thought-out" daily schedule didn't last a week. I don't regret the trip, but in hindsight, I would do things differently. We finished our journey in Vietnam in May, which was a fantastic way to end the adventure.

Back Home

We looked forward to returning home to Germany and enjoying the summer that was just beginning. As soon as I got back, I wanted to attend the upcoming Laravel Switzerland Meetup. Unfortunately, Deutsche Bahn had different plans, and I found myself stranded at the train station before I could even leave my hometown.

Transitioning from 40–50% work back to 100% was a challenge, and I felt overwhelmed by too many projects at once. Due to my girlfriend's job, my schedule shifted from the classic 9–5 to working more in the evenings and on weekends. I tried to work from the local co-working space as much as possible to get out of the house, meet more people, and improve my focus.

I also decided to take more time for myself. I had regular lunch dates with a friend and attended every Laravel Switzerland Meetup after May, despite Deutsche Bahn's efforts to sabotage those journeys. These meetups were great for connecting with fellow developers, making new friends, and simply getting out of the house. I tried to combine each meetup with a little sightseeing trip, arriving early to explore the cities on foot and by bike. I visited five Swiss cities this way and truly enjoyed it. After some persuasion, I also had the opportunity to give my first tech talk about all the new features of Filament v4 at the meetup in Zurich. I was initially very nervous, but it felt great to share my experience. I would love to do another one in the future.

In October, we had a wonderful week off in Lisbon, filled with exploration but still relaxing compared to our longer trip. We enjoyed the city, great food, and the nature and coastline outside of Lisbon.

This year, I focused more on reading. While I neglected the RSS feeds I collected via Readwise Reader, I read 16 books — up from 7 in 2023 and 14 in 2024 — so this trend is positive.

Unfortunately, I also brought back some bad habits from traveling. While I spent a lot of time on my phone planning the trip, that turned into excessive social media use at home. Especially after launching Laramap, I wasted countless hours on various (un)social media platforms, following the conversation and commenting on posts of people sharing Laramap. I'm trying to regain control with new habits and the Screen Zen app.

Another bad habit — or rather, a lack of habit — is that I haven't done any serious sports this year. I'm not the type for "boring gym workouts". I need something more playful that disguises the fact that I'm exercising, which wasn't possible during the trip. Since we've been back, I've struggled to find a good routine, as my free time is now in the mornings and I work in the evenings. I had a streak of running — yes, also not very playful — for a few weeks, but that was interrupted by a cold just before Christmas.

Professional Work

Most of my time this year was spent working on the following projects:

• For Padmission, I developed a Filament plugin that will hopefully be released in early 2026.
• For blueDOM, I worked on Dein Ding #laeuft, a project aimed at connecting companies with applicants. I developed Unsere Liebe Feiern, a website for inquiries about church services. We are also relaunching Jobstartbörse, the website for a local job fair. All of these projects are backed by Filament as the admin panel, and two of them also have a user panel. Additionally, we relaunched Schladerer's webshop this year.
• Together with KOCH IT Solutions, I am working on a PWA for Paul that will digitize the workflow of their field service employees, reducing the need for paperwork and connecting it directly with their ERP system.
• With Lukas, I continued working on an internal multi-purpose app for Milupa.

In addition to these larger projects, I worked on 38 other projects, mostly for existing customers.

Personal Projects

I dedicated a lot of time to Filament projects, spending countless hours supporting people on the Filament Discord and working on my open source packages. Most of the work involved adding support for Filament v4 and enhancing my Spotlight Pro plugin. Furthermore, I released two new Filament plugins: Favicon and Image Compare.

With the launch of Filament v4, I also released my first non-plugin product, Filament Studio, a visual editor for building Filament themes. While it's a solid MVP, I realized it lacks many useful features, so I hope to improve it in 2026.

I launched Laramap in November, which was a huge success, collecting over 240,000 views since then. Over 4,000 Laravel developers signed up and shared it on social media. The challenge for next year is to add new features to make the platform more useful and keep it attractive.

Last but not least, I also launched this website in 2025. After almost two decades in tech, I finally have my own space to share my thoughts with you.

Reflection and Looking Ahead

2025 has had its ups and downs. While some parts of this post may sound negative, it was a great year filled with wonderful experiences, and I am grateful for all the opportunities I had.

Personally, I hope to establish a routine for exercising more and ideally lose some weight. We have a wedding to attend in May, which could serve as a good goal. I want to continue reading — two books per month would be a great target — and reduce my phone screen time to less than an hour per day. I plan to attend many meetups and conferences, and I want to keep blogging.

Regarding work, I will try to limit the number of projects I work on simultaneously. I'm also considering focusing more on my personal projects and releasing more paid plugins. However, these two intentions might contradict each other.

How was your year? What are your goals for next year? I'd be happy to hear your thoughts.