Year End Steem Housekeeping

One of the challenging tasks I have when engaging with my Steem investment and engagement is how to keep my account updated and somewhat optimized for my long term goals of growing my stake here in the ecosystem. With the continued development we have seen on the protocol since I started two years ago, the administrative burden grows pretty quickly. With additions like Splinterlands and Steem Engine, it has become even more important to keep updated with these tasks.

As we approach the end of the year, I am taking some time to review some of these tasks before it is over. I manually record most of these tasks in order to provide a record of key metrics to track my earnings over time (for tax reasons). This also becomes my database for my Quarterly updates which I will be preparing in the coming weeks. The most obvious tasks, easier said than done, are the claiming of our rewards. I like to do this manually periodically for my recordkeeping. I try to claim all my balances, not only on the protocol but also on some Dapps as well. Some passive income streams need this to be done manually as well.

This tasks continues to grow as the development of Steem Engine has made the amount of tokens grow quite aggressively without necessarily doing anything more than engaging on the ecosystem. Claiming these token rewards continues to be somewhat challenging, particularly when trying to record them all as I do. However, I do take some shortcuts by claiming only periodically and measuring the value of these claims only that often. I feel that there may be some hidden treasure in that wallet which is why I have been holding all of them.

My view on the Steem ecosystem is long term which is why I try to leverage the benefits of DPOS by staking almost everything I earn here. This has meant me taking 100% Steem Power as rewards for months now. It has also made me Stake many of the tokens earned from Steem Engine as well although those are challenging because I often do not know what many of the tokens are do to my own ignorance and lack of time to research. However, the few Tribes that I do actively engage with are being staked as they are claimed as well.

I think this is an area of opportunity for me as some of these communities are very engaging in areas that interest me. For example, SPT and SteemLEO are examples of great communities that tie me with a lot of my own content here in the ecosystem. With the growth of Tribes and the near deployment of both Hive communities and SMTs here, this will be an area to look at for engagement in 2020 I believe. My brief time exploring SteemPeak is helping me become more acquainted with these and will probably capture more of my time in the coming months.

Probably where I have struggled the most this year has been to keep my delegations growing at the rate of my Steem Power Stake. I have been targeting to delegate 25-35% of my Steem Power. However, given the exits of many projects this year, this metric has not been achieved. While I have the opportunity to grow the delegations of my current list, I have always wanted to diversify in order to provide the best value for the ecosystem. Again, I am sure there are more opportunities to consider but given my lack of research, I have not seen them yet. However, it will be a goal as we enter 2020.

The delegations will be updated in the coming days as my delegation for @partiko will be pulled despite my continued engagement with that Dapp in particular. I am personally sad and disappointed that such a great project could not be picked up by the community; not because of not having interest, but because of the developers not being around anymore. However, these experiences provide great learnings for future projects which may build upon those with potential like this one. More delegations from me will be available in the coming weeks!

I am still encouraged by the engagement and activity around the community of Steem. I still believe that the community continues to add value here and the projects that are under construction will be able to expand the user base and engagement once again under a more sustainable model for all stakeholders. Then, those that engage and maintain value with the community will grow and benefit from the adoption phase. Looking forward to not only 2020 but the new decade upon us!