The Halfway Point
This post is a little different to previous posts as it doesn’t directly cover any aspect of corporate life. As this is the halfway point of my New Years resolution to write a weekly newsletter for a year, I wanted this week’s entry to be a moment to pause and review my progress. What follows is some general musings on writing, an explanation of my process, some performance metrics and what I have learnt through this process. I have also considered how this experience impacts and informs how I set myself challenging goals in the future.
I have quickly come to realize that I had no idea what writing a weekly blog for a year would entail when I came up with the idea in December 2023. This blog has become an extension of my identity, in fact other than some occasional photos posted on Instagram it pretty much is my online identity. This manifests itself in a few different ways. I feel a significant pressure from within to ensure that I maintain the quality of the blog from week-to-week. Some ideas seem to write themselves and the process is an enjoyable moment of self-reflection. Other ideas take some wrangling to mold into something that I am happy represents my thoughts. Sometimes my thinking changes as I commit my thoughts to paper, the act of typing and editing helping to shape my opinions. I worry whether the ideas I drafted in December last year are sufficient to sustain this blog for another 26 weeks. I also worry about what happens when I bring the blog to a close. I don’t think I could continue it indefinitely, but it will certainly leave a hole. It feels that my identity expanded with my writing and will necessarily contract when I am finished.
I have always wanted to write. I enjoy good opinion-led journalism and although I am very happy with my career choices to date, there is part of me that wonders what would have been if I had taken a different path. Like most people who contribute or promote their own thought pieces on LinkedIn, I have no formal training. I have been quite judgmental about some of the content on LinkedIn, my pet peeve is when people won’t get off the fence and offer an opinion. People are naturally cautious of expressing opinions in case they are proven wrong, and they lose credibility. But if you aren’t prepared to offer an opinion, then why write comment pieces in the first place? The subject matter of my blog is one where I feel I can offer an opinion based on experience. I don’t expect everyone to agree with my opinion, in fact I prefer it when people don’t. When my opinions are challenged, it forces me to think about the subject in more detail and is an opportunity to learn and grow.
My process was established in my first two posts, and it hasn’t really changed since. I start by writing an “ugly draft” of the post. This throws down everything I think I want to say on a topic in the order I think I want to say it. I don’t overthink it or worry about how it reads, I just want something to work off and refine. Most of my effort is applied to editing the ugly draft. I can take as many as 10 passes to make sure that what I have written sounds like me, expresses what I want to say and is free from grammatical and spelling errors. I believe that the single most important point of editing, is to ensure I have answered the original question(s) in the introduction. If I have time, I sometimes allow my wife to read the post in advance, this is usually where I am not sure if my intent and meaning is clear or where I am worried about the tone. The newsletter is hopefully an easy read, and I want to avoid causing unintended offense. I usually schedule the post in Substack the night before and enjoy the rest of my evening. On the subway trip to work, once the post has been published, I craft a LinkedIn post to promote the blog and try to post this with the limited connectivity at stops along the F line. I have been spotted still trying to finish this standing on the platform of my exit before heading into work.
When I look at the performance of the blog, it is important to consider baseline expectations. I knew I wanted to write it, but I had no idea if anyone would want to read it. I felt that if I could get up to 20 subscribers in the first few weeks, it would be good result. That was the number I felt conservatively knew me well enough as a person, were working in a role where my musings might be relevant and would be interested in what I had to write. Twenty subscribers, whilst low, would also be sufficient motivation for me to continue writing and complete the challenge of writing weekly for a year. In terms of actual performance, I am up to 149 subscribers, which is beyond all expectations. In terms of growth there are three clear phases. The first three weeks saw rapid growth, it then plateaued below and slowly crept up to 100 subscribers over the next two months. Since March the blog has it has been growing at a steady pace. My email open rate on Substack started at about 76% and is now just below 60%. The highest number of views from all sources was for my second post at 355 views. It’s hard to establish a trend line, but the average views per week look like they are increasing with the last two posts both clearing 300 views.
The other source of data and my main tool for promotion other than word of mouth is LinkedIn. One benefit of contributing to LinkedIn is that I now enjoy using it and keeping up to date with colleagues and friends. I can’t justify their ludicrous subscription fees, but the free service is good enough for my needs. As with everything shiny and new, the largest number of impressions on a single day were for my first introductory post, which got close to 1,000. That post went on to receive 3,673 impressions and is still the second highest for any of my blog posts. After chatting with a colleague, I changed how I composed my LinkedIn messages to put the link in the comments and to include a picture in the main post. The idea is that this encourages more engagement which results in the algorithm surfacing the post to a bigger audience. The biggest success of this strategy is when I combined a post with news of my American citizenship. That post blew up and is on 14,425 impressions, 237 reactions and 42 comments. Unfortunately, because I led with my citizenship rather than with my blog post, it didn’t have much impact on the traffic to the blog. But to have nearly 15k impressions on a single LinkedIn post still feels like an achievement. The new method seems to have increased impressions and they average between 1,000 and 2,000. I don’t know to what degree the impressions correlate with the subject matter or any other factor, but without a social media tool like LinkedIn I suspect I would still be chasing my first 20 subscribers.
In terms of what I have learned, I think this can be broken up into three categories. Firstly, what the blog has taught me about myself. Secondly, what I have learned about other people and finally what can I learn about setting challenges.
The biggest lesson I have learned about myself is that I am absolutely at ease promoting my blog, often shamelessly and without any of the usual reservations I would have about promoting myself. The first time I pressed publish on Substack and followed-up with a LinkedIn post, I was skeptical as to whether I would get much of a reaction. I assumed I was talking softly into a giant black hole and expected to be met with indifference. When the reaction was bigger and more favorable than envisaged, my confidence in my writing increased. I happily mention my blog to colleagues and friends and find that people are happy to support and sample my work, particularly as it is free. As the range of topics I cover increases I sometimes find myself referencing previous blog posts in conversation if they are relevant. The blog started out of a mentoring relationship, and I have picked up two new mentees since beginning this project. Where this starts to get fun is that they happily give me feedback on what resonates and what doesn’t and we often discuss the subject matter in more detail if it relates to something they are working on. They have also requested a couple of topics, which I take as the ultimate compliment.
Otherwise my learnings have been around productivity and time management. My employment not only fills my office hours but also pays the bills. This blog is an activity I pursue in non-office hours. That can displace other personal activities and becomes harder when I am traveling or on vacation. Writing this blog is important enough to me that I find the time each week. I feel that this is probably a life lesson and when you find yourself doing something regularly that you try to put off or cancel, perhaps it is time to consider whether it is worthy of your time. There is also a certain amount of gamification from Substack who send me weekly emails. Monday’s email informed me that I have published 25 weeks in a row which is longer than 87% of Substack writers. I have every expectation of getting into the top 90% by the end of the year!
In the category of learnings about other people, my experience is that the blog has helped me get closer with colleagues and friends. There is a loose sense of shared ownership which feels like a community. I have had my logo redesigned and improved for me. One colleague had a different take on an issue and offered to start their own blog and a blog war with me, which was a fun concept. Another colleague was rightly concerned about a glaring typo in the first paragraph of one post that they sought me out as soon as I got into the office that day. In my post on networking where I covered my wife’s networking skills at Pilates, she shared the post with her colleagues as evidence of my support for her passion. Finally, my Mum commented last week that reading my blog helped her to get to know me better, which is meaningful to me as I have lived overseas for nearly thirteen years. The comments I have received in LinkedIn help me stay connected with friends, family and ex-colleagues that live and work all over the world.
Writing this blog has made me think about setting challenging goals for myself. Sixteen years ago, I ran the London Marathon. I remember thinking at mile 20, that if necessary, I could walk the last 6.2 miles and for the first time I knew I was going to finish (I ended up running those last miles, carried along by the amazing crowd). I also started thinking about how there weren’t many challenges that were large enough that you didn’t know for sure if you would be successful, but that if you were successful something will have changed in you as a person. Despite thousands of people running marathons around the world each year, and hundreds taking on ultra marathons and other endurance events, it is still an extreme physical pursuit with a very select membership. Speak to anyone who has run a marathon and the knowledge of what it takes to succeed is a shared bond. In the same way, committing to creating something to a schedule is a challenge. That could be a blog, a vlog or a podcast, whatever it is takes effort and after writing a blog for 6 months I have a heightened respect for anyone who commits to putting a little piece of themselves into the vast and crowded marketplace. I am not yet sure what my next challenge will be, but I have been learning to play the banjo for the last couple of years and the opportunity to jam in a group has just come up. Maybe it’s time to confront one of my biggest fears and maybe I’ll blog about it.
Next week I will give my thoughts on meetings. They are often cited as the bane of every office worker’s life. I’ll give my thoughts on where meetings go wrong and how they can be more effective. We are at the halfway point, twenty six blogs written and twenty six to go. Don’t be shy, feel free to share with your friends and colleagues.
Thank you for reading, James