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  • What Didn't Go So Well This Year?: Blog Writing. Because I Spent So Much Time Working On My Book, I Had

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    James Clear summarizes his year in 2017, noting areas where he fell short and things he wants to improve. [1] He wrote fewer blog articles than usual as he focused on writing his book. [2] He did not travel internationally for the first time in years due to focusing on his book. [3] Managing a remote team and balancing being a creator with being a manager were challenges.

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    James Clear summarizes his year in 2017, noting areas where he fell short and things he wants to improve. [1] He wrote fewer blog articles than usual as he focused on writing his book. [2] He did not travel internationally for the first time in years due to focusing on his book. [3] Managing a remote team and balancing being a creator with being a manager were challenges.

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    18 views5 pages

    What Didn't Go So Well This Year?: Blog Writing. Because I Spent So Much Time Working On My Book, I Had

    Uploaded by

    bey lu
    James Clear summarizes his year in 2017, noting areas where he fell short and things he wants to improve. [1] He wrote fewer blog articles than usual as he focused on writing his book. [2] He did not travel internationally for the first time in years due to focusing on his book. [3] Managing a remote team and balancing being a creator with being a manager were challenges.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 5

    What didn’t go so well this year?

    Alright, where did I slip up this year?

    Blog writing. Because I spent so much time working on my book, I had


    very little time left over to write new articles. I wrote 10 new articles this
    year, which is my lowest total since launching JamesClear.com in 2012.
    What I missed most was the feedback from readers. I thrive on getting
    interaction with my ideas and hearing about what people liked and didn't
    like. I rarely got that while working on the book, and I'm looking
    forward to sharing many new articles with readers in 2018 once the
    manuscript is complete.

    International travel. This one shocked me. For the first time in years, I
    didn't visit a new country. I was so heads-down, fully focused on writing
    the book that I didn't even realize this until I sat down to write this
    review.

    Honestly, it makes me sad to think that I let an entire year go by without


    making this a priority. Travel, and specifically international travel, has
    become a big part of my life in the past decade, and it's one of the
    primary ways I have learned about other cultures and perspectives.
    Thankfully, I already have multiple international trips scheduled for
    2018.
    I did manage to see more of the United States this year. My travel
    highlights for 2017 include:

     1 country: United States.

     14 states (3 new): Alaska, Arizona (2x), Colorado, Idaho, Illinois


    (2x), Minnesota, Missouri, New York (2x), North Carolina, Ohio,
    Oregon, Tennessee (2x), Texas (2x), Washington.

    I also updated my Ultralight Travel Guide for the third year in a row.

    Team building. This was my first full year as a “manager,” and I've still
    got a lot to learn. One thing I'm struggling with is finding the right
    balance between being the creator and being the manager. It's hard for
    me to be a good manager and visionary for the team when I need to hole
    up for a few months and write 75,000 words. This is something I'll need
    to be better about in 2018.

    Another challenge is a structural one: we have a remote team, which


    provides incredible flexibility, but can also feel lonely because each
    person is working on their own. I'd love to find ways for us to spend
    more time face-to-face.

    3. What did I learn this year?

    I learned a lot in 2017. Here are some of the main takeaways.


    Recovery is non-negotiable. From January to April, I ramped up my
    training and put in a lot of volume at the gym. As you might expect, this
    paid off with bigger lifts. However, eventually, the elevated pace caught
    up with me. From June to September, I had to dial everything back due
    to inflammation (and some travel). As a result, all of my biggest lifts
    happened in the first half of the year. I peaked, but I didn't maintain it.

    Something similar happened with book writing. I would pour my mental


    energy into a week-long burst of writing—and then crash for a few days
    before starting the cycle again. This lesson applies to most areas of life.
    Recovery is non-negotiable. The bill always comes due. Push yourself
    hard and you'll have to take it easy at some point.

    Recovery is non-negotiable. The bill always comes due. Push yourself


    hard and you'll have to take it easy at some point.

    It will never feel like the right time to travel. I didn't travel
    internationally in 2017 because it never felt like a good time to do it. I
    always felt guilty doing anything except working on the book, and I kept
    pushing off anything fun because there was always more work to do.
    When something is important, but not urgent, it will never feel like the
    right time to do it. You just have to schedule it, which is why I already
    have multiple international trips booked for 2018.

    When choosing who to work with, take the extra time and find the
    best people. This is true for hiring. This is true for partnerships. This is
    true for who you select as mentors, coaches, and peers. Despite my
    mistakes—and there were many of them in the last year—I made three
    very wise choices: I hired a great employee. I signed with a great agent.
    And I signed with a great publisher.

    These three people have a direct impact on my work. Because they are
    highly talented, my life and work continued to improve despite my
    faults. If these three people (or even one of them) was not an A-player,
    then my business and book would have fallen off the rails this year.
    With the right people, what should be a problem becomes easy. With the
    wrong people, what should be easy becomes a problem.

    With the right people, what should be a problem becomes easy. With the
    wrong people, what should be easy becomes a problem.

    Choose the version of a habit that best suits you, not the one that is
    most popular.There are many ways to perform the same task. If you
    want to be a writer, then you have a lot of options. On the short end, you
    could write tweetstorms that are a few hundred words or blog posts that
    are a few thousand words. On the long-end, you could write feature
    pieces for magazines that are 10,000 words or you could write books
    that are 60,000 words. Each one is a form of writing and any of them can
    be valuable.
    This is true for any habit. Don't choose the form of exercise or
    meditation or gratitude or whatever that the world says you should do.
    Choose the one that's right for you.

    Good ideas take longer than you think. I wanted so badly to finish this
    book faster than I did. I would work and work and work, and yet, it still
    wouldn't be done. Of the many challenges associated with long-term
    creative projects, perhaps the most difficult one is that you must find a
    way to remain motivated and committed to your project without getting
    positive feedback on most days. Every morning, you have to find the
    motivation to put in another day of work even though you know you
    won't be finished when night falls. Patience is among the most valuable
    creative traits.

    That's all I've got for this year's Annual Review. As always, thanks for
    reading. I can't wait to share my best work with you in 2018.

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