2025-01-01
I utterly failed the 100 days to offload challenge last year. I have probably attempted it every year since I've heard of it. However, last year was probably my best attempt at it. I wrote 63 posts which is better than I have ever done before. It definitely got me blogging more, which I think is the point of the challenge. But I keep falling short of that coveted 100 posts milestone.
Like everything, things started to waver around July. Every time I hit the mid-year mark, everything kinda just starts falling apart. I missed three months of blogging from June to August. That's like a quarter of the year, so not an insignificant amount of time. I've talked about it before, but I think the main thing is that structure starts to fall away during the summer months. I don't quite know how to counter that.
The productivity gurus would probably say that my systems failed me. "You should be able to still be productive during your worst days," they'd say. Additionally, it's easy enough to say, "just build up the habit!" But for the first six months, it was a pretty consistent habit. One small thing can make me fall off the wagon a few times, and then the habit is obliterated. I think what I need to focus on, is getting back on the horse as fast as possible. Which is also easier said than done.
In the end, productivity management is just energy and emotional management. I definitely find that I'm more productive in the morning, which is why I like waking up hours before work starts, so I can do personal things before work. I use my brain too much at work, and because of that, doing things that require concentrated effort in the evening can be a bit of disaster unless I'm feeling super disciplined that day, which is more of an emotional thing, I think.
We'll see if all of this introspection will lead to results. I'm optimistic that it will. Let's try it again this year.