Getting serious: a 1,000 day challenge | #26

see ya in 3 years

Hello friends!

This is another self-indulgent issue. I’m basically thinking out loud about

• how I’m going to achieve my goals,

• what those goals are, and

• the changes I’m making to this newsletter as a result.

In this 26th edition of The Pole:

• The struggle: how to make a consistent but valuable newsletter

• 1,000 days of accountability: a challenge to myself

• Some things I hope to achieve during this challenge (e.g. motion graphics, marketing, managing my psychology)

The Struggle

With issue #25 out, I've now shipped a weekly essay every week for 6 months straight.

It's been great.

I love emptying the thoughts in my head onto the page.

I love asking myself: is this what I actually want to say?

I love that I have a non-trivial body of work I can point people to.

But... it's a big time commitment. It has taken me ~10 hours to write a few of these issues. It also eats a big chunk of my thinking and creativity.

Now that I'm almost finished with animation school, I want to spend most of that energy on motion graphics.

So, if I want to keep this newsletter sustainable, it needs to take less time and effort.

There are many strategies to do this. Most of them involve having a process or format to outsource a lot of the thinking to.

For example, I could switch from a content model to a curation model. I could send out a list of useful or interesting links instead of writing an original essay each week.

I don't want to do that because I, myself, don't find those newsletters valuable. I end up clicking on those links to check them out, which leads to open browser tabs that I have to decide what to do with.

It sounds like a trivial problem, but I'm susceptible to distractions and nerd-sniping.

I don't think that's a rare problem, so I want my newsletter to be self-contained. I don't want you to have to leave your inbox to get value from my emails.

So, we're back to the content model and to my original problem: making writing take less effort.

The essays I write fast tend to be word vomits about meaningful experiences that don't need much editing.

For me, that's the time-consuming part. Organizing my thoughts, shaping the narrative, and finding the right phrasing all take a long time.

If I get away with less editing, it's either because

1. my thoughts were already organized in essay form (by pure luck), or

2. I framed the essay not as a story (where I'm tailoring the content to support an idea), but as a documentary (where I'm just the messenger)

I can't rely on 1), but 2) is intriguing as a model. It allows me to save some time, but is it valuable to readers?

I think back to other newsletters I've read with a documentation model, and I realized that

1. I enjoy them, and

2. they're pretty rare, actually.

The story is often built-in: here's what I wanted, here's what I tried, here's what happened.

The more I thought about adopting this model, the more it made sense. It's also a great forcing function for me to

1. be productive,

2. do interesting things, and

3. practice documenting that interestingness in a way that resonates with others.

So, I've decided to give it a shot.

1,000 days of accountability

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UPDATE (Nov 28, 2023):
I have 3 long-term goals for the next 12 months:

• Flipping Websites: to be able to reliably buy a (content) website, add $100k of value to it, and sell it in the span of a year

• Dancing: to be able to improvise as impressively and effortlessly as the couple in this video, for salsa and bachata (and also have fun doing it and learning to do it)

• Drawing: to be able to draw or photoshop anything I want, from life or imagination, and have it look great

The short-term goals that build up to those long term goals are:

• Flipping Websites:

  • get through the nano flips course

  • analyze 100 deals

  • buy something ($1k-$3k range)

  • add value

  • sell it (ideally for $2k-$6k)

  • rinse and repeat until I’ve learned enough to buy websites and sell them for $100k more than I bought them

• Dancing (salsa):

  • learn to do (on both on 1 and on 2 timing) the following moves as muscle memory: follower right + left turn, leader right + left turn, enchufa, guapea, back spot turn, cross body + reverse cross body variations (right turn, left turn, cat walk), 360, around the world, copa, rib chase

  • master the body movement for the basic steps

  • train myself to look at any dancing and immediately tell what direction they’re turning, what foot they’re stepping on, what arm hold they’re in, and what kinds of turns they’re doing (check, spot, hook, traveling, etc)

• Drawing: to be able to draw or photoshop anything I want, from life or imagination, and have it look great

  • do 100 color studies

  • draw 1,000 things

  • binge this Photoshop playlist

  • binge this Color Studies playlist

  • binge these 4 Aaron Blaise courses

    • Creating With Procreate

    • How To Paint Light

    • How To Draw: Drawing Human Anatomy

    • Dynamic Lighting & The Figure

  • binge these 3 Dorian Iten courses

    • a drawing guide on getting proportions right

    • a drawing guide on realistic light & shadow

    • a drawing guide on tonal values

  • binge these 6 Domestika courses

    • Speed Painting in Photoshop: Accelerate Your Creative Process

    • Magical Photomontage in Photoshop: Creating Visual Metaphors

    • Matte Painting of Imaginary Worlds in Photoshop

    • Photograph Retouching and Visual Effects with Photoshop

    • Digital Collage in Photoshop: Composition and Visual Effects

    • Advanced Photomontage in Photoshop: Create Imaginary Worlds
      

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June 21, 2023:
To create content for this newsletter, I need a better awareness of what I'm doing and why.

I have a lot of stuff I want to do. Courses to take, tutorials to go over, projects to finish. The list is long.

I often innocently add new, shiny tasks to it. I also forget about tasks that are less shiny but important. This means, if I'm not careful, I find myself doing shiny but unimportant tasks.

Some of the shiny tasks are obviously unimportant, and I can confidently redirect my attention. I've gotten better recognizing those.

But still, some tasks aren't as obviously unimportant.

As a result, I often have an ambient, gnawing feeling that I might not be doing The Right Thing.

When I think back to times I didn't have that feeling, there is a common thread: having a great plan.

I had a visceral awareness of the goal, the plan, and the reasoning for each decision. I could articulate the priority list and why each task had each level of priority.

I hadn't forgotten anything. I had confidence that I was doing The Right Thing. Once I finished, I could confidently relax and do unproductive things without guilt.

To practice project management hygiene and to help create that awareness, I'm doing a challenge.

I'm going to tweet every day, for 1,000 days, about my goals, plans, and what I got done. Here are the rules I'm setting for myself that make sense right now:

• Mondays will be my plans for the week.

• Fridays will be how much I stuck to the plan.

• All other days will be what I got done on those days.

• I'll allow myself 50 "sick" days

• a non-zero day (i.e. I did something) is a successful day

• goals must be effort-based (i.e. in my control), not outcome-based

• be playful and as non-coercive as possible - this is supposed to be fun

This newsletter will now ship on Fridays. It will document my goals, motivations, challenges, and outcomes. I don't know how I'll structure it, but I imagine the structure will emerge after a few issues. Feedback is also welcome!

Some things I hope to achieve during this challenge

• Get really good at illustration. I can use Adobe Illustrator to create a picture of pretty much anything in a few minutes and have it look “right”.

• Get really good at marketing. I can make titles, thumbnails, hooks, etc that effectively capture what's interesting about my content. I either know or can quickly intuit the desires and motivations of a given audience.

• Get really good at motion graphics. I'm well-practiced in all the common techniques used in Adobe After Effects. I can identify when they're used correctly and incorrectly. For any feeling, mood, or message, I know how I'd use animation to create it. And I'm proficient: I can work very quickly.

• Get really good at project and knowledge management. I can find anything I've read, watched, created, or referenced very quickly. For any new resource I come across, I always have a place to put it. For any goal I have, I know how to break it down and prioritize it.

• Get really good at script writing. If I'm making an educational video, I'm aware of what order to introduce what content. I have a great feel for what would be boring, what would be overwhelming, and what would be just right.

• Grow my Twitter, YouTube, and Substack followings. I'm good at jumping into miscellaneous conversations and providing value. I'm good at identifying where and when to plug my work in a tasteful way. I'm good at creating content that gets attention without selling my soul.

• Get really good at managing my psychology and prioritizing my happiness. I'm laser sharp at identifying when I'm not being fair to myself, when I'm tunnel visioning, or when I'm being biased. If I've identified something not helpful to me, I have a process for deconstructing it and clearing it out.