Looking Back At My Year of Writing

The official pose of 2020.

A common theme emerges yet again — I spend most of the year feeling like I should be writing more and when I finally gather up all my public writing for this end of year article I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I actually wrote. I’m starting to think that mismatch between my expectations and reality may be more of a permanent fixture than I’d like.

Looking back at the writing I did for SamSpurlin.com I see a renewed interest in trying to write about my experiences with personal experimentation. I started the year by sharing how my Focus Months were going. And then again at the end of the year I started writing about my foray into weekly experimentation. This is something that’s likely to continue into 2021 and beyond. Instead of being embarrassed at how introspective and specific to me exercises like that tend to be, I’m going to challenge myself to write them in a way that is both interesting and useful to other folks. No more shying away from the weird things I do that I personally think are interesting.

Beyond the personal experimentation recap articles I also got down some key ideas that I’ve been wanting to explore for a long time. Namely, the idea of personal development being an exercise in exploration (or an expedition, as I call it in the article) and the basics of my system for “deliberate personal development.” These are related ideas that I’ve only just started poking around the edges of. These will likely make an appearance in 2021, too.

SamSpurlin.com

1. Looking Back at a Year of Growth, Grief, and Calm
2. The Year of Intensity/Simplicity
3. How to Engage With an Overwhelming World
4. Introducing Focus Months
5. In February I’m Going to Write a Shit Ton
6. The End of My First “Month of Write”
7. “Month of Sit” Recap & a Look at April
8. Personal development is an expedition, not an exercise in perfection
9. Carving Out Your Space to Contribute
10. Recapping My Second “Month of Write” and Looking Ahead to a “Month of Read”
11. Exploring the hard reset
12. Trying to understand my resistance to second brains, digital gardens, and other interesting note-taking concepts
13. Experiment #1: Do The Work Before Wallowing
14. Experiment #2: Green Tea is the New Coffee
15. Experiment #3: Sustain the Home Routine
16. Experiment # 4: Morning Meditation
17. My System and Method for Deliberate Personal Development: An Introduction and Overview

The Deliberate

Thirteen issues means I put a new one out at a little over one per month. If I had conceptualized this as a monthly newsletter then I’d be thrilled. For some reason, though, I’ve always thought of this project being weekly in nature (or maybe biweekly, at most). I don’t think I’ve ever stuck to that cadence for more than a couple weeks so it might be time to face the music and admit to myself that this is never going to be a weekly newsletter.

I think I’m okay with that.

The main thing I like about having a newsletter is that it makes me more attentive to the things I’m seeing and reading. When I’m regularly writing I find myself engaging with the world from a posture of readiness. “Is this something to write about? Is this something worth sharing? Oh! What about this thing?” When I’m not regularly curating and writing the newsletter I can find myself floating through the world in a much more passive mode. Interesting ideas just kind of slide off my brain and don’t find anywhere to latch onto. It’s more tiring to be in that active frame of mind but it’s also much more satisfying than the alternative.

If you’d like to follow along with The Deliberate in 2021 be sure to subscribe.

1. Why All The Tracking? (TD #27)
2. How To Deal With an Overwhelming World (TD #28)
3. Digital Declutter 2020 Edition (TD #29)
4. Things Fall Apart (TD #30)
5. Sitting and Writing and Quarantining (TD #31)
6. Bottom Up Personal Development (TD #32)
7. Extracting Some Insights From a Down Week (TD #33)
8. Making Space to Write (TD #34)
9. A Checklist For When You Feel Bad But You Want to Stop Feeling Bad (TD #35)
10. Exploring the Hard Reset (TD #36)
11. The Privilege of Extra Unused Attention (TD #37)
12. Clearing the Decks (TD #38)
13. Frivolous (TD #39)

If you found yourself reading and enjoying anything I wrote this year I want to thank you for giving me some of your time and attention. I tell myself that I mostly write for the intrinsic enjoyment and meaning that I’m able to derive from it but I’d be lying if I said I’m immune to feedback. I love when people share what I’ve written, send me an email, say hello on Twitter, or any other avenue of communication.

Thanks for keeping me going during a weird year.

Originally published at https://www.samspurlin.com on December 21, 2020.