2024: A reflection on what worked and what didn’t work

Monday marked nine years of writing a newsletter. Nine! My newsletter is about to enter the 4th grade! Every year, I set some time aside to review the past year and set intentions for the future. I have more or less used this template to do my review, but I’ve modified questions and sections to fit my work and life. This newsletter issue is an abbreviated version of business and personal goals, decisions, and wins that happened in 2024.

A bunch of productivity systems

What worked: researching and pulling out the best of each, dumping all of my projects and areas of focus, color coding, emojis, indexes, and keeping it the same between apps.

At the end of last year, I went into a giant rabbit hole of personal knowledge management systems (PKM). It felt more like a black hole and not a rabbit hole. I had to try a lot of different systems before I figured out what worked best for me—which ended up being a blended system that’s been used for most of this year.

The tenets of organizing that I use now are:

• keep the same categories across as many apps as possible- it cuts down on friction when you move between them
• use the same colors, naming conventions, and emojis when possible
• not every category needs to be in every app

What didn’t work: sticking religiously to a system that felt like it was too rigid for me

The chances are high that, whatever and however you organize things, you have preferences, even if you don’t know them yet. I’m a visual person, so color coding and emoji assigning work well for me. I didn’t like how the Johnny Decimal system had numbers that took up precious space at the beginning of a folder name. I had mapped, created new folders, and renamed so many things until I realized the upkeep would be awful for me. Then, I had to rename them again. What I did keep were single numbers (1-4) so I could sort in my systems.

Regular reviews

My issue with the annual review is that I don’t remember everything that happened in a year. My memory is god awful. 

What worked: creating a 2024 goals and highlights project in Todoist, recurring monthly to-dos to check in on goals, creating a work journal in Day One with a “Wins” template where I could put my wins, big or small, weekly reviews

You may notice that my goals project has the same category names as my filing system. Some, like “health” and “social” got their own sections because I had more goals for each. To keep track of my annual goals, I scheduled a to-do at the end of every month to check in, which takes 10 minutes. For example, my reading goal was 24 books, two being nonfiction. Every month, I wrote in the number of books and my thoughts. 

What didn’t work: As you may relate, I have a tendency to overschedule and over-engineer things. My weekly Friday wrap-up included clearing out my desk and wiping things down. It’s still in that task, but honestly, I’ve had a super messy desk more often than not. I didn’t give myself the flexibility to accept the messiness.

Seasons in tanjennts

What worked: Planning the seasons, thinking in seasons

I liked how I planned the seasons—coming up with everything I wanted to write about and then categorizing them. 

What didn’t work: Overcommitting myself. Period.

I underestimated the time it takes to do everything I wanted. Between the fact that this newsletter isn’t turning a profit and that I was essentially building a photo business from scratch, biz dev took up more time than expected, which deprioritized this newsletter. I’m not proud of that, especially since I’ve delayed some sends and taken a few weeks off. 

Professional development and connections

What worked: Free trial courses, library-connected courses on Coursera, creating a mastermind group

I used my library’s resources to find online courses, like “accounting basics for business owners.” Through a coworking community I’m part of, I formed a mastermind group of 3-4 people. We meet every 3-4 weeks, alternating IRL and Zoom meetings. Each time, we go through goals, a problem we need help with, and wins. It’s been a very supportive environment, and I’m very thankful to have found other solopreneurs to be in community with. This month, I also bought a posing masterclass to do with my friend Rachel and in January, a Spanish for Coffee People course with my friend Sandra.

What didn’t work: Too many networking events that didn’t quite work out.

As an introvert with social anxiety, I am protective of my energy. You always hear about how you need to put yourself out there to make the connections. No one talks about how to do that while being cognizant of your energy. I signed up for too many networking events that, when I arrived, didn’t match the descriptions. I went solo to all of these, and while I can handle that for a 25-person event, I cannot handle that with a 200-count one (now, I research the venues to see how many people might fit). In San Francisco, you have to be careful of which events you go to, because way too many are about tech, AI, and startups. 

Other big things in 2024

• I dropped my marketing consulting for coffee businesses service at the end of Q1. It was a big, big drop in finances for me, but I also gained a lot of time and energy back. I was in burnout mode for too long.
• Building my photo business has been a huge rollercoaster. My network is in coffee and more national/global. Expanding beyond the coffee industry was essentially like starting a new, local business, and I underestimated how much time it would take to take off. I would say it’s still in the runway/fledgling stage.
• I taught a mobile photography workshop—a topic I’ve never taught, but I had fun doing it
• I bought a second camera body and zoom lens. Financially, these were big investments, but they’ve already paid off in my photo work. 
• I started volunteering with California Bully Rescue, taking photos at their local events and doing 1:1 sessions with local adoptable dogs. I took the photo currently in their homepage banner, and if you’re familiar with my photos, you can probably tell which adoption ones I took. Of the 13 dogs I’ve photographed this year, eight have been adopted!
• Mental health-wise, I fired a therapist and started sessions with a previous one who now has more time. In May, I was dealing with some bad news and grief that I needed to process, and she has been very helpful for that. I also updosed on a medication, which I’ve mentioned here a few times, and it has cut my anxiety down SO MUCH.
• Zoey’s reactivity and separation anxiety have drastically improved. Today, I left her alone for three hours and she did not cry or howl once, only paced around.
• I wrote essays and deep-dives for Sprudge: reality TV, history of coffee as medicine, an op-ed for more NA events, and parasocial relationships. 
• I’m very proud of my tanjennts Season 1: Community pieces. A lot of these lived in my head for years before I finally wrote them. I used a quote from my anonymous stories article when I went on stage for Oscillations, debating against private equity in coffee. Oh! I also moved from Substack to Ghost, and I'm still happy with that move.

Okay, I know I said this was an abbreviated version of my 2024, which it is, but I also didn’t realize so much had happened (see, reviews work!). After I deliver the last article and gallery sets, I will take more time to do my in-depth 2024 review and plan for 2025. My last newsletter for 2024 will be next week for paid subscribers, and my first one in 2025 will be about my new word of the year. And hopefully, a solid update on where this newsletter will be going.

etc.

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