Weekly Thing
A short pointer to my Weekly Thing newsletter. This category links out to weekly digests of interesting articles and personal updates; the actual archives live over on the newsletter site.
- Having a well defined structure that I flow content “through and in” has been key to making this something I can do over the long haul. If I started each week with a blank document I don’t think it would work well.
- It is surprising how often the hardest thing is writing the little intro bit in the beginning. Sometimes I find myself with traditional writers block. Other times major things in the world have brought a seriousness to the week that needs to be addressed. I didn’t expect this when I started this project.
- Getting a new photo every week is difficult in the winter when the daylight is so short.
- I’ve been able to get to know a lot of readers more than I ever would have any other way. Email is much more personal than blogging or social media.
- The rare times that an issue doesn’t go out on Saturday at 7am CT, I often get pings from people asking what is up? I love that. It’s fun that this has become part of a few peoples Saturday morning routines.
- It is harder to keep up with the email replies I get from people. If you sent me a reply and I didn’t get back in a few days, or at all, I’m sorry. I read it all!
- I love the archive that is created by writing every week. In addition to blogging, this is a very rewarding activity that I plan to keep doing.
- Automate as much as possible. This keeps the busywork down. I’ve got extensive automation to keep everything humming.
I didn’t get the Weekly Thing done last night, but I got up early this morning and finished issue 190 with 28 minutes to spare! 😅
Four Years of the Weekly Thing
Today marks the four year anniversary of the Weekly Thing! Issue 1 was sent May 13, 2017. When I started this project I figured I would do it for a year and then see. Now it is four years later and I’m still enjoying it.
Here are some learnings I would share.
And now onto the years ahead!
1,000 Subscribers
I’ve had a “soft” goal for the Weekly Thing to get to 1,000 subscribers and it got there today! Plus it is fun that Buttondown sends a note like this.
Buttondown says that I have written 448,665 words in the first 166 issues of the Weekly Thing. The average non-fiction book has less than 100,000 words. Even if half of the Weekly Thing words aren’t mine, I’ve possibly written two books worth of words? 🤯
Link Blog Relaunched
I got my Link Blog up and running again. It is still plenty rough around the edges. This gives the links that I share in the Weekly Thing a permanent home on the web.
As an experiment I’ve also put the Commento commenting system on it to see if that is interesting.
I also created Index pages for sites so you can see all links I’ve save for a site. See this Index for the EFF website as an example.
On my to do list is Annum pages that show statistics for each year.
Trying tagging people whose articles I am commenting and sharing in the Weekly Thing. Example on LinkedIn and Twitter for issue 161. Will be watching to see if this is appreciated or seen as tag spam, and if it results in additional awareness.
This weekend I wired up two additional platforms that I’m syndicating to. I’m now sharing to Mastadon and am @jamiethingelstad@mastodon.social. This is built into micro.blog so I decided to turn it on for those that may prefer it.
I also configured Zapier to share the Weekly Thing to Medium. If you prefer Medium you can find jthingelstad there and this is a full share, with all the content. Right now I’m only sharing the Weekly Thing to Medium.
The best way to get all of of my stuff directly is still via RSS or Email.
Just queued up the first issue of my Weekly Thing newsletter that will go out via Buttondown! I’m very excited about the improvements I made over my winter break! I think it’s well worth subscribing too! 😎
Just scheduled the final Weekly Thing of 2019 to go out tomorrow! Taking a break until mid-January. 👍
Went down a rabbit hole 🕳 automating MailChimp for the Weekly Thing. Wrestled control on my template.