My 2024 Journey: What Worked, What Didn't, and What's Next

A look back at 2024, what worked and what didn't, and a look forwards to 2025.

As we transition into a new year - 2025 no less - it feels like the perfect time to reflect on how I organize my digital life and knowledge.

In this 3-part series, I will be:

• reflecting on the past year and looking forwards to the next
• discussing my current PKM, business and writing structures - what's staying and what needs to go
• identifying the key workflows and principles that help me most - and which I need to work on

My goal with these posts is to provide accountability, inspiration, and methodology. Let's start by examining what 2024 taught me.

Key Milestones for 2024

• TIME MANAGEMENT:
  • Implemented calendar time blocking in January, vastly improving my daily productivity by providing clear work boundaries
  • Integrated morning journaling in June, helping to focus each day's priorities
  • Enrolled in Ali Abdaal's Productivity Lab in July
  • Started using Claude.ai in September, dramatically reducing time spent on certain writing and research tasks, plus it’s been a game changer for doing stats in R
• KNOWLEDGE ECOLOGY:
  • Grew Brain STREAM from issue 12 to 28 - while not hitting my weekly goal, I still achieved 17 issues
  • Completed Ship 30 for 30 (<- affiliate link) in May, extending to 66 consecutive days of online publishing
  • Migrated newsletter from Ghost to Substack in August
  • Redesigned Knowledge Ecology website in November with a more organic and fun look
• PHD:
  • Shifted to quarterly chapter focus in July, replacing my previous scattered approach
  • Completed first chapter draft in September
  • Restructured literature review around seven key hypotheses in October, significantly improving writing flow
  • Developed framework for systematic review; aiming for 2025 publication
• THE POSTED STAMP:
  • Relaunched Etsy shop for The Posted Stamp in August
  • Published 9 blog posts on website in September
• HEALTH AND WELLBEING
  • I started taking vitamins regularly; magnesium (powder), iron, omega-3 (vegan algae version) and Vitabiotics neuromind. I’m not entirely sure which one of this combo has the greatest effect, but I feel so much less tired by taking these. Not cheap altogether but totally worth it.
  • My daughter do more things together that we both enjoy, namely arts and crafts, but also Pokémon. It can be fun re-connecting to childhood.

My tool journey and systems evolution

Throughout 2024, I oscillated between various note-taking tools - from Capacities to OneNote and ultimately back to Obsidian. However, this journey helped me realize something really important; time spent developing the system is much better rewarded than getting the tool to work for me. By focusing on simplicity and reducing friction, I've developed workflows that would work in most apps. This perspective shift has been one of my most valuable insights of the year. Seems kind of stupid on reflection, but who's keeping score!

Lessons Learned in 2024

What Worked Well

The best 2024 thing for me was the time spent working on ‘systems’. My time management drastically improved, helped by settling into the school hours routine. I worked out how I take notes and how everything I learn, encounter and think about is structured together. I also got better at doing little and often, breaking down things into small steps. This was helped by understanding that focusing on one thing, rather than many, despite feeling really unnatural was a game-changer. Hopefully this effort will be evident as we go into 2025!

What Needs Improvement

Several areas require me to have a rethink in 2025:

• I’m still not focused enough and I take too long to do anything.
• I didn’t do much photography in the latter part of the year, despite it being one of my favourite hobbies.
• I restarted my postage stamp business and I’m not sure that I should have. It has taken my focus away from writing more closely aligned with my research.
• Due to how and where I published my writing, I didn’t really make much money from my writing this year. It was <£100 this year compared to around £800 the year before.
• Exercise was non-existent 😬

Looking Forward to 2025

Key goals and priorities:

• Complete PhD by December aiming to finish one section every 3 months
• Attend conferences (need to prioritize from current list)
• Participate in Ali Abdaal's YouTube video challenge (This is a maybe! He is offering a course for $295 which they will completely refund in 7 months if you publish 7 videos and complete the self-reflection surveys within that time. If anybody wants to take up the challenge with me, that would be appreciated 😂).
• Commit to Obsidian as my primary note-taking tool
• I want to up my ‘output’ - a paper or two would be nice, a video or two and much more writing. AI will be central to this, but I want to work on my ‘voice’.
• Working on the house. I’ve been trying really hard to keep on top of (child’s) mess and we’ve been clearing stuff out this holidays. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to do a bit of DIY on the house and garden too.
• Complete ‘The Artist’s Way’ (12 weeks) and ‘The Listening Path’ (6 weeks) by Julia Cameron

This review sets the foundation for examining my PKM and writing structures in part 2 of this series, where I’ll take a closer look at ‘the system’, how it works and where I can make improvements.

Remember to subscribe to my newsletter for nature-inspired learning and thinking. I'll be covering more of the 'systems' stuff over there.

"Stories ... are living things; and their real life begins when they start to live in you. Then they never stop living, or growing, or mutating, or feeding the ground well of imagination, sensibility, and character."

- Ben Okri, A Way of Being Free, pg35

• 'The Slow Professor' by Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber
• '12 Rules For Life' by Jordan Peterson
• 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell