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Matt Ragland

For Creators & Makers Who Want to Get Their Best Work Done

The Best Work I Did in 2022 — Annual Review, part 2

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In part one of my Annual Review I put 2022 under the W.R.A.P. spotlight — you can read it here. Today I want to share the best work I did and created this year, along with a little behind-the-scenes at how I did it.

YouTube

One of the goals I missed on this year was growth and consistency on YouTube. I still published 11 videos including my favorites on Note-taking in Notion and 10 Simple Habits to be Happy.

W.R.A.P. Newsletter

My newsletter is the creative work I’m most proud of this year. I published the W.R.A.P. every weekend (courses and holidays not included) and added To-Do’s Day this fall. I’m not prioritizing the time to go through my archive and count the emails, but a conservative guess is around 70 newsletters published in 2022. Here are a few of my favorites…

Productivity Power-Up: Time Blocking

The most effective tool in my productivity toolkit this year was time blocking. I have a good sense of task duration after years of time tracking and that was put to good use in 2022. Most weeks were time blocked in advance to allow time for agency work, newsletter writing, and the occasional YouTube video.

For better or worse, time blocking is the reason I slowed down on YouTube and even stopped for the past few months. As much as it bummed me out, I know a video takes at least 3-4 hours to create, and that’s with an editor! So every time I wanted to make a new video, it went down the priority list.

  • Is this a task that will help a client? Ghostwriting, editing, communication.
  • Is this a task that will help our team? Systems, sales, training.
  • Should I do this task instead of going home to see my family?
  • Should I do this task instead of taking care of myself? Sleep, exercise, etc.

As I filled up my time blocks each week, I had a harder and harder time finding blocks for YouTube videos. Looking back, this was impacted by the rollout of ConvertKit’s sponsor network. Because of it, my newsletters had sponsors. And when a newsletter has a sponsor… the newsletter takes priority over YouTube.

I was talking with my parents this weekend and commented that I only focused on three (and a half) areas in 2022.

  1. Growing the Whatever Co creator agency (courses and newsletters)
  2. Raising my family (especially with a new baby)
  3. Personal health (exercise, time outdoors, and therapy)

I note the “half” because the newsletter is less time consuming than YouTube and I’m able to do it late at night.

In a year where I still worked super-hard, it was because of time blocking that I realized I simply didn’t have the same capacity to ship a weekly, then bi-weekly, then even monthly video on YouTube. I intend to do more in 2023, but it’s still below all the other priorities when planning each week. If you want to know more about how I think about time blocking, watch this video.

Building an Agency with SOPs

The best work I did this year isn’t something I can show you. Well, not anything more than this database of standard operating procedures (SOPs) about the newsletter process. I wrote thousands of words and recorded hours of video about how to do the work that delivers value for our clients.

I had to use every power-up in my productivity kit to make this happen, on top of doing work, making sales, onboarding clients, creating forms, and more. It always feels difficult to take time away from what’s needed right now in order to create a checklist or video about the process — but it’s the only way to grow.

Without these SOPs and many others, the Whatever Co would not have made it through the year. At the very least I would not have made it through the year because I’d be trying to do everything myself.

I’ve measured my creative output on YouTube for the past 5 years, so there’s an old part of me that feels very unproductive in 2022. 11 videos!? And let’s not even talk about the (relative) lack of channel growth.

But I’m growing as a person, a creator, and an entrepreneur. My family is growing and taking a bigger chunk of my time — which I’m happy about and thankful for! I’m also reminding myself that I haven’t lost any of the skills that helped my YouTube journey. I’ll have even more stories and experiences to share when I start again. If you miss my videos, I linked a bunch in the lessons above.

Thanks again for reading my newsletter and watching my videos. I really appreciate all the kind words after the annual review email. They mean a lot to me and I read every one!

Happy holiday season and I’ll see you on Christmas Eve 🎅

Matt