A quick note about monthly reviews

28 Dec 2015

If you liked reading my monthly reviews, you might have noticed I stopped posting them recently. I wanted to post a quick update to explain why.

Before 2015, I wrote my monthly reviews in a journal and kept them private. This year I decided to share them on my blog, thinking they might be interesting or useful to other people. Many people have told me they've been inspired to do their own reviews based on reading mine, so I'm glad I shared them.

However, in the past few months I noticed I was getting less benefit from my reviews than I used to. I was self-censoring more, because I knew the reviews would be public.

The point of my monthly reviews has always been to make my life better. Self-censoring had stopped that happening to some extent. I'd started to feel like writing my reviews was more like going through the motions for the benefit of my blog readers than an exercise in self-reflection for my own benefit.

I entertained various ideas for adjusting my approach, such as publishing a slightly altered version of my reviews on my blog, but ultimately decided to go back to keeping them private. My priority for these reviews is to reflect on my life and my work, and make both better.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you got some benefit from the reviews I published in 2015.