Let’s briefly look back at last year and see what things were like, then look forward to the coming year and what I want to achieve. I did this last year too, and I’ve just been reading that.
So previously I was quite pleased at hitting 1000 subscribers on my YouTube channel, and by the end of the year had 1300 or so. This year I seem to have gained another 1000 as I’m somewhere around 2300.
Most of my videos last year were Spectrum Next related as I tried to work out how to program it, and then explain what I’d learnt to others who might be interested. I quite like learning things and then explaining what I know, I also seem to like telling stories of how things were.
It doesn’t feel like I did much else. I know I did far too much sitting in front of my TV watching YouTube, rather than making my own content but I guess that’s what happens when you do a full time job during the day. Doing more work at home seems like too much effort. Especially when it’s dark in the evenings and the space you work in is a bit of a complete mess.
So let’s look forwards then and see what I want to do in the coming year.
Making things easier is a goal. I’ve ditched my Hugo powered static website and moved everything back to WordPress. It’s just easier being able to type directly into the editor and hit “Publish” compared to the equivalent of compiling my text into a site.
I also really need to improve the place I work in for these videos and my own projects. The desk is all wrong, things are randomly put on the walls with no actual thought, it’s just sort of evolved over time.
Something I did do last year was tidy up my main workshed and put in better benches, and that’s improved things a lot. I will do the same in here.
I also find it really hard to make videos on a consistent schedule because most of my content is based on me explaining something I’ve been learning. Trying to figure something out can take weeks or months to complete, and I never liked releasing half finished videos.
I’m going to change things a bit this year and have a bunch of background, long term projects that I’ll make videos on as and when I feel the need, and then some easier to make videos each month.
Another thing I’m doing is resurrecting my blog and website to make it more useful. Previously it was just a place to dump the video description and a link to my videos in the hope someone Googling would find my content.
Now I want to actually write proper posts here. They might take the form of random waffle like this, or notes from the projects I’m working on. I can also use my site as a place to put the detailed, complex information I sometimes need to explain without trying to put it in a video. Yes, I’m just as annoyed as you are when Google directs me to a video on something I want to know, and I have to sit through ten minutes of YouTube fluff when a 30 second blog post could have told me the same thing.
I also want to try less structured vlog style videos on random topics that I’ve found interesting. I think I’ve figured out how to read a script to the camera, now I want to learn how to just switch one on and talk at it without going off topic or forgetting what I was trying to say.
