Hello and welcome to 2020! This is the second special edition of Reflections this week, and is meant to complement yesterday’s recap of 2019. You don’t necessarily need to read that email/post before this one, but it could help to provide some context on my goals for the year ahead.
I’m just going to structure this by talking through each of my five goals so let’s just jump right into it.
Launch print line, Patreon for wallpaper downloads
This is more of a relaunch than a fresh launch but I want to make my Patreon more meaningful as well as launch products that people (hopefully) want to purchase. In the past, I’ve tried offering early access to content but that didn’t set the world on fire (and frankly I never figured out the workflow to consistently make content with time to post it on Patreon for early access.
I also find myself posting hundreds of photos to Instagram (I posted 675 times last year) and they just sit on my hard drive after being dumped onto Facebook’s servers. I’d like to think that they can have a second life beyond the Instagram feed to move onto your devices and your homes eventually.
This is probably going to launch closer to the summer as there’s a lot of prep work to do in terms of preparing photos for Patreon and figuring out how I want to manage the print line both with my archive and with new images that I will inevitably shoot in 2020 and beyond.
Content
I’m going to combine these next two because they go hand in hand with each other and frankly one is so self-explanatory that there really isn’t much of an explanation to provide beyond just stating it: continuing to grow my audience. I don’t believe in hyperfixating on the numbers to put a hard numerical figure on it, but continuing to grow is obviously important to continuing to build a career around creating awesome content.
The second goal is similarly simple but there are a few more moving parts to it. I want to have something new released every weekday between YouTube, Andijack Music, andrewokwuosah.com, or just an edition of Reflections on a particularly busy day. Roberto Blake, one of the main influences on the strategy and business aspects of crafting this career, preaches the benefits of showing up for your community every day. As I mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, I tend to take long hiatuses from releasing content on YouTube and on Andijack Music when life gets in the way or I lose momentum. I do tend to show up on Twitter and Instagram on a daily basis though despite everything.
My goal here is to build the habit of working on content in advance during school breaks so I can get ahead and have some content prepped so I can focus on making incremental progress while I am in school, removing the pressure of having to finish something every day to meet a deadline.
Speaking of content, I have a lot of plans for the year. YouTube content will focus on capturing experiences, starting with my Disney trip last September as a mini series with weekly episodes starting January 6 and moving into my Lagos trip last August along with so many videos that I filmed last semester and am bound to film over the course of the year. Expect new videos on Mondays and Wednesdays at 9am ET.
Probe will continue to spotlight new albums with a new album mix every Thursday starting January 9 at 9am ET everywhere you find Andijack Music.
Discography Season 1 featuring UK artist bLiNd will continue on Tuesdays starting January 14 at 9am ET running for eight weeks before taking a short siesta before Season 2. Who will be spotlighted on Season 2? Nobody knows… (Seriously, I’m open to suggestions.)
Heavy Rotation will continue to air new episodes on Fridays recapping all of the new music you need to know about from the week along with previews from both Probe and Discography. Episodes will honestly release whenever I finish them on Fridays. It could be 9am ET or 11:59pm ET. Who knows? Subscribe to Andijack Music on your favorite place to listen to podcasts and it’ll be on your device the moment it’s released. New this year are seasonal special episodes that I’ll be releasing on select Saturdays throughout the year. These include the traditional Spring Break and Labor Day Weekend mixes along with some new experimental content that I’ll announce closer to their release.
And then there’s Reflections. This is a very new thing so I won’t rehash too much. Basically, this newsletter will come into your inbox every weekday evening…. Hopefully, you subscribe to get it into your inbox. Please subscribe. Please.
Personal habits
The last two habits are more personal so I’m grouping them into this bucket.
I want to read for pleasure every day this year. Last year, I read a measly three books last year according to Goodreads. This is extremely depressing to me considering that I love books. Ask anyone that’s ever had to ring up my order at Barnes & Noble (or my parents telling me not to take dozens of books back to their shelves). Overall, I hope to complete 15 books this year but rebuilding the habit is a lot more important to me.
Lastly, I want to get to and maintain inbox zero for my personal sanity. I’m currently sitting at 1,382 emails in my inbox as of this writing and I hope to get it to a point where I can go through my emails once a day and be done with it to maintain inbox zero. It would be nice to go to bed knowing that I have a clean mind and a clean inbox.
Wow, what a long read. If you’re still here, thank you for making it this far. Reflections will be back in its normal format tomorrow.