In 2023, I set Thanksgiving and Christmas reading goals: to read an 800-page book and then a pair of books that totaled about 700 pages. I didn’t hit either goal deadlines; I finished the books a few days late. But I did finish them, so I was happy!

In hindsight, I was ramping up my reading in a major way and then developing a daily reading habit. That set me up for 2024, during which I’ve read one book a week on average and started my book-related personal project. I had no idea this would happen when I set those goals in 2023, but I didn’t see much downside and went for it.

I want to repeat that this year by setting a goal for Christmas (setting a Thanksgiving goal slipped my mind)—but not reading. I want something challenging but different than reading. I want to get back to writing blog posts series on books I’ve read and creating podcasts from those series. Hopefully, I can form a habit that will be useful in 2025.

Some background for context: I did blog and podcast series over the summer. For example, see the Ted Turner series here and here (episodes 98–103). Writing a series of blog posts about a book required that I create a digest of the book, which took a ton of time. Recording and editing the podcast did too. It wasn’t sustainable, which led to my stopping after my summer experiment. Over Christmas, I’ll have more time.

My goal this Christmas is around writing. I’ll create a blog post series (five or six posts) about a book I’ve read, which means I’ll need to create a digest too. I’d ultimately like to create a backlog of blog post series and podcasts I can publish on a schedule. I’m not sure how I’ll do that, but creating this blog post series and parking it for future use seems like a good place to start.

That’s it. That’s my Christmas writing goal. Wish me luck.