Programming notes...
On seasons and formats and time
Yesterday was Labour Day in Canada. The kids start back to school for the fall tomorrow. My writing routine is shot to hell and about to get worse, but I’ve been expecting that.
In fact, this is good. I need to change things about the newsletter, and this is a great opportunity.
Specifically, the directories need an upgrade.
I originally envisioned separate directories sorted by different hierarchical categorization schemes (e.g. geography, type of crime, etc.).
The deadend came when I realized this would lead to a proliferation of directories of the same set of studies each week. Too much work to consume, too much work to make, and not enough value for you.
I started over. Kinda. I’m still using the infrastructure I built to monitor journals, but I need to rethink document design, HTML formatting, and write a bunch of new code to change how I make the tip sheets.
In other words, I’m upgrading the newsletter this week.
In addition to the redesign for the directories, I’m also changing the organizational structure of the newsletter as a whole, moving from a static cadence that’s supposed to be the same from week to week and that goes on forever. Instead, I’m going to borrow from a few different worlds (academia, podcasts, maybe another I’m not thinking of…) in the following ways:
Split the year into three periods: January to April, May to August, and September to December. These correspond with the post-secondary academic semesters that have organized so much of my life for the last 25 years. These time periods still organize how I think about what I’m doing each year, so I’m going to use that. These periods will be the “seasons” of the newsletter, as in seasons of a podcast or television show.
Each season will have a certain number of publishing weeks (“episodes”) of regularly published deliverables. Most weeks will be publishing weeks, but there will be a week or two at the beginning and end of the season for doing things like upgrading the newsletter for the upcoming season.
There are more things I’m planning (like bringing back What I Do), but that’s all I’m going to share for today.
For this week, no directories, but you’ll still get Your First Five later today and again Thursday.