You’ll hopefully forgive me if it seems like the new year is off to a slow start around here.

That’s only because the new year is off to a slow start around here.

See…I took some time off. I know. That’s weird, right?

But for at least the week following Christmas, I didn’t worry about writing every day, fully realizing that violates one of the unquestioned tenets found in “how to succeed” lists everywhere. I had queued up a few things over on Cinematic Slant during the two weeks between Christmas and New Years Day, but that was about it.

Honestly, the slow start is partly because I’m taking some time to reevaluate…well…everything. I’ve already pressed the pause button on publishing to Medium because I want to find a new focus for that. And I’m going to be spending big chunks of January on a few organizational projects:

  1. Another round of profile consolidation. There are too many social networks I’ve joined since the last time I cleaned house and haven’t used since that just need to be erased.
  2. Making each profile unique: That’s part of the reason behind my slowdown on Medium. I already cleaned out a bunch of duplicate posts both there and on Tumblr and will be doing so elsewhere also. Basically I’m adopting one of the cardinal rules of content marketing, that each channel should have its own unique content and value proposition.
  3. Organizing my archives: There are lot of posts I’ve published over the last few years and they’re not all organized and formatted to my liking. So that’s going to be fixed.
  4. Tackling big projects: I’ve got a few things that have just kind of been building up behind a wall that I want to finally move on. January will be in part about taking those off the cinder blocks and testing the engine.

Oh…and there’s freelance work that’s been keeping me busy, of course.

That’s not to say I’m not going to be publishing here and at CinSlant. Not at all. But it means I didn’t exactly hit the ground at 65 mph when the calendar turned over.

It might seem as though I’ve done a ton of pivoting in the last year. Features have come and gone. Initiatives begun and abandoned. And I apologize for any whiplash that’s caused or if it means something you were enjoying went by the wayside. It’s just the result of needing to adjust, sometimes quickly, to changing schedules and other factors. That’s why I’m taking some time in January to get things sorted out a bit more clearly, with a firmer plan for 2018.

Let’s see how this turns out.

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer and content strategist who lives in the Chicago suburbs.