Here’s my 3 step process to finding loads of great articles.
1. Add bunches of subscriptions to Google Reader.
a) Create folders on various topics of interest to you
b) Spend time finding the 10 best blogs you can find on each topic.
c) subscribe those blogs’ RSS feeds and categorize them by folder.
d) Sort each subscription “by magic” – Reader will learn and bring you headlines it thinks you want.
2. Skim lots of headlines in Google Reader.
a) Spend time getting good at spotting potentially good headlines.
b) Skim fast, starring headlines that are potentially good.
c) Go back and spend time on the starred items.
d) “Like” the items that are indeed good, “Share” those “really really” good.
3. Watch as Google Reader learns from your Likes/Shares.
a) Start reading in the “All Items” folder – and notice the vast majority of good headlines will, over time, bubble to the first few pages.
Once you’ve got this system going, you can add loads of subscriptions to Reader – I presently have over 300 or 400 – because “sort by magic” will tend to bring you good articles. I never worry about the unread count. Every so often I mark “as read” everything more than 2 weeks old. The more subscriptions you have, the more likely it is that a really important article will get picked up and reblogged, so you’ll catch it.
As a case study for assessing your work, let’s look at how I decide on what I’m going to write about on this blog.
My ultimate goal is to see 50,000 pioneer teams deployed long-term into cross-cultural situations among unreached people groups, each of which develop healthy, sufficient, sustainable ministries that can and do impact 100,000 people over 10 years.
My writing helps this ultimate goal by providing a repository of knowledge and ideas that people can use to build their teams. (I also do other things, but the great thing about a blog is that it’s content is available 24×7x365, often to people who have Internet access whom I will never meet.)
My goal with the writing, then, is to create a practical collection of knowledge that, if applied, will help my readers build their momentum to reach the unreached. I try to write or collect material that contributes to someone’s momentum in six specific ways, using the key words drive, energy, effort, inspiration, power, strength (see “6 ways to build momentum,” Sep. 1, 2005):
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Drive: A picture of the world or some segment of it that drives us to have a bigger or more accurate or clearer vision of the world and particularly the unreached.
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Energy: Something that builds up the capacity of someone to act. Generally hear I look for articles about new skills, new competencies, new abilities to act.
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Effort: Energy used. I want to provide a prophetic challenge to people not just to build skills, but to use those skills practically—to get up and do something about the vision that drives them.
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Inspiration: infusing energy to bring about sudden change. I want to write articles which motivate people who have “low momentum” to act.
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Power: control and discipline, focused power. I want to write “how-to” articles which give people the skills to control and focus their energy on their vision.
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Strength: resistance to force or attack. I want to write articles which help people resist distraction and apathy and stay true to their goals.
In addition, I generally divide articles into two kinds: those that have to do with the intersection between swarms and the unreached, and those that are about the unreached in general. If it’s about swarming, then I’ll often devote a longish article to it and post it on the left. If it’s a link to someone else’s article relating in some way to the unreached, I’ll usually put an annotated link to the right. In this way, I’m assessing how much time I should devote to a particular subject.
In addition, I use article categories to help classify what “kind” of article I’m writing: a Reality Check, an Analysis piece, a Trends piece, a collection of Statistics, etc. I don’t use the 6 categories above (these are more “impact categories”) as the blog categories (where I use such things as Analysis, Trends, Statistics, etc.), although perhaps I should. What do you think? Write a comment below!
As you can see, these are still fairly “small steps” toward measurement. None of these have numeric goals attached. Like you, I am struggling with how to assess the success of my own writing. The important thing is to keep the struggle moving forward, further refining these goals and ideas as we go along.
How do you assess your progress on your own vision?
