Dear friends,
Happy 2025. Sure, it’s a half way of-January, but we haven’t had a moment to wish you a productive new year. And if you’re anything like us, your new year goals tend to have something to do with writing more. What’s one way you can accomplish your writing goals? Orient for impact. It’s one of our operating principles here at Medium, and it’s a good pillar to live and write by, too.
But it’s also two buzzwords strung together with a preposition. What does it mean? How can you apply it to your life and (for the purposes of this newsletter) writing on Medium?
The basic idea is that we have limited time and energy to accomplish our goals, so we focus on what is going to have the greatest effect on getting the most important thing done.
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First, pick what impact means to you. Maybe you are trying to use Medium as a portfolio to land a job; maybe you’re developing a book idea. Maybe you’re here to build an audience or build a writing habit. Whatever that goal is, think about concrete, specific actions you can take to achieve it. Every time you sit down to write, revisit that goal. Is your current work in progress contributing towards it?
For example, if you’re working on building a portfolio to show off your UX skills, you might decide to spend your limited writing time on a case study rather than publishing a story about your cats. Conversely, if you are writing to develop a writing habit, it makes more sense to prioritize fun, enjoyable writing—ignore the case studies and focus on what you love writing about!
In short, if you’re not sure what to focus on for writing in 2025, this could be a good moment to take a beat, reset, and orient for impact.
Let this year be a year of victory in everything we do in the life of medium writers .
