It’s that time again where the agenda is set for the year
Sunday weblog notes from January 11, 2026 that were compiled and shared.
We build strategy and set up a framework for handling the incoming year. That seems to be the way of things as we strive forward. It’s all about striving forward toward that perfect possible future. For me it is that time again where the agenda is set for the year and I spend a bit of time reflecting on what exactly I’m going to spend my time on throughout the year. Zooming out it’s easy to just look at my backlog and prioritize specific efforts. This last year, all of my backlog items moved from Google Keep to Google Tasks in 2025 and it is all ready to rack and stack. Strategy however should be considered beyond just the flow of a backlog. Racking and stacking for velocity is not a strategy, it’s the application of a methodology. With that being considered I’m thinking about where my writing efforts are going to end up being focused and what strategy should be deployed to get the very best out of my 2026 writing season. To be fair, I acknowledge that I really should only spend my time writing articles and in the pursuit of publishing academic papers. However that true north start always gives way to the value I put on research notes and shorter form writing efforts. To that end, I have stood up 4 different and distinct Substack platform based writing projects.
Originally it was just a weekly note published on Friday called the Lindahl Letter and it just brought forward things that caught my interest. That writing effort has yielded 220 weekly research notes on a variety of topics over the last 5 years. Almost exclusively the topics fall within the considerations of modernity’s shadow and the intersection of technology and modernity. Last year, I moved over my longtime weblog the Functional Journal to Substack and dropped all my previous writings within that effort offline. Some of that content can still be found on the Wayback Machine or other internet archives. To me, it was a fresh start and it meant that I had a forum for my technology based interests and a more reflective place to store these types of thoughts. Outside of those two main pillars of my ongoing writing efforts I did indeed stand up two additional writing efforts. One for Civic Honors and the other for nels.ai that are probably easily considered secondary writing efforts. At one point, I had thought maybe the nels.ai writing project would become my primary effort last year. I certainly focused in that direction and started producing daily content on November 3, 2025. Ultimately, that involved making some audio and eventually video content to further the endeavor. The Civic Honors effort really did remain secondary and it will probably only pick up occasional think pieces or maybe some future interview style posts.
Right now during this time of considering and ultimately choosing it is probably best to just focus on my two main writing pillars. That would involve producing a weekly weblog post for the Functional Journal that would be targeted for a Sunday release, but would be written throughout the week as either a series of thoughts or a larger essay. I’m comfortable being committed to ongoing weblog based writing and it as an effort should not distract from producing academic articles or research notes given that being a good reflective practitioner of the habit of writing requires that type of dedication. Beyond that weekly weblog post I have to figure out a way to transition my weekly Lindahl Letter publication into something more than just a couple of paragraphs and truly into a framework where research notes are developed that could become the basis for academic articles. At some level, I know intellectually that the entire academic article system is fundamentally broken. My hope is that at some point we will enter a new academic framework where the academy is renewed and making contributions to the greater academic good becomes easier and more streamlined.
At this point in my academic journey, it is distinctly possible that I can focus my research efforts and make my Lindahl Letter posts conform to my goal of producing academic articles in 2026. That is probably the best path forward at this point in time and something that I should commit to making a reality. Every year since finishing my dissertation it is something that I should have probably made a priority. We have the opportunity to strive forward and now is the time to make that a reality. Taking the first step to making this a reality will involve being committed to research and writing efforts in Overleaf using LaTeX to format papers for broader consideration and ultimately submission to journals. It really is just about making the decision to be committed to an ongoing academic process that yields papers.