I read 19 books in 2025. That’s awesome! Way more than I expected. But at the end of the year, I had only written reviews for three of them so far. Yowza! If I’m trying to keep my reading public, somewhat accountable, and have at least a handful of thoughts to refer back to for each book, that cadence won’t work.
The three reviews I had written were thorough. Almost like mini op-eds. “How am I supposed to write 16 more of them?” I wondered. “Let alone maintain that habit for a dozen or so books each year?” Unless I wanted to throw most of my own book writing time at this venture, I couldn’t. I needed a less time-consuming system.
Earlier today, I set a timer. One hour. Hit play. My goal was to see how many off-the-cuff book reviews I could complete in that time. Answer? Six. I pasted in existing thoughts I had shared on my daily blog, linked to some posts in the reviews to keep them from getting too long, and just typed whatever words came to my mind. None of these reviews were perfect—but I was all out of perfect, and these turned out to be more than good enough for the moment.
When will I digitize all my highlights from these books? Import the reviews from Goodreads to the blog? And perhaps flesh them out a little more, at least for the books I liked and care about the most? I don’t know. But I can always improve it later. And so can you.
It’s hard to work with something that doesn’t exist. But as soon as you have a crappy version one, you can start thinking about version two. For a while, it’ll even let you sleep comfortably, knowing the information, the tool, the service is at least out there.
Shipping early doesn’t mean you’ll stop aspiring to be better tomorrow. It just means you’re shipping. Doing. Making. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Today, you hit publish. And you can always improve it later.
