Project L has been, for me, fascinating from many different aspects. More so than when it began. This idea was born at the beginning of 2018 as an evolution of my thinking that it is sad that so much is lost when a person dies. On the flip side, I wouldn’t ever consider anything as grand as an autobiography.
I sit here being 50 and nothing has changed since yesterday. We have new scales at home which are Bluetooth controlled from our phones. Before stepping on you need to start the app and pair the devices. The little screen says your name and age. This morning they said Craig 50. And I wondered why the fuck would they tell me my age? Kilos, fat percentage, muscle mass and body water are things I need to know and change daily (down 45kgs since March 2017). But age, I’m pretty aware of that one.
I’ve enjoyed this process. I haven’t done anything ever for 50 days in a row with the exception of bodily functions. Never been to the gym 50 days in a row. Never ate right 50 days in a row. Never ever done anything this long or consistently. It was fun and
Those who know me too well know of my penchant for a nice chart. Everything in life can be graphed. I intended to collate the data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and the blog then cross-reference to each post to determine which was the most engaged and analyse the data to determine which themes trended or were most responsive. Then Vanessa said, “Let’s go to the beach”, and all that shit went out the window. I’ll do the chart stuff later.
Likes, comments, shares and retweets only tell a fraction of the story. I heard from a ton of people (not that many but more than I thought) that other people had been reading my stuff but not engaging. Perhaps not liking my stuff. Perhaps not wanting to publicly like my stuff. Perhaps fuck them and I don’t care, this project wasn’t about them. It was about me putting something in the public domain (ie I will post every day for 50 days) and then doing it. At the beginning of Project L, I was reminded of a guy who Facebooked that he was going to daily document his new and improved health regime. He spent hours putting together a fuck-off website. Lasted 2 days. That spoke volumes about him.
Years ago one of my first advertising mentors, George Betis (ad legend, creator of The Swashbuckler’s Code and all-around nice guy) recounted a story about goal setting. If you want to compete in triathlons you need a specific kind of watch. But if you get one of those watches then don’t do triathlons, you’re a dick. Short version; do what you say you’re going to do. By making it public, you create accountability. I really should have rung that guy and asked, “Dude, what happened to your site? And your health goals?”
Accountability is hard to do yourself and I really mean ‘myself’. Perhaps I’m getting better at it. There was no impotence for me to complete Project L. There aren’t any dollars in it or fame or leverage from a business POV.
This project is over. But I’m going to continue (oh fuck) writing every weekday (
Thanks for following along and joining in.