In short: Medium and YouTube. Those two, I will focus on in 2022.
As this second pandemic-riddled year comes to an end, I have been busy with my usual reevaluation process of 2021 and all the things I’ve achieved and failed to achieve.
Furthermore, my to-do list for 2022 is complete.
Recapping 2021
Over the past 2 months, I have been consequently downsizing my digital life. Gone are Substack and Quora, I retired my WordPress blog after 13+ years of WordPress blogging and I stopped using other writing platforms like Hashnode.
Most recently, I’ve decided to quit 2 of the remaining 3 writing platforms I was still using to this point: Vocal Media, NewsBreak, and Medium.
Vocal Media is already gone. I have given NewsBreak another shot but I will let it go in early 2022 as well, I’m pretty sure. My sole focus in terms of writing will be Medium.
Medium
In more than 10 months on this platform, I’ve achieved a lot. A little comparison round: In 6 months on Vocal, I earned around $80. In 6 months on Medium, I made more than $3000.
I want to focus on Medium as my only writing platform for 2022 to see how far I can take this gig. So, that’s what I’ll do.
YouTube
The other side-hustle, I really want to advance in 2022 is YouTube. I have two main channels.
The first channel is already monetized and has been for around 2 years. In this time, I made close to $4000. With a little more time, I can bump this number up to 5 figures. That’s my goal.
My second goal is getting my second channel monetized. It currently sits at over 1000 subscribers which is one of the requirements for monetization. The other requirement is 4000 hours of watch time. I’m not close to that yet. But again, with a little more time and focus, I’ll get this done in 2022.
With those two goals, I’ll be setting myself up for a nice side income from YouTube in 2022 and beyond. Combined with my Medium income which is already higher than that from YouTube, I’ll be a happy camper in 2022.
The bottom line
What it takes is to focus on the important things and not try to do a million things simultaneously.
It’s better to excel in a couple of things than to be mediocre in a dozen. For this reason, I’ve gotten rid of many platforms, services, and accounts that were more distracting than rewarding. And I’ll focus on the ones that ARE rewarding and worthy of my little spare time.
I’m up for the challenge that is 2022. How about you?