Reflecting on 2025: Progress, Lessons Learned, and Next Steps
In the cycle of growth — Plan, Act, Reflect, Improve — the end of the year is the natural moment to pause and look back. This post is dedicated to the Reflect phase for the development of this platform in 2025.
The original plan was simple: create a space to write down and share practical ideas, real-life examples, and actionable tips that help improve our lives by just 1% every day. We wanted a place where readers (and the writer) could find straightforward guidance on becoming a slightly better version of ourselves — and of course, better for the people around us — one small step at a time.
What actually happened in 2025
We stayed focused on three main themes:
- Finance
- House updating / home improvements
- Personal development (habits, health, skills, mindset)
Over the course of the year we published a steady stream of articles covering topics such as:
- Building an emergency fund and starting to invest
- ETFs and index funds explained
- Investing in yourself (skills, health, knowledge)
- Practical house upgrades (solar panels, floor heating, insulation, windows, battery storage)
- Habit formation and how to make good routines stick
- Nutrition and eating habits that are sustainable long-term
The writing remained consistent, the articles kept appearing roughly on schedule, and the content stayed close to the original intention: practical, honest, and immediately usable.
Lessons learned in 2025
Writing style needs to be aligned across all articles
When the tone, sentence length, level of detail and phrasing drift too much between posts, the overall reading experience feels less cohesive. Readers notice (even subconsciously) when the voice changes.
→ Going forward: define a clear style guide (short paragraphs, active voice where possible, consistent use of checklists/tables, same level of personal disclosure) and apply it to every draft.Articles should stay tightly aligned with the core philosophy
The 1% daily improvement idea is the red thread. When a post drifts too far into theory, lists of features, or unrelated side topics, it loses connection to that promise.
→ Every article should answer (explicitly or implicitly): “How does this help someone improve by 1% today or this week?”Measurement was underused
We tracked very little beyond “did the post get published?”. No structured look at which topics readers spent most time on, which formats created most comments, or where people dropped off.
→ This becomes a 2026 priority: simple tracking (page views per section, time on page, comment count) to make better decisions about what to write next.
What we will implement in 2026
- Finalize and apply a one-page style & tone guide before the next article is published.
- Add a short “1% takeaway” box at the end of every post so readers immediately see the small, doable action.
- Start basic analytics and do a quick quarterly review: which topics / formats perform best?
- Distribute articles more actively: share every new post on X, Medium, and LinkedIn to reach people who don’t yet visit the site directly.
- Keep the three core themes, but experiment with tighter series (e.g., 4–6 consecutive posts on one subject) instead of jumping between topics every week.
2025 was the year we built the habit of publishing regularly and proved the concept works. 2026 will be about making the platform more consistent in voice, more tightly connected to the 1% philosophy, and more visible to the people who would benefit from it.
What about you?
Looking back at 2025: what small habit or routine did you actually stick with? And what one change are you planning to make in 2026 to keep that 1% momentum going?
Thank you for reading. See you next week with the next practical step forward.
