Write Down What Didn't Work

Most people keep a list of things to try.

Very few keep a list of things they've already tried that failed.

That second list is the more useful one.

A certain kind of headline gets ignored three times.

Without a record, the fourth attempt happens anyway, six weeks later, because the earlier ones have blurred together.

Or a traffic source that produced nothing gets revisited because it looked promising the first time and the memory of it not working has faded.

Before you know it, you're trying the same thing again even though you already know it didn't work.

The list doesn't have to be elaborate.

A plain document.

Date, what was tried, what happened, what was concluded.

Two lines each.

The point isn't the writing, it's being able to look back and say: done that, know how it ends.

After a while, you start seeing patterns.

The same problem might keep showing up in everything you've tried.

Something that “never works” might have only been tried once, badly, and deserves a proper go.

Either way, there's evidence to work from instead of a vague sense of what's been done.

And there's a side effect.

Mistakes that have been written down stop feeling like personal failings and start looking like data.

That's the right way to see them.

Nobody gets through this without a long list of things that didn't work.

The only difference is whether the list is on paper or just a weight being carried around.

Start it today.

Write down what you can remember.

Keep it going.