Top Posts of 2009, and Blog Goals for 2010–More Breaks, Direct Challenges, “How to”

This month my blog officially turns 4 years old (cue the applause!).   Yes, I will admit…this is the first year that I’ve tracked metrics.  I know, I know, experts will argue that not tracking metrics from day one is a sacrilege against all core blogging norms and values.  But for the first three years it worked for me.

Initially not tracking metrics allowed me to build my following while writing what I wanted to whether one person or 100 people read it.  It gave me the space to comfortably find my voice and groove.  But in January, 2009, after I was quoted in the Huffington Post’s Complete Guide to Blogging, I decided it was time to start keeping track, and signed up for Google Analytics.

One year later, the data offer a fascinating glimpse into what resonated with you and what my goals for 2010 will be.  First, here are the top 10 blog posts for 2009:

1. Stop Talking About Work+Life Flex Solely in the Context of Women…Really, Seriously, Once and for All (10/22)

2. I am a (blank) and sometimes I put my career before my family (10/16)

3.  Getting Started with Flexible Downsizing – Manager and Employee “How To” (3/13)

4. Jack Welch is Right, “There is No Balance,” But His Reasoning Needs Updating (7/4)

5. Tame the Tween Texting Beast with Great Parent/Child Contract (10/29)

6. Personal Branding, Today and Post-Recession—Me 2.0 by Dan Schawbel (3/19)

7. Work+Life Fit ‘Tipping” Point (10/8)

8. Sun-Times Column by BDO CEO and WLF–Work Life Flex Reduces Costs & Keeps Jobs (3/13)

9. Test Your Perceptions  vs. Work+Life Reality—NSCW Implications (5/4)

10. Where is Work+Life Flex on SHRM’s National Conference Agenda?  Essentially Missing. (12/18)

Here’s what I noticed and how those observations will inform what I write about in this blog and for Fast Company over the next 12 months:

Taking a break (voluntary or involuntary) can lead to better blogging. Three of the top five posts were written in October, 2009 right after I returned from an involuntary four-week blogging hiatus caused by a severe case of Lyme disease. Not only were the topics timely, but I’d given them a lot of thought while I was flat on my back recovering.

While I hope to remain healthy throughout 2010, I’m building periodic two week blogging breaks into my schedule every few months.  As one of my favorite authors, Maggie Jackson, points out in her book, Distracted, there are benefits to deep thought we need to build in to our wired world.  The evidence is in the stats above.

Direct challenges to conventional wisdom about work, life, and business get attention. If you follow my blogs, then you know that I very strongly believe that we have to stop buying into the old, tired models we’ve used to manage our lives, our work and our businesses for that last 50 years.  They just are not working anymore. As I pointed out when I relaunched my Fast Company blog in the fall, we are in a New Work+Life Flex Normal.

According to the list of top posts, you are looking for and responding to my most direct challenges to yesterday’s conventional wisdom. You want new ideas and “how to” strategies based on today’s reality.  I will continue to deliver new approaches as I find them.  And I will directly challenge the obsolete work+life status quo in 2010, because recent research released by Career Builder, Watson Wyatt and Harris Interactive confirms the prevailing post-recession state of work, life and business remains grim for many.

There are new flexible ways of operating businesses and managing life that lead to growth, innovation and improve work+life fit and performance.  I welcome your comments, links, research, and case studies.  This is a conversation we ALL need to be part of.

Basic “How to,” and “Get Started” information appreciated. Chip and Dan Heath point out in their bestseller “Made to Stick” that one of the pitfalls experts face is they forget what it’s like to be a novice.  I read their book early in 2009 and tried to be mindful to bring the strategies and concepts I discuss down to the applied basics as much as I could.

Ideas, concepts, and research are important, but at the end of the day “What’s in it for me” and “How do I do it” will win the race.  Again, in 2010, I will do my best to keep it real and applied.  Call me out as soon as I lose you for too long.  The fundamental changes we need to make collectively are not going to happen if you can’t take action based upon what you read here.

My three words for 2010 are “Help” “Thank You,” and “Reach.” For four years, this blog and my Fast Company blog have allowed me to do all three.  But this year the helping, the thanking and the reaching will be especially conscious.  If you haven’t already, please consider doing the following:

• Comment on my posts!  The conversation is always better when more people are involved.
• Sign up for the RSS Feed for this blog
• Sign up to receive weekly email links to the best of my Work+Life Fit and Fast Company posts in the above right hand corner of this page (we promise to never share your email with third party vendors)
• Follow me on Twitter @caliyost — I am always sharing real-time information related to all aspects of strategic work+life flexibility
• Tell me what you are doing, thinking, finding and I will share it as best I can.
• Let me know what else you want to learn and hear about in this blog that I’m not covering.

Finally, thank you for joining me here and at Fast Company each week.  I appreciate your interest, your commitment, your thoughts and insights.  Happy New Year!