Best of 2014: The Most Popular Articles at Impossible This Year

2014 has been an interesting year.

I had a lot of personal changes happen both in my now life and in my business. I don’t talk about my personal stuff as much I used to, but I’m going to be changing that with a few changes here. Here’s a snapshot of what happened in 2014.

I moved across the country. I got rid of a ton of stuff. I moved across the country with 97 things. I got a bunch of new stuff, I got rid of more stuff. I scaled one new business, stated an entirely new one, and shut down a revenue stream of $100,000+ for an older business and launched a new app. I’ve been to multiple continents and a few races in a bunch of countries. I started a life changing project philanthropy project (exciting) and jacked up my foot pretty badly after the first race (depressing) and I’ve been sued. So I’ve got a lot of ups and downs over the last 12 months.

Still, during the year, the site has seen a lot of growth – reaching almost 2,000,000 eyeballs this year and 23,000 subscribers.

Woah.

It blows my mind to think that something I’ve written or spoken has reached that many people. Sometimes if you sit behind a computer enough they just turn into numbers, but when you break it down and realize that that many people have read what I’ve published, it sort of changes how you approach writing and publishing.

Anyways, without being too introspective, here are the top 5 articles of this last year, all of which reached at least 20,000 people.

The Top 5

Workstation Popcorn

This thing blew up. We got mentions on Buffer, Lifehacker, TIME, Fast Company and a few more. People seem to quite like this and I’ll see what I can do about more hand drawing illustrations. I can promise you that they will be laughably bad.

Read Workstation Popcorn

The Impossible Guide to Parkinson’s Law

Another productivity article. I think we did a great job of breaking down Parkinson’s law to understandable terms and people seem to agree.

Read Parkinson’s Law

You Only Have To Beat An Excuse Once

I wrote this the 1st of last year and I think it stands. It’s a good no-bs approach to tackling goals. I’m going to have more practical strategies for things like this in 2014.

Read You Only Have To Beat An Excuse Once

My 97 Things

Before moving to San Diego, I decided to make the move a lot easier by getting rid of close to everything I owned. I ended up moving across the country with 97 things in 3 bags -a number I was still upset about because it meant for the first time in 5 years, I had to check a bag. Ugh. This was a great personal experiment and while I don’t still have 97 things, I’m on a warpath as of late to eliminate excessive items from my life as they’re simply distractions.

Read My 97 Things

The Complete Guide To Leaving Google

I wrote this as I was moving much of my business off of Google’s properties. I still use them and haven’t moved everything completely off of Google, but have done a lot to make sure that they’re not the only service provider I use for all aspects of my business.

Read The Complete Guide To Leaving Google

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These Posts Have Longevity

In addition to the top 5 articles I wrote this year, we have quite a few articles that weren’t written this year that seem to stay popular no matter what – reaching 50,000+ people at least.

Impossible List

The list that started it all. Despite not being a google-friendly topic or anything, this continually seems to take off on Facebook, Stumble Upon and Pinterest.

Cold Shower Guide

This along. I’ve got a few more things i’ll be trying out in 2015 talking a bit more about the scientific facts behind

Six Pack A Myths

Start A Blog

I wrote this guide after creating a standard operating procedure for blog setups for my marketing agency. I decided to share it with the Impossible community for people looking to start their own blogs or build their own impossible lists & it’s been quite popular.

Launch A T-Shirt Line

This post came a few years back from my struggles trying to setup a shirt line for my brand. It’s helped a lot of people start their own branded apparel lines and has also come with a few unforeseen benefits. Launching a new apparel line is STILL sort of annoying and I’ve switched our brand to a new service that we’ll be launching in 2015.

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In general, I think this year has been a bit difficult. There’s been some growing pains both with the blog and the business as I’ve tried to transition from a team of just “Joel and VAs” to a more of a team structure. It’s been a bit of a messy process as I’ve had to fire a couple people and have had a few people leave which has made for some hiccups in several projects that have been in the works.

I’ve struggled with consistency & planning as well as getting stuck in the details of running several businesses, but that’s something I’m going to talk about tomorrow in my annual review.

How did 2014 go for you? What was the best part of it?