Working Notes: The Soggy Test
A short and useful newsletter for people who look after websites.
Working Notes: #2
Marc Jenkins · 9th January, 2026
I like January. It's a fresh start and spring (my favourite season) is within sight.
It's also a great time to take stock and plan for the coming year. It's the perfect time to review your digital strategy – or create one if you don't have one already.
Someone asked me recently what makes a good strategy.
One of my favourite litmus tests is called 'The Soggy Test': if you reverse your strategy, does it sound ridiculous? If yes, you don't have a strategy.
Take "we'll achieve our goals through world-class customer service". The reverse, delivering terrible customer service, would be absurd. No one would say that, so it's not really a strategy.
Or another example: "we'll improve our website to better serve our users." Again, the reverse (making your website worse for users) is obviously ridiculous. This is a goal, not a strategy.
A proper strategy involves risk. It could fail. It draws clear boundaries that rule out most tactics and behaviours. It requires you to think broadly but act precisely.
I've got some availability over the coming weeks if you'd like to chat about your plans for the year. Book a call here.
What I've been reading
I've added a /now page to 16by9. The idea comes from Derek Sivers. If you don't have a /now page, consider creating one.
What a good Discovery feels like
My head was nodding throughout: "Discovery is often misunderstood. People may want to treat it like a checklist to get through before the real work starts, something to tick off so you can get to delivery."
The Performance Inequality Gap, 2026
Hard reading for those of us who really care about website performance: "The median mobile page is now 70 times larger than the total storage of the computer that landed men on the moon."
In a Zero-Click World, Traffic is a Terrible Goal
Rand Fishkin on the fact that growing website traffic is getting harder and harder: "Traffic is a vanity metric. Growing it is unlikely to help your business compared to many other marketing things you could do."
Love this quote from Shane Parrish: "Short-term results come from intensity. Long-term results come from consistency."