Jared Dees

Author. Speaker. Teacher.

My 2025 Annual Project Report

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Here is a look back at 2025 and the lessons I learned as full-time author and creator. Read past annual project reports here: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024).

Here is the month-by-month breakdown of the time I spent as a creator:

My Top 20 Projects

  1. 116:15 – The Religion Teacher Email & Customer Service
  2. 96:33 – The Religion Teacher’s Videos (YouTube and Membership)
  3. 92:26 – Morning Preview
  4. 83:26 – The Religion Teacher Products (see all below)
  5. 76:75 – Coaching Flag Football
  6. 70:28 – ACE Teaching Religion in Catholic Schools Graduate Course
  7. 69:30 – Speaking Events
  8. 55:52 – Daily Review
  9. 53:31 – Weekly Review
  10. 33:53 – The Religion Teacher Newsletter
  11. 33:32 – Personal Finances (including purchase of a new home)
  12. 33:20 – Morning Pages
  13. 28:01 – Jared Dees Newsletter
  14. 22:47 – The Religion Teacher Membership Website Launches
  15. 20:39 – Writing & Editing Books (Theoloji 101, Catholic Did You Know?, Consulting Project)
  16. 19:30 – Volunteering (Catechist, Charity Events, Charity Support)
  17. 14:32 – Accounting and Taxes
  18. 11:57 – The Religion Teacher Member Emails
  19. 9:31 – The Religion Teacher Blog
  20. 7:22 – The Religion Teacher Social Media (general)

Total Time: 985:50 Hours

(Yes, I still track every minute of time I spend during work hours. Here’s why.)

My 2025 Vision & Goals

My 2025 theme was “A Year of Products.”

The goal was to create and launch a new product every month all year long.

I came pretty close!

Here were my new products during each month:

  1. The Religion Teacher’s Gospel of Luke Worksheets (Jan)
  2. The Religion Teacher’s Paschal Mystery Worksheets (Feb)
  3. The Religion Teacher’s AI Toolkit for Catholic Schools (Mar)
  4. AI in Catholic Education Virtual PD (Mar)
  5. The Religion Teacher’s Pope Activity Pack (Apr)
  6. The Religion Teacher’s First Communion Activity Pack (Aug)
  7. The Religion Teacher’s First Reconciliation Activity Pack (Oct)
  8. The Religion Teacher’s Advent Virtual Retreat (Nov)
  9. Theoloji 101: Catholic Theology + Emojis (Dec)
  10. The Religion Teacher’s Christmas Activity Pack (Dec)

I considered the two virtual workshop offerings as separate products. You can see the gap in the summer. Childcare was a little bit of a challenge while I tried to balance working as a professor at Notre Dame, starting a new flag football team at my daughter’s high school, and helping our son through his health challenges. More on this below.

PROFESSIONAL GOALS:

I was focused more on full products than individual progress in words or tools, but here is an update on recent numbers:

840,560/1,000,000 words for kids (A part of my #1millionwordsforkids goal) (+27,672 words)

1,229/1,500 Resources (Videos/Worksheets) for Members of The Religion Teacher (+77 resources)

1/1 Books Published—Complete

12/18 Average Hours Worked per Week—Incomplete

PERSONAL GOALS:

55/52 books read—Complete

179/150 30-minute workouts—Complete

AN ANNUAL PROJECT REVIEW

2025 By the Numbers

Subscribers

The Religion Teacher Newsletter grew from 101,747 subscribers to 106,362 (+4,615)

The JaredDees.com Newsletter grew from 9,773 to 10,928 (+1,155)

The Religion Teacher YouTube channel grew from 45,225 subscribers to 51,369 (+6,144)

The Religion Teacher membership numbers remained relatively the same again this year.

My Top-selling Books in 2025

  1. Take Up Your Cross
  2. Take and Eat
  3. Beatitatles
  4. The Angelus & Regina Caeli
  5. The Gospel According to Video Games

My Most Viewed Videos from The Religion Teacher in 2025

  1. INRI? (Short) (New)
  2. The Meaning of Yahweh (YHWH) in the Bible
  3. The Hail Mary Prayer (Short) (New)
  4. List the Names of the Eucharist (Short) (New)
  5. The Meaning of Pentecost

(This list combines YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook views.)

Most Viewed Pages at TheReligionTeacher.com in 2025

  1. The Nativity Story (Birth of Jesus) Skit Script
  2. Lent Activities
  3. Jubilee Year Lesson Plan, Activities, and Worksheet (New)
  4. Catholic Worksheets
  5. Ash Wednesday Lesson Plan
  6. A Passion Play Skit Script
  7. Catholic Lesson Plans
  8. Carlo Acutis Worksheet and Activities (New)
  9. Papal Conclave Lesson Plan (Updated)
  10. How to Create Blank Venn Diagrams

Most Popular Stories at JaredDees.com in 2025

  1. The Fish Story in the Move Soul 
  2. The Tortoise and the Hare Fable
  3. Joseph the Dreamer Bible Story for Kids
  4. “The Selfish Giant” by Oscar Wilde
  5. Two Boats and a Helicopter Story
  6. Footprints in the Sand Story
  7. The Legend of Saint Patrick and the Snakes (New)
  8. Crossing the Red Sea Bible Story for Kids
  9. The Farmer and His Horse Parable (New)
  10. St. Francis and the Sheep Story

WHAT WENT WELL?

📹 Shortform Videos — I went all-in on shortform videos in late November and December. I created an Instagram account for The Religion Teacher in July with plans of making vertical whiteboard videos. They did okay. I shifted to prayers and they did better. But on a whim, I created a quick video about the INRI inscription above Jesus’s head on the cross. Wow, I wasn’t expecting that kind of reach. It went on to become my first 1M view video. I followed up with a consistent flow of videos that did very well on Instagram and Facebook as well as YouTube. The Religion Teacher’s website traffic from Google has been steadily decreasing so I’m grateful to God for the inspiration to start making these videos. I’m finally able to reach a broader audience with some of my favorite topics to teach. This will continue to be my top priority as we head into 2026.

🏗️ New Products — The “Year of Products” became a really effective theme. I longed for the simplicity of 2022’s theme, the “Year of the Worksheet,” when I would sit down to work and know exactly what I needed to accomplish each day. If I made a worksheet in a day, I was a success. This year I woke up each day focused on one project until completion. I added a new principle to my list: Product > Productivity. The tendency is to do work for work’s sake. Instead, all productivity was directed towards a product. Again, though, God was at work. Where else would these ideas come from? I started working on a product dedicated to the Pope in February. I created and scheduled a video about the Papal Conclave that (no joke) released on the day that Pope Francis died. I quickly completed and published The Religion Teacher’s Papal Activity Pack that same week. Next I created resources for First Communion and First Reconciliation, which I can’t believe I had not made before. These along with the AI Toolkit made a big impact for my audience this year.

2025 Products

  1. The Religion Teacher’s Gospel of Luke Worksheets (Jan)
  2. The Religion Teacher’s Paschal Mystery Worksheets (Feb)
  3. The Religion Teacher’s AI Toolkit for Catholic Schools (Mar)
  4. AI in Catholic Education Virtual PD (Mar)
  5. The Religion Teacher’s Pope Activity Pack (Apr)
  6. The Religion Teacher’s First Communion Activity Pack (Aug)
  7. The Religion Teacher’s First Reconciliation Activity Pack (Oct)
  8. The Religion Teacher’s Advent Virtual Retreat (Nov)
  9. Theoloji 101: Catholic Theology + Emojis (Dec)
  10. The Religion Teacher’s Christmas Activity Pack (Dec)

🏈 Flag Football Coach — This was my most unexpected role this year. My daughters’ high school started their first girls flag football team and I became the head coach. The experience was incredible. It was a special group of girls with the most positive and supportive team culture I’ve ever been a part of. We finished in the top five in Indiana according to MaxPreps.com. I am so grateful for the experience and for the opportunity to share those memories with my oldest daughter during her junior year.

🧠 Bennett’s Strokes and Surgery — After some thought, I’m putting this in the “What Went Well” category. Long story short, our four-year-old son had a stroke. He has Moyamoya syndrome. He had brain surgery to cultivate new blood pathways to his brain. He lost the use of most of the right side of his body, but neuroplasticity in kids is amazing! After almost daily therapies, he was back and better than ever by the end of the year. I’m putting this in “What Went Well” because we were surrounded by so, so many prayers. I received more than 700 emails from subscribers to The Religion Teacher. Friends and family were putting him on prayer lists all over the world. We were just floored by the amount of support. As of January 2026 a large number of new blood vessels have formed throughout his brain because of the surgery and he is doing better than ever! This kid is going to thrive!

Other successes in 2025:

  • The Gospel According to Video Games rose to a surprising top five in backlist book sales without very much promotion.
  • My second summer as a professor at Notre Dame went well, and I’m so grateful for their support during Bennett’s surgery.
  • I did more speaking this year by offering and accepting invitations to give virtual presentations to schools and parishes.

WHAT DIDN’T GO WELL?

📉 SEO Traffic & Newsletter Growth — There are so many business books out there about change. I still consider myself young. I guess I never expected those lessons about change would apply to me. That’s for older businesses, right? Well, AI changed everything. I am getting about half the amount of traffic from Google that I used to get to my websites. My newsletter list is growing at a slower rate and revenue was down. Bottom line: I’m reaching less teachers and catechists than I did before. (This is why I was so pleased by the potential of the Reels and Shorts. I wonder what would have happened if I kept making TikTok videos in 2019 . . .)

🕰️ Hours Worked Per Week — I hoped to increase my average number of hours worked per week, but numerous challenges continue to make this difficult. Bennett stopped napping in the afternoon at the start of the year, so I lost that work time. Summer childcare was a much bigger challenge and even greater after Bennett’s stroke and surgery. The Fall semester was better, but snow days, sicknesses, and schedule changes still make consistent work schedule a difficulty.

🏚️ New Home Renovations — We moved into a new home at the beginning of the year and immediately worked on numerous repairs on the house. We never made it to the fun renovation projects, though, so we have a lot of work ahead of us. We are looking forward to turning our home in a place for hosting and fellowship.

😀 Theoloji 101 — Normally, I would wait until the spring to launch a new book, but I didn’t want to finish 2025 without publishing at least one book. Plus, it was the Year of the Product! I was really glad to be able to get this book out into the world. I wrote it in 2021! Despite the fact that I worked in book marketing for years, I have not dedicated the time necessary to see these books succeed at launch. I’m much better at backlist systems than big attention-grabbing splashes. This is something I need to work on in the future.

WHAT DID I LEARN?

I end each day reviewing a list of Writing Rules and Principles. “Principles” was my theme in 2023. It was inspired by a process inspired by Ray Dalio’s book. I ended that year with 31 principles, but this year I continued to add to the list to make it up to 51. I’ll post the list below and then share the principles that really stood out to me this year as lessons to be continually learned.

That’s the thing about these principles. I have to continue to revisit them and remind myself of the wisdom within them. In fact, I end each day picking one principle that best described my day so I constantly reflect on this list.

Writing Rules: Work & Creativity 

  1. One page a day 
  2. Write what you know. 
  3. Write what you want to read.
  4. Heck yes, or no. 
  5. Fast first drafts. 
  6. “And the bad version is…”
  7. Plan tomorrow, today. 
  8. Steal structure. 
  9. The Milestone Method 
  10. The Person Principle / The Only Rule
  11. The Dickens Formula 
  12. Be Narrowly Prolific
  13. One Project, One Person, One Page 
  14. Stuck? Walk away. 
  15. Template. Set. Go. 
  16. Stories: “But therefore” not “And then”
  17. Tiny habits even tinier. 
  18. No worries. What’s next?
  19. The Pareto Principle (The 80/20 Rule) 
  20. Stories: First, Last, Worst, Best 
  21. Be uncommon among the uncommon.
  22. The 90% Perfect Rule 
  23. Medium Rare Stakes 
  24. Remember: Jobs to Be Done 
  25. Context is the Key 
  26. If it isn’t practical, pitch it. 
  27. Create assets, not ideas. 
  28. Do One Better
  29. 1% Better Every Day
  30. Outwork everyone.
  31. Be the bear riding a unicycle. / Purple Cow
  32. Turn failure into feedback.
  33. Answer Asked Questions
  34. On opportunities: Say yes now, learn later.
  35. No Zero Days
  36. Figure out what works and do it.
  37. Immediate Outreach (vs. Should Send Someday)
  38. Invert, always invert.
  39. You can’t top a pig with a pig.
  40. Happiness = Progress
  41. Ride your own railroad.
  42. Product > Productivity
  43. PAS: Problem, Agitate, Solution
  44. Clear not clever (titles, headlines, teaching, writing, etc.)
  45. Let them.
  46. Apply your Rally Cry
  47. Blueprints vs. Idols
  48. Daily Sprint, Monthly Marathon
  49. Speed of Light Standard
  50. Stories beat Statistics
  51. Serve the song.

Looking at these principles, here were my biggest lessons learned in 2025:

Product > Productivity — Creating a lot of random things can feel productive, but narrowly focusing on a product every day channels that productivity into something meaningful. This is similar to Principle #11: The Dickens Formula, which is 1 + 1 = 2. Dickens serialized his novels, so he sold them twice: once in a magazine and then again as a book. (You better believe that the shortform videos I’m posting every day will also be available as a book in the future!)

Daily Sprint, Monthly Marathon — With the emphasis on products, I had to narrowly focus on finishing just one project at a time. Instead of a little bit every day, I spent hours on only one thing. I started keeping a post-it note on my desk to remind myself of the one product that I was sprinting on that day. It is similar to Principle #13: “One Project, One Person, One Page.”

Figure out what works and do it. — This is from Charlie Munger (may he rest in peace), who learned it from Lee Kuan Yew. (I heard it on David Senra’s Founders Podcast. In fact, many of my new principles come from the lessons learning in Founders.) Right now, shortform video is working. Fifteen years ago Google SEO was working. It isn’t working anymore. It has taken me awhile to adapt. This principle is similar to Principle #15: Template. Set. Go. I don’t come up with new ideas every day. I find or create my own template like a starting block in track so I know exactly what I will make and how I will make it.

About Jared Dees

Jared Dees is passionate about sharing practical resources to teach faith. He is best known for his website The Religion Teacher and is the author of many books including 31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator, Christ in the Classroom, and Beatitales: 80 Fables about the Beatitudes for Children.