A good run on daily blogging
Back on April 24, I challenged myself to blog at least once per day. I kept to it for 3 weeks, but in the end the time investment got to be too much. A few of my friends and colleagues asked how it's possible to do this; they'd tried and failed (like I had in the past) to blog regularly. Some said they couldn't find the time, others said they couldn't find something to write about every day.
I personally don't find either to be the core problem. Blog posts can be short, taking less than a half hour to write, edit and post. And they don't all have to be work related, or tech related, or earth-shatteringly insightful.
There is plenty to write about.
In the end, it's a question of tradeoffs and priorities. Some days offered plenty of time, others offered a host of higher priority draws, whether it was work, family, or hobbies (gaming, exercise, practicing bagpipes, working on my never-ending Aurdiuno project, getting the summer garden going, etc).
I highly recommend trying to adopt the daily habit. It forced me over a hump. I got out "some big posts" I'd wanted to write, that took some time and editing. But I also let myself write smaller articles, and some personal ones.
Ironically, it was work travel that ended the streak for me. I managed to find the time and a topic to write about each day while at home, usually early in the morning. But this past week our distributed team had a work-week in Chicago, to give us a chance to do some face-to-face planning, get to know each other better, and to work directly together.
In the end, I decided I'd rather stay up late talking with my colleagues than retreat and write; mornings ended up being about catching up on things left undone the previous day.
Blogging regularly, like most things, is about creating habits and chosing between priorities. I could have blogged this past week (I have notes for a half dozen posts I want to make), but I conciously decided it just wasn't high enough of a priority. This week.
I'll continue blogging a lot moving forward, much more than I used to, because I've found times that I like to do it (such as the early mornings), and enjoy it. The explosive growth of the AR and VR industries will not leave me searching for things to write about, as will personal projects and ideas. But I'm not going to stress about getting something out each day.
See you online. Just not quite so often.