Post: To Blog or Not To Blog

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+---
+title: "To Blog or Not To Blog"
+kind: article
+created_at: 2014-04-03
+tags:
+  - writing
+summary: |
+  My last post was 154 days ago. That's about five months and no posts in 
+  the year 2014. I have been wondering why I haven't written any posts
+  lately and this is what I discovered.
+---
+<img src="/img/20140403-01.jpg" class="center bordered" />
+
+My last post was 154 days ago. That's about five months without writing a 
+single post on this blog. I've been thinking about what this means and 
+what happened, and here is what I discovered.
+
+First of all I love writing. It has something peaceful to write down your
+experiences and thoughts. I also love that I can share these experiences
+with you, like 90.000 times each month, if I'm to believe analytics.
+
+But I didn't write. I barely looked at my site and only once a month
+got reminded about it when the ad revenue email came in. 
+
+Finding _where it had gone wrong_ has not been a high priority for me either. 
+I'm not sure why or how. Recently I came across the
+[A No-Excuses Guide to Blogging][1] summary, which neatly lists all kinds of
+excuses to _not blog_ and what to do about them.
+
+This got me thinking about why I hadn't posted a blog in such a long time.
+
+<img src="/img/20140403-02.png" class="center bordered" />
+
+I have been up to quite a lot lately, but still I struggled to write blog
+posts. From the _A No-Excuses Guide to Blogging_ I picked up several tips
+that got me going again.
+
+The three most important tips I got from _A No-Excuses Guide to Bloggin_ were
+these:
+
+## 1. Write about what you're learning, while you learn.
+
+I'm learning constantly. If it's not using Vim more proficiently, then it's
+about setting up servers with some shell script magic. Finding new tools
+to pair program, or write better tests.
+
+Often I found myself not worthy of writing a post about a topic, like Bitcoin,
+GPG or Vagrant and chef because I don't feel at the top of my game on these
+subjects. I'm no expert. I don't want to look like a fool writing non-sense
+about these topics.
+
+But I'm learning. I don't have to be an expert to talk about what I 
+_discovered_ or _learned_. I can even ask questions and leave them 
+unanswered in my posts, and who knows someone might find an answer. 
+
+## 2. Keep a list of topics and create focus
+
+The seconds problem I had was the volatility of my ideas. I often had a 
+great idea at night when learning or programming. The next day those ideas 
+were mostly gone and forgotten.
+
+Now, I'm keeping track of what I'm doing more actively using Evernote. This
+way I can later recall what I did and what that great idea for a blog post
+was all about. 
+
+When I started doing this, the list with ideas grew quickly. Too quickly.
+The list became quite long and I had no idea where to start or how to get
+any writing done.
+
+Focussing on what's most important sounds easy. But what is most important?
+What is most important _to me_? It turns out that there are subjects that
+get me excited and happy. There is no clear box to put these ideas. Some
+ideas are very techincal, others are more security or privacy oriented 
+while other are not technical at all (like this post).
+
+Optimizing for my own happiness was big factor in getting back to writing
+for this blog again. 
+
+## 3. Make sharing part of the way you work
+
+It may be hard to believe but sharing was never a part of my daily
+workflow. And I honestly don't know why it wasn't.
+
+Sharing comes naturally to me. When I've figured something out I want to
+talk to people about it. And more often than not they get excited as well. 
+
+Wouldn't it be great if I could make this sharing a part of my daily 
+workflow? I'm still experimenting with this (as I have to write a few new
+posts) but I think this will be a great motivator to keep writing.
+
+## To Blog or Not To Blog
+
+After reading [A No-Excuses Guide to Blogging][1] I got excited again about
+my blog and writing. I've taken away a few tips from this guide that, 
+hopefully, will keep me interested and focus on writing what I care about.
+
+ * Keep a list of ideas
+ * Keep notes when learning or trying new things
+ * Technology doesn't matter
+ * Focus on what makes you happy and excited
+ * Make sharing part of your workflow
+
+With a fresh list of ideas for my blog I'm ready to start writing some blog 
+posts again!
+
+_If you are a blogger and having some _"issues"_, make sure to read
+[A No-Excuses Guide to Blogging][1] by Sasha Chua._
+
+[1]: http://sach.ac/no-excuses-blogging