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