I realized the other day my blog is just over a year old. My very first post was a Play framework tip that took two whole sentences to explain. Since then I’ve published 71 more posts, go me! Turns out one or two posts a week over a year really adds up.
What I’ve learned from my year of blogging is that building a habit is way more important to blogging regularly than motivation is. Some weeks I really do not want to write a post, but I do it anyway because breaking the habit bugs me more than sucking it up and writing the damned post :) Seriously, if I waited until inspiration struck to write a post there would be less than a dozen of them on this blog.
Not that you shouldn’t take advantage of motivation when you have it! The big thing that helped me finally start this blog after ages of thinking I should really start blogging was starting a new job and learning all sorts of cool stuff I wanted to a) share, and b) make sure I didn’t forget. Writing things down helps me remember them, and even if I forget stuff I’ve blogged about, I know where to look for it.
Another thing I’ve learned is that explaining something is a great way to learn it. I hope my series of posts about SOLID design principles were useful to other people, but I probably learned more writing them than any of my readers did. You may think you understand something after you’ve read a few posts about it, but there’s nothing like trying to write your own explanation of it to show you where the gaps are in your understanding.
Over the last year my most popular post was Showing up is my secret superpower. It’s really cool that people liked something I wrote enough to share it. Sometimes stuff you throw out there because you don’t know what to write about really clicks with people.
Stay tuned, I’m planning for many more blogiversarys!