Back in October I completed my one year blogging challenge. I said in that post that I planned to scale back to 3-5 posts per week.

In reality I’ve scaled back to almost no posts.

Why has this happened?

Well actually it’s quite simple, I haven’t followed what I know already.

It’s not really about what we write, it’s more about the commitment to sit down and do it. Before it was easy, I committed to posting daily so I had to sit down daily and write.

Now I’m somewhere in limbo. There is no real commitment so there is no real writing.

The lesson, if we want to do something we need to commit to the process. The act of showing up everyday. Somedays will be easy, others will be hard. It’s showing up that counts.

Awhile ago I wrote that my best posts inherently are never written because I forgot to take note of them.

I’ve changed my mind. Forgetting something is inherently a good filter.

If it comes back to you, great. This is a sign and you should take action. If you remember to make note of something, that can serve as a sign as well.

But, if you forgot that’s OK too. The missed opportunity is an illusion. It was simply never meant to be.

I did it.

Almost.

It took me about 13 extra days. I took a few days off. Oh well.

The experience was the same. I enjoyed doing it and glad I made it this far.

Would I do anything different? For the first year, no. I think committing to something and doing your best to deliver is important. My only goal with this was to find my voice and just share what I think is interesting with the world.

Am I changing anything? Yes. I will probably scale back to 3-5 posts per week. I haven’t decided yet.

I think it’s important to have some sort of cadence or else you just simply won’t do it. But I’m not convinced that a post every day is always sustainable

If you’ve read even one of my posts, thank you. I appreciate you. I’m happy you took the time and hope I’ve been able to add even the tiny fraction of value into your life.

Onto the next one!

The worst time to try to come up with an idea is when you want to come up with one.

This blog is the perfect example. There are three times when I feel like I can ideate topics for posts.

1. In conversation with others – The problem here is depending on the length of the conversation I might forget later the exact point that I found interesting.
2. In the morning – Recently upon waking I’ve just been dumping out ideas onto paper without filter. I think this might be the most effective way.
3. Walking – I pretty much always have something come to me while I go for a stroll.

The point is that none of the ideas here are truly my own. They come to me from other interactions or just simply out of thin air.

I fell off.

Partly my fault for not having an adequate buffer. Also, partly my fault for getting fairly sick (not COVID, phew).

Ironic because I’ve started reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and he says stuff like this happens. It’s part of the “Resistance”. However, I’m not sure if I could have truly pushed through and continued working.

Regardless, onwards and upwards.

Can’t believe I’ve only realized this now.

When writing something of any substance we should ‘finish’. Let it sit in draft for 24 hours (or longer), and then come back to it.

At this point we will likely make some big edits.

Or realize it’s total garbage and scrap it.

PS – some people should apply this technique to emails.

If we have to search for inspiration then we are doing it wrong. It’s sitting right in front of us, all we have to do is take the time to notice it.

Here it is, my 300th daily post. Only 66 more to go to make it to a full year. But at this point I don’t think I’ll stop there.

Why? You might ask.

Simply because I enjoy doing it.

I don’t think I’ll continue with the absolute pressure I’ve put on myself to write a new post everyday. It has been a “challenge” after all.

But there is something to say by forcing yourself to notice things around. Becoming more submerged in the conversations that you take part in. One might even say that it brings more colour into your daily rhythm.