Trying to blog more

This past week I few calls with some friends and, coming off those calls, was challenged to think about what I’m actually publishing. I have a lot of things I write about and do - I have half finished YouTube videos, courses, projects and apps - but I haven’t pulled the trigger to publish very often recently. I wanted to think about some of the reasons for that.

1. Invoicable work has taken priority

I don’t think this is a bad thing but it is a real thing. I have had a busy few months with client work. I’ve delivered 14 courses in the past two months. Each course needed planning, delivering and recovery time. My business account is healthy and that wouldn’t be true if I hadn’t done that work. It’s important to do work that pays but I think it’s important that that isn’t all I do.

2. I made some bigger commitments

When I haven’t been preparing or delivering those courses, I’ve been working on two larger projects I committed to - a new Boot.dev course and a new PluralSight course. Both have required a lot of my spare time and I’ve felt lazy or irresponsible if I worked on anything but those. But Boot.dev is winding up now and I have the PS course in a reasonable place.

3. I don’t have a clear routine

I have ADHD. I value routine and I haven’t had a clear routine for writing and creating. I have ideas and sometimes I even remember to write them down. I have a video and blog backlog that is 100s of items long. But, I don’t have a routine to do something about that. I get up early in the morning and I think it would be healthy for me to write and create then but I haven’t been. I know that I sometimes lean into new routines and I know sometimes I bounce of them. I don’t want to stop just because it hasn’t worked in the past.

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So, what’s the plan? I don’t have one. It’s the first of August and I’m wondering what writing a post every day this month would look like - Blaugust as the cool kids are calling it. This post is an intention around that. To dust of my backlog, write a tutorial or post every day this month. Maybe even finish a video or two.

Maybe I need a list of reasons why writing and making videos is something I want to do.

• I’m finding social media harder and harder to engage with and that’s making me a bit jaded and lonely. Writing is a way to create more surface area to connect with people.
• Writing helps me to clarify my ideas. In training, I’m asked my opinions about lots of things - from AI to programming paradigms to software architecture principles. I have opinions on these things but often I haven’t fully formed them.
• I don’t have much of an interior thought life. I only think things when I write them down or speak them out loud. Writing is helpful for me, whether or not I publish it.
• Often the writing of others that connects with me the most seems small or throw away to the author - publishing might help someone.

The plan then is this:

• publish at least one thing a day for the next month
• reflect and refine the processes that let that happen
• remember why I started writing and why I continue
• revisit this post at the end of August to see if anything has changed