Starting tomorrow I’m going on a hike for 4 days. There’s no cell reception or wifi, so I won’t be posting blog posts. I debated scheduling posts in advance, but instead, I will write something by hand and then publish it all when I return.
My blog publishing streak will end at 260 days, but I’ll continue on my daily writing habit, which is more important to me.
Since it’s the end of the daily publishing streak, it’s a good moment to reflect on it.
Before now, the longest consecutive blogging I did was 90 days in a row. It felt like a long time when I was doing it, so it is fun to think that this one was almost five times longer.
I started blogging every day in the fall for a couple of reasons.
The first was wanting to commit to a practice of writing. I like writing and want to continue to get better at it, and the best way I’ve found to get myself writing every day is to commit to publishing a blog post. When I’ve set myself a time goal, or a goal of one longer weekly post, I’ve found it harder to follow through. It requires more willpower and is easier to let yourself off the hook. There is a clear public point of success or failure that keeps me honest.
The second reason was deeper. I was working a lot and feeling a bit beat down. I wanted to do something positive for myself that was 100% in my control every day. Writing a blog post every day is not easy, but my success there depends on no external factors. It is simply up to me to follow through and do it. Having that daily win is a foundation win for me. I go to bed knowing that I’ve taken a step forward in at least this one area.
I like a lot of the blog posts that I’ve written over the past 260 days, but I view a lot of them as still raw in some ways. These are posts that I would like to come back to in the future and add, combine, and subtract from many.
Many of the ideas are connected across multiple blog posts, often months apart. I’m looking forward to taking some time in the future to look back and pull out the big ideas that I’ve focused on for the past 8 and a half months.
Once I’m back from this trip, I’m going to publish all the backlogged posts and then continue with daily writing for at least the rest of the year.
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