About a week ago I was reading an interview by Jesse Gardner with blogger Tim Challies, who has been blogging daily since 2003. The thought struck me that I might like to try blogging every day. I decided I would give it a try--write one blog post every day for the rest of the year. Thus far I’m a week in. It hasn't gotten too exciting yet, but it has been interesting.
I have had a blog for over a year now, and I have always had ideas of things to post on it. However, I was rarely able to take the time to work on an idea that I had until I felt ready to post it. Now, I know I have to post something, so I am finally putting pen to paper on ideas I have had for over a year. I have found this phenomenon to be the most interesting part of blogging daily. Nothing else has worked to get me blogging. It has never been for lack of ideas--I just never made the time to do it. Now I have an outlet for what I have wanted to write, because I know I have to write something.
At this stage I am not really worried about the people reading the blog. My main motivation is for my own personal development. After reading the Challies interview, ideas that had been floating around in my head for a few months came together. I suddenly saw blogging as being a way to do three things. The first is to develop my mind. I expressed in a previous post that I was disturbed by what I perceived to be the effects of social networking--shallowness. I see blogging as a way to develop my mind in the opposite direction. The second thing is discipline. I saw in blogging an opportunity to develop discipline through doing something daily that is public, something where people will ask me, “Why no post today?” The third thing is writing. I have read before (it was a post by Jesse Gardner, actually) that he found that practicing writing was the key to being able to write well. Combine that with the ideas put forth in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, that practice is one of the keys to success at something, and you get what I am thinking--blogging every day gives me the opportunity to practice writing and thinking as never before, and practice it in such a way that it bears some sort of fruit.
I don’t know if I will make it all the way to the end of this year. The rest of the year is a long time, and the hard part--the fall semester--is yet to begin. That may well kill my blogging. But I hope it doesn’t. I see blogging as a chance to practice doing a specific thing daily. That is a skill that applies to many other things in my life that I need to improve on by doing them daily. So keep checking back here at the Alien Thinker. Caveman Economics is the main series I am working on currently, so you should see those posts come out every few days. Other than that, I have a bunch of ideas for different themes up my sleeve. A couple have already appeared, such as the “Photo of the Day,” or “Song of the Day,” but I also hope to do reviews of books when I finish reading them (or thoughts as I read them). One theme I am particularly excited about is my (hopefully) soon-to-be-launched “Electronics Dissassembly” theme, where I blog about my experiences while taking apart, and maybe putting back together, an old electronic device (complete with gory photos of dismembered circuit boards...). Also, keep your eyes open for the occasional poem or other fictional work--Adventures in Flandendale would be my most recent one (although I do like Lyrical Lemonade--over on my literary blog. I don’t plan to continue posting there, at least not for now).
I have had a blog for over a year now, and I have always had ideas of things to post on it. However, I was rarely able to take the time to work on an idea that I had until I felt ready to post it. Now, I know I have to post something, so I am finally putting pen to paper on ideas I have had for over a year. I have found this phenomenon to be the most interesting part of blogging daily. Nothing else has worked to get me blogging. It has never been for lack of ideas--I just never made the time to do it. Now I have an outlet for what I have wanted to write, because I know I have to write something.
At this stage I am not really worried about the people reading the blog. My main motivation is for my own personal development. After reading the Challies interview, ideas that had been floating around in my head for a few months came together. I suddenly saw blogging as being a way to do three things. The first is to develop my mind. I expressed in a previous post that I was disturbed by what I perceived to be the effects of social networking--shallowness. I see blogging as a way to develop my mind in the opposite direction. The second thing is discipline. I saw in blogging an opportunity to develop discipline through doing something daily that is public, something where people will ask me, “Why no post today?” The third thing is writing. I have read before (it was a post by Jesse Gardner, actually) that he found that practicing writing was the key to being able to write well. Combine that with the ideas put forth in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, that practice is one of the keys to success at something, and you get what I am thinking--blogging every day gives me the opportunity to practice writing and thinking as never before, and practice it in such a way that it bears some sort of fruit.
I don’t know if I will make it all the way to the end of this year. The rest of the year is a long time, and the hard part--the fall semester--is yet to begin. That may well kill my blogging. But I hope it doesn’t. I see blogging as a chance to practice doing a specific thing daily. That is a skill that applies to many other things in my life that I need to improve on by doing them daily. So keep checking back here at the Alien Thinker. Caveman Economics is the main series I am working on currently, so you should see those posts come out every few days. Other than that, I have a bunch of ideas for different themes up my sleeve. A couple have already appeared, such as the “Photo of the Day,” or “Song of the Day,” but I also hope to do reviews of books when I finish reading them (or thoughts as I read them). One theme I am particularly excited about is my (hopefully) soon-to-be-launched “Electronics Dissassembly” theme, where I blog about my experiences while taking apart, and maybe putting back together, an old electronic device (complete with gory photos of dismembered circuit boards...). Also, keep your eyes open for the occasional poem or other fictional work--Adventures in Flandendale would be my most recent one (although I do like Lyrical Lemonade--over on my literary blog. I don’t plan to continue posting there, at least not for now).
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