Oddly enough I’d had this post in mind over the summer and then some gentle encouragement from Paul Boag on an episode of The Boagworld Podcast convinced me to finish writing it.

Towards the end of last year I had several ideas for blog posts rattling round my head. I made a conscious decision I should actually finish the blog posts instead of leaving them as “Draft” and thinking “I’ll finish that soon”.

Off To A Flyer #

When you have lots of ideas the posts just flow, you have momentum and enthusiasm and you’re a blogger master.

I even started setting myself reminders and began blogging quite regularly. Then it stopped. Like so many people stop and I’m not sure why. I missed a week, promised I’d finish the post next week and then all of sudden I was out of the habit.

Why Blog #

I had a think about what made me start blogging in the first place

Had some ideas
Self documentation
Sure up my own thoughts and processes
Help others

It was good to finally finish off some of the blog posts I had stored as drafts and that made me look at other aspects of my job and think “I could post about that”.

I’m sure most developers document parts of their jobs that they don’t do so frequently. My own website seems a good place to keep those documents.

A bit like rubber ducking the act of writing out a process really helps me to straighten out my thoughts and ensure I’ve covered all aspects of a job.

It’s been really rewarding to see links coming in from drupal.org and seeing some search terms people have used and ended up on my blog such as Testing SSL certificates without a domain name.

When to Blog #

Maybe I aimed a little too high with once a week at the start and things started to feel forced.

My aim going forward is to commit to once a month but if I have a series of posts I’ll possibly look at releasing those a little closer together.

Ultimately I want it to be a thing I enjoy rather than forcing myself to do it.

Thanks To Anyone Who Blogs #

I’ve learnt so much from blog posts over the years. People just sharing a little bit of knowledge they’ve learnt to people consciously documenting the process they’ve been through.

It’s also given me a huge appreciation of people like Paul Boag who have consistently produced lots of high quality content over a long period of time.

Maybe, just maybe, this blog post will make you write a blog post, and you never know maybe I’ll find that blog post and it will help me. Even if that never happens there is a good chance it will help someone, even if it’s just your getting your thoughts in order.