One blog I’ve followed for years is that of fellow Core Committer and friend Jeremy Felt. His “Weekly Note” series has always inspired me to publish more consistently. Today, he published a post about letting go of that format. After a few minutes of typing, I realized I had more to say than was appropriate for a simple comment field. It had grown into its own blog post. So here I am!

Admitting that something is not working

For a long time Jeremy has published a “Weekly Note” on his blog, usually on Fridays or the weekend. Today was the first one since May 18th, and he reflected on his realization that the weekly note had become a problem.

There are moments of inspiration throughout any given week—or not—where I have a flurry of things to talk about and I can be pretty good at writing those down.

But! There they sit, the pile getting larger and larger.

To actually publish seems to mean being in a mental and physical space to put it all together. Trying to assign a day or a time to make that “weekly” just isn’t working.

So. A weekly note is now a note. It’s probably the same, but it gets published whenever it’s ready.

– Jeremy Felt

While we all enjoy Clean Out Your Drafts Day during extra 24 hours on the calendar every four years, it’s always sad to see ideas that were never shared with the world. It also doesn’t feel great to miss your intended goals.

Striving to Blog More Consistently

I’ve been trying to blog more regularly over the last few years myself. This was equal parts a birthday request, a personal desire to blog more, and motivation from Jeremy’s disciplined regular posting.

Last year’s attempt at a regular blogging schedule fizzled out before the end of Q1. I made it through 5 weeks with a 3 week summary in week 8. I think a strong contributing factor to the failure was the fact that I tied the act of consistent blogging to submitting photos to the WordPress.org Photo Directory. This meant I had two tasks standing between me and a published post. 😅

That experience taught me that tying too many dependencies to a publishing goal can backfire. This time, I’m trying something new.

Take 2…or 3 or 4

I’ve been experimenting with new ways to stay organized. The current manifestation of this is dusting off my Trello account with separate boards for work tasks and life tasks. Last week I created a third one for keeping track of ideas and planning when to work on them.

After I add a card for a new idea to the board, I head over to ChatGPT and create a conversation where I explain the TLDR; of the post and instruct my robot overlord to keep a running list of thoughts in a canvas. I put these conversations into a folder for unpublished posts and link to each one on the Trello card. Whenever I think of something related, I add it to the conversation’s canvas.

The board’s columns are currently Backlog, Next Month, This Month, Next Week, and This Week. I’m hoping that this helps me keep better track of my ideas to the point of actually following through. I think I’ll try to focus on one idea per week, but won’t pressure myself to publish or restrict myself to that week’s idea when moments of inspiration hit. I can always add to an idea’s canvas, or even add a second idea to “This Week”.

Gauging Success

Jeremy’s reflection also made me rethink what success means for blogging in the first place.

To actually publish seems to mean being in a mental and physical space to put it all together. Trying to assign a day or a time to make that “weekly” just isn’t working.

– Jeremy Felt

Seeing that others struggle with the same time-based expectations when blogging was freeing. It wasn’t just me. Life happens. We get busy, we get sick, or we aren’t in the right headspace. I’ve arrived at the following thinking:

Successful blogging should not be measured by regular publishing, but rather consistently exploring ideas.

The act of blogging is not just publishing. It’s a process: the thinking, the writing, and the processing of ideas. Some posts will be published and some will not. But it’s consistently exploring, drafting and expanding your ideas that should measure successful blogging. Only 1% of blogging is hitting the publish button.

Publishing when posts are ready instead of publishing for the sake of publishing means more meaningful updates and higher quality. Publishing just to adhere to a schedule you set for yourself favors the former.

It’s tricky to balance between ready and holding on for too long. Sometimes posting an idea that’s raw and unprocessed is more valuable than refining it over the course of a month. This is a fine line and every blogger needs to feel out where to draw their own.

My plan going forward

My hope is that my new idea board will ensure I’m always working on a handful of different ideas. Each will be at different percentages of “ready”, and I’ll hit publish when I’m happy with each one. I’m not going to force it.

The goal isn’t to post every week. It’s to keep ideas moving forward and give them the space to take shape.

If I follow up on enough ideas, eventually a stream of posts will naturally leave the safe space of my drafts list with a somewhat regular cadence. Posts that “just happen” like this one can always be squeezed in.

Until then, I’ll continue cooking 2-3 mini pancakes every morning for my very insistent and hard to please daughter only to throw them out 80% of the time.

I’m right there with you Jeremy, it drives me nuts.

Featured image credit: CC0 licensed photo by Hendrik Luehrsen from the WordPress Photo Directory.