Monday, 8.10pm
Sheffield, U.K.
Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again. – Gautama Buddha
I started writing this blog in mid-2017 and thought I’d work on writing a post a day – every day including weekends.
I enjoy writing but I felt that if I wanted to get better at it I needed to put in the time to write – and there’s a saying that you should throw away your first million words – and then you’ll be ready to write.
So I got started on that first million – and gave myself ten years of writing to get there.
So far, I’ve written 674 posts and 414,275 words, which is more than I was expecting.
In 2018 I wrote 251 blog posts but I’ve only managed 239 so far in 2019.
However, I’ve also been working on articles – short papers that explore particular areas in a slightly more formal way than a blog post might do – although there are overlaps.
There are 23 of these and so in terms of absolute pieces of writing, I can probably say that I wrote 262 pieces in 2019.
Given there are 365 days it makes me wonder what I did on those other 103 days.
Adding up the words in the papers as well gets me to 458,453, which is not that far short of halfway to my target.
What’s interesting about this, I suppose, is that the numbers do build if you put in a small amount of effort every day.
This is a young blog and the material is not easy – and I am surprised and gratified at the number of people who take the time to read it.
The numbers are small but they have risen year on year, with a 91% increase in views, 63% increase in visitors and a 119% increase in likes.
I was talking to someone today about the purpose of this blog – and mainly what it’s not.
It’s not really a vehicle to promote myself or a way to market the things I do.
Instead, it’s turning into a Zettelkasten, a Commonplace Book – a place where I collect things I find interesting and the thoughts I have about those things in case they might be useful later.
Last year at around the same time I wrote about how I started writing mainly for myself – because writing was the way I started to understand what I was looking at.
That has continued this year – and will probably stay that way for a while because there is so much to learn and the more you study the more you realise how little you know – but it’s exciting trying to find out more.
This blog turning into a research partner and I find that when I come across a business question there is often a piece I’ve written in these posts that has a model that might be useful – and if there isn’t it’s an opportunity to write one.
As a result I promote it less and less – not even on social media and the only way people find it is through searches and somehow through WordPress itself.
I hope those of you that take the time to read these posts find them useful.
And to those of you that take the time to like and comment on posts – thank you very much.
That feedback is actually immensely valuable as it gives me a feel for what works and what doesn’t – what resonates with you and I would be grateful if you would continue to take the time to help me out in that way.
There will be a few sporadic posts in the run up to the end of the year and then I will start again – hoping to learn new things and share them with you.
All that remains to say then is that I hope you have a very happy and festive holiday season and a great start to the New Year.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Cheers,
Karthik Suresh
Handcrafted insight 