What has Two Years of Blogging Taught me?

It all started with a tweet…

That was two years ago. I got a response from Logan who told me to go for it, along with a link to an article about blogging tips. And with that, I was on my way.

When I started out, I wasn’t quite sure the reasons why I was doing it. There were no ulterior motives. All I knew was that this was something I wanted to try. For those who know me, this is not like me at all. For the most part, I’m not very spontaneous and will (or at least attempt to) plan for everything, much to the annoyance of the people around me.

So looking back on these past two years, what have I learned from the blogging experience?

1. Make time

Blogging is like going to the gym. At first, it can feel like a real chore; just one more thing you’d rather not be doing on your evenings or weekends. Unfortunately, blogging doesn’t happen by itself, you have to make time. There’s often a whole host of excuses reasons why you can’t write after working all day long, particularly when you first start out, or following a few weeks of blogger’s block. After a while though, you start to build momentum and it becomes just another part of your routine. Everyone leads a busy life. It comes down to making time for what’s important, be it blogging or otherwise.

2. Get it, by doing it

If your role requires you to get others within your organization to blog, you’re in a much better position to understand time commitments and ways to make the process easier through article planning, finding topic opportunities, or just giving them space to find inspiration, because you’ve been there too. Like most things in life, empathy is key. You can’t preach without having done it yourself.

3. Stay fresh

Blogging keeps your mind fresh. You find yourself a lot more up to date, aware of interesting discussions, information and perspectives on different subjects. It’s a great way to help you stop, step back and reflect on lessons learned, and challenge existing ways of thinking.

4. Points mean prizes

In addition to giving me a lazy cut and paste answer to the same old questions, blogging can often bring along some unexpected benefits. For me, it has provided me with experience to embark on other guest blogging pursuits and win free conference tickets. Score!

5. Get the bad guys

Sometimes it’s possible to use your blog to fight for the greater good. I don’t do this often (only once to be exact) because I don’t condone the whole “angry blogger” mentality. But of all the posts I’ve written over the past two years, it’s satisfying to see that this was the most read. I got a lot of support, particularly from the wonderful Tim Biden who worked his magic to get links into the post to help raise awareness of the bad guys.