I tried the whole "ads and reach" thing for a while, discovered I actually don't care about it for "beer money" levels of revenue, and went back to just blogging about that which I care about, for the intrinsic benefits of having to write my projects up.
- It forces me to finish things. I was, prior to having a blog, fairly prone to "90% done, I'll finish it later..." sort of stuff, which led to a lot of mental clutter from "having to keep track of what was still inflight."
- I can, after a project is done, confidently flush all details of it from my brain, because anything I found odd or notable that would be worth remembering is noted in my blog posts.
And often enough, I'll end up down a weird research rabbit hole I wouldn't have otherwise gone down, learning about new subjects, so I can write something up with what I feel is enough understanding to competently write about it.
This is just what I want to get to: write-ups as some form of personal accountability, and to reiterate my thought process and learning. My problem is that I rarely feel I'm competent enough to really contribute to the subject, so I just try to make it more of a workshop log than a resource for others.
- It forces me to finish things. I was, prior to having a blog, fairly prone to "90% done, I'll finish it later..." sort of stuff, which led to a lot of mental clutter from "having to keep track of what was still inflight."
- I can, after a project is done, confidently flush all details of it from my brain, because anything I found odd or notable that would be worth remembering is noted in my blog posts.
And often enough, I'll end up down a weird research rabbit hole I wouldn't have otherwise gone down, learning about new subjects, so I can write something up with what I feel is enough understanding to competently write about it.