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Robert Tamayo

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One Year Ago

One Year Ago...

...my blog had 23 posts. My first blog post was published on March 17, 2018. On August 18, 2020, I wrote the 23rd post, called Music for Programming. My rate for writing blog posts at that time was 1 post every 39 days. I was targeting something more like twice a month, so that's pretty horrible.

After August 18, 2020, I wouldn't write another blog post for nearly a year. I published something on August 16, 2021, so I missed the full year mark by 2 days. Before I published that post, with 363 consecutive days without a new post, my publish rate had dropped to 1 post every 54 days.

Why Didn't I Write?


I told myself I wasn't writing because I was busy working. Why would I blog about the work I'm doing instead of actually doing it? I didn't have time to write about the game I was making; I had to actually make it!

But that turned out to be a false assumption. I was under the impression that, according to my publish rate at the time, writing a blog post every 45 days or so would take so much time away from me that I wouldn't be able to work on my game! I sound insane saying something like that now, but that's honestly what I believed.

That's why having data is important. If I had done the calculations at the time, I would have seen how little time I was actually spending writing, and I would have been able to set aside some time to keep my blog alive.

But even that data is irrelevant. Because I know something else now:

Writing a Blog Post Every Day Has Made Me More Productive


Since August 16, I've written a blog post every single day. Including today's, that's 34 new posts. In that time, I've committed more code to Robot Ops. I've been more focused in the gym. I've been more focused at work. I don't know why. But that's just what has happened.

Maybe it's because I sit down every night to write something out. I have to do it; I can't make an excuse. That adds points to my discipline stat. And perhaps more importantly, when I'm done writing, I'm already sitting in my chair, in front of my computer, ready to start coding.

There is no big goal with this blog. I simply want to discipline myself to write every day. I want to become comfortable writing anything in general. 

One side benefit of writing every day is that should I ever feel like writing a book on learning to code, or a fiction book, a script, or anything, I'll already know I have the discipline to sit down and write. I'll have practiced my writing voice every day. I'll have a better idea of what works and what doesn't.

But that's just a side benefit; there is no grand scheme in writing every day. I'm just writing every day.



With these new 34 posts on top of my 23, my all-time post-per-day rate is now 1 post every 22 days. But I'm happy to say that my current rate 1 post per day.


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