365 Posts in 365 Days

Today marks the 365th post in my quest to blog daily for a year. Of course, these are just the posts to my own blog, and not the total volume of content that I generate each month. I also have the weekly (sometimes twice weekly) podcast, a couple dozen videos, and a few posts over on the AvePoint blog. If you’re interested, you can find my catalog of content and events that I publish as a monthly summary.

Why put myself through the stress and time commitment of daily blog posts? Well, for one, Tracy van der Schyff (@tracyvds) dared me. Well, she suggested it and encouraged me, which I interpreted as a dare. In fact, Tracy accomplished TWO years of daily posts and has encouraged me to do the same. I’m seriously considering it.

For anyone thinking about giving it a try, here are some words of advice:

1. Have a plan. While I’ll admit that there have been days where I did not have anything in the queue and I scrambled to find something to write about, most posts were written days in advance (usually late at night or over the weekend) and scheduled. I have a running calendar of topics that I use to plot out weeks of content.
2. Hoard your ideas. We are our own worst critics, and we tend to self-edit ourselves into writers block moments. I jot down every idea — whether it’s a sentence or quick thought, or a detailed outline on a topic — in OneNote, pasting in links and images to support my idea. I may not go back to a topic or idea for weeks or months. But when I sit down to write something, I typically begin by searching through my own catalog of ideas, expanding on a previous thought.
3. Read more. I wish I had time to do more reading, but I try to block out some time daily to read through business and technical websites, blogs, and print media. I always find at least one article idea which I catalog in OneNote.
4. Expand your media. Many of my blog posts are simply landing pages for video and audio content. Some people prefer to read, some want to listen to podcasts, and others want to watch videos. So I try to create a variety and give people multiple ways to consume my content.
5. Collaborate with others. Early in my Microsoft community days, I used to joke that I wanted to be “the Diane Sawyer of SharePoint” and do nothing but interviews. By far, one of the types of content that I enjoy the most is talking to other experts and hearing their stories, and then sharing those stories and promoting their works. Honestly, if I could make it my full-time job to interview people and compile their stories and insights, I would grab that role in a second.

I have a few articles in the pipeline and a couple dozen videos waiting for post-production, so the flow of content will continue in the short-term until I decide whether or not I will go for 730 posts in 730 days. Until then, thanks for reading!