1,095 posts in 1,095 days

For those keeping track, today marks the completion of 3 years of daily blog posts here on buckleyplanet. I have hit my most recent target of 1,095 posts in 1,095 days. While it may have begun as a dare (sort of) by good friend and fellow MVP Tracy van der Schyff (@tracyvds) all the way back in 2017, it has evolved into more of a personal challenge to generate some kind of content each day. Of course, I create more than what appears on this blog, whether digital assets for clients or content for other sites and platforms, all of which are cataloged on my monthly “Content Wrap-Up” blog series which you can find filed under the tag “Monthly Summary” in the Categories on the right.

For those unaware of this challenge, here is some history:

• My initial attempt to start the challenge back in August 2017 with an explanation and goals.
• By the end of that year, I tried to restart…but then gave up the quest in early 2018. Basically, work and life got too busy.
• I kicked off the quest again the last week of August 2021 without much fanfare, but I did let Tracy know I was once again making the attempt.
• On August 31st, 2022, I hit my goal of 365 in 365. When I reached out to tell Tracy, she reminded me that she had actually made it past 2 years before dropping off. At that moment, I decided I would go for at least 2 years and 1 week.
• A week later, I shared some details on my approach to this high volume of content. In short, I developed some healthy habits and “templatized” several series.
• On August 31st, 2023 I hit my goal of 730 in 730, and shared some guidance on how to approach content creation, for those who are interested.
• In May of this year, I celebrated the completion of 1,000 posts in 1,000 days because, well, it’s a round number. I also provided some additional transparency into the planning that I do each week/month. It was that point that I also started to think about how long I could maintain this level of output.
• And here we are at 1,095 posts in 1,095 days.

Why put myself through this challenge? As a teenager, something I realized about myself is that I work best – am most productive – when I am working from a list of tasks/goals. Always having a “full inbox” forced me to prioritize my activities and get things done. I’ve not been perfect at this strategy, but it’s something that I am constantly working on. For those who know me, you know that I am a “list person” and use this method of breaking complex, long-term projects and problems into manageable “chunks” and tasks that allow me to see progress on a daily basis. Maintaining a content calendar is part of this strategy, and is a great way to show progress.

So this big question: Will I keep this going?

For now, yes. But changes are afoot. Here are the various activities that appear on my blog:

• Microsoft MVP interviews every Monday.
• CollabTalk Podcast episodes every Thursday.
• Music-related posts every Saturday (except this week, of course).
• Monthly content wrap-ups on the 1st of each month.
• Project Failure Files summaries every Tuesday (our live streams are Mondays at 9am PST)
• Guardians of M365 Governance summaries each month (live shows are the 3rd Wednesday each month at 8am PST)
• #M365AMA videos and posts throughout the month.

As you can see, that is a lot of series-related content, which does not allow much space for productivity posts and other articles, such as my ongoing content strategy series. As such, some of this content will be split off the buckleyplanet site. First and foremost, M365AMA.com should go live in September, with a separate YouTube channel for this content. I’ll do some cross-site promotions, and will likely write a monthly summary of every AMA posted that month. I am also planning to split off the #MVPbuzzChat interviews from my primary CollabTalk Podcast and promote them separately. I’m planning to re-launch the CollabTalk.com website before the end of the year to better promote my fractional-CMO and channel consulting services, and also to house my blog and soon-to-be-revamped CollabTalk TweetJam. Again, I’ll likely provide some kind of summary over on buckleyplanet.com each month, and cross-promote sites.

Overall, the volume of content will not be decreasing – it’s getting more organized. I hope you keep reading, listening, and watching! Thanks