One question i often get asked is how do i come up with the ideas or inspiration for all of my blog posts? In short, the answer is that i’m self-motivated and stick to a schedule but if you want the long answer, read on…
This post is my 1,256th since October 2006 which gives me an average posts per day ratio of about 1.6. My word count is now approaching 350,000 which means on average, each post is about 280 words in length.
Since i started college in September 2007, i’ve cut back on quantity and focused on quality. I now try to publish one blog post per day, every day. It’s much simpler than publishing 2 or 3 posts per day. It also takes less time plus it takes less creativity (1 topic -v- 3 topics).
Inspiration comes from digg, twitter, emails, news, my own personal day to day life… anything really. I’m following over 1100 people on twitter, i have about 500 friends on digg and i’m subscribed to about 200 RSS feeds in google reader. Information isn’t a problem.
It’s impossible to be ‘bored’ on the internet. If you ever get to the boredom stage online, it just means you’re lazy, not bored. The next click is always best one. The day you finish clicking and settle with what you’ve got is the day you walk away from IT if not physically, in spirit.
If you’re not prepared to find information (and prefer to get it delivered to you) – that’s mistake no.1. You’re not expanding your circle of trust and opening up to new sites and technologies. You MUST keep looking and searching for information if you’re to keep yourself well informed.
Just think back to when you first started out online… how did you discover google, gmail, youtube??? Every new site needs a chance and to ignore new sites and technologies is unforgiveable if you’re working in or blogging about IT. The next link you click could be the next google or gmail or facebook (whatever is useful to you) – think about that the next time you get ‘bored’.
Continually chase and experiment with IT and there’ll be no shortage of ideas and inspiration for blog posts. It’s like a cop with a speed gun watching cars going past – you don’t expect every single car going past to be breaking the speed limit, but the longer you wait, the more cars you see – the more you see, the greater the chance one will be breaking the limit. It’s those cars that make it all worthwhile and justify waiting in a ditch for half an hour pointing a hairdryer out the window – you have the last laugh. You might have watched 1000 cars go past previously, but this one car makes it all worthwhile.
It’s the same with websites and blogs and information in general – most of it is useless and we scan through it without battering an eyelid, but the more you click and read, the more hidden gems you pick up every now and then.