Why I keep starting blogs (and why this time it might actually stick)

I really hope this time will be different. But before we jump into how I’m going to make that happen, let me talk about the why. Again. Because yeah, I’ve been here before.

The pattern

I’ve started a handful of blogs over the years. Some of them looked genuinely nice. Others had solid tech stacks behind them. But every single one ended the same way: completely abandoned. I’d spend weeks building it, write maybe one or two posts if I was feeling productive, then just… forget about it. Life gets busy, something else comes up, and suddenly it’s a year later and I’m thinking “hey, maybe I should start blogging again.” So the cycle repeats. New design, new domain sometimes, same outcome.

I’m definitely not alone in this. If you’re a developer or creator of any kind, you probably know exactly what I am talking about. We’re genuinely comfortable with building things. That’s the fun part. We get to solve problems, use new tools, tinker with designs. But actually sitting down and writing consistent content? That’s a different beast entirely. So instead of facing that blank page, we do what we do best: we build. We redesign the theme. We optimize the database. We add features that nobody asked for and that don’t actually matter. Anything to keep busy and avoid the real work.

The problem is obvious when you think about it: building is a one-time effort. Writing is an ongoing commitment. And commitment is hard.

What actually changed this time

Three things are genuinely different now, and I think they might actually stick.

First, I stopped chasing perfection. The blog doesn’t need to be perfect. Neither do the posts. I don’t need to publish on some rigid schedule—no weekly posts or monthly themes or anything like that. It just needs to exist when I have something worth sharing. And the bar for “worth sharing” is a lot lower now. A mistake I made and learned from? That’s worth writing. A pattern that saved us time on a project? Write it down. A weird bug that took three days to solve? I’m documenting that. Sounds simple, but it’s actually liberating. The pressure is gone.

Second, I stopped overthinking the writing. I realized I was putting too much pressure on myself to sound a certain way. Instead of sitting there for hours trying to craft the perfect sentences, I just write how I actually talk. That’s it. Simpler words, shorter sentences, less formal. Turns out people actually like that more than the overly polished stuff anyway.

Third, I actually have interesting things to say. Working as a developer means you’re constantly learning. You’re making mistakes and figuring them out. You’re discovering patterns that work. You’re getting stuck on weird bugs at 2 AM and spending hours tracking them down. All of that stuff is valuable, but honestly? Don’t do that 2 AM thing if you can help it. I’ve been there—grinding away at some problem in the middle of the night thinking it’s productive. It’s not. You’re tired, your judgment is worse, and you’re probably making it harder on yourself. If you’ve got family, you especially don’t want to be that person always burning the midnight oil. It’s just not worth it. Anyway, all those bugs and learnings usually just disappear into Slack conversations or code reviews and then they’re forgotten. That feels like a waste. Someone else is probably running into the same issue. Writing about it helps them, and helps me remember later too.

Why this matters

The underlying goal here is simple: just show up. Maybe that’s one post a month. Maybe some months I write three. The point isn’t to hit some arbitrary target—it’s consistency over perfection.

If you’re stuck in the same cycle I’ve been in with abandoned blogs, here’s my honest take: write for yourself first. Stop worrying about how many people will read it or whether it’ll go viral. Just dump what you learned. If it’s actually useful, people will find it. And if they don’t? You still got something out of it—you’ve got a place to reference later when you forget how you solved that thing, and you’ve cemented it in your own memory.

The best time to start was probably years ago. The second-best time is right now.

So yeah, I’m trying this again. But this time I’m betting everything on showing up consistently instead of making it look perfect. We’ll see how it goes.

And as Aaron Francis like to say: (source)

You can just do things.