Below is the 'Lab Report' for the writing 31 blog posts in January experiment I started at the beginning of the month., including observations I made throughout the month.

Problem

I have wanted to blog for ages, but I never got around to posting anything regularly, and I'd get so caught up in what I was doing and trying to be perfect.

Hypothesis

I think if I were to force out a small post every day, I'd get over the worst of my fears over perfectionism and shyness over other people seeing my work. It won't be precious.

Method

1. Write a short (~500 word) post about whatever is interesting you at the time.
2. Post it before bed
3. Repeat every days for 31 days.

Challenges

• What is life gets in the way?
• What if I get sick?
• What if I run out of things to say?

Resources

n/a

Observations

Jan 5, 2025

Today is day 5 of this little experiment, and it's going pretty well so far. I've posted, even on days when I played video games with Hubby until relatively late. Mostly, I start writing around 8, because that's when my alarm goes off, but I did it almost right after work today. I'm really enjoying it, so far, and i'm having a good time exploring change and goal setting and how I want my year to look so far.

Jan 13, 2024

Life got in the way, and I didn't prepare ahead of time, so I missed three days. I probably could have picked it up yesterday, thought about it, but was too tired to do it after working and being social two days in a row. Mentally exhausted, so I took a self care evening instead. And I'm glad I did. I posted this evening, and I made a plan for making sure that this doesn't happen again:

1. Keep writing my posts. On days off of work, if I have the energy, write more than one and queue the extras.
2. If I have at least three posts in the queue, I will post one extra. Repeat until the all missed posts are covered.
3. Don’t feel guilty for missing a day here or there.

This means I may have to write a few extra posts over my days off, but that's not so bad. I should have done this before, knowing I was going to be busy, but I didn't think ahead. Oh well, live and learn.

I should still be able to do 31 posts, but it's going to take a bit of work to catch up.

Jan 21, 2024

Ok, so, writing every day isn't that bad. I can do that even on days I work, and I've even started writing fiction, which is great fun. I'm even writing on my work breaks, which is kinda insane.

BUT! Posting every day isn't great, especially if I'm getting carried away with what I'm supposed to be writing. I'm working on the Gamification post, and it's kinda a mess because I keep adding complications to it. Character creation is ballooning into something that about setting goals anot about tying your goals to classes, like it's supposed to be.

I think I just need to start that section over from scratch. I can use the rest, later, but for now, I think I need to chill. Keep it simple. Right? Right.

Jan 30, 2024

That was a month lol. January felt longer than it was.

So, Gamification got away from me and over ran the word count expectations. I don't think I went in with a proper plan, so I floundered about and got overwhelmed. I feel like what was supposed to help me understand my system did help, but I don't think it'll do much for anyone else. I'll probably have to come back and work on it later, making it a little more coherent once I've worked with it for a while.

I also haven't been writing daily most of the last week or so. In fact, I've only written sporadically, which meant I was writing a fair bit, word wise, per session, but I haven't been doing much in terms of consistency, which is what my goal really was.

Conclusion

I think I learned a lot.

• Writing daily works, but I need an alarm or something to remind me to stop what I'm doing and write for a while
• Setting time aside on a weekly basis for a big writing day worked when I did it, that is the day I went downtown and dedicated time to it. Maybe I need to do this more?
• I need a better plan for longer series, and gaps between the posts in the series. Maybe it's more one post per week on the series and two other posts? Otherwise I get too focused on the big project, I can't think of anything else. Or, maybe I need the big dedicated days to just work on that project and spend the other days working on stand alone posts.\
• I didn't do more than basic editing this month, and I did nothing for SEO or advertising and I still felt a little overwhelmed. I'm ok not pushing for more in the way of that stuff for now, I'm fine with no one reading this until I get my sea legs under me, but it bears keeping in mind that writing everyday isn't all I need for this blog long term.

Next Steps

I've already adjusted the posting schedule, so next, I need to work on the writing schedule. Writing every day, maybe even changing it to every morning, is going to be important to keep up my words going ahead.