15 years of blogging

9 December 2021

I just realized that last month this blog turned 15 years old. That feels like a milestone to be proud of.

I started my Peace of Mind Organizing blog on November 10, 2006 with a post called What is organized?.

In the 15 years since, I’ve published 1532 posts (including my Worth Repeating posts, where I revisit favorite posts). I try to blog twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays), though that doesn’t happen every week. It’s usually more like five or six a month.

Writing a blog is a lot of work—particularly if you dedicate yourself to posting regularly. But for me it’s been well worth the effort. This blog has helped me and my business in so many ways. Here are a few:

It helps my search rankings, which puts me in front of prospective clients
It lets clients and prospective clients get to know me and understand that I’m not perfect
It also lets clients and prospective clients know that despite my imperfection, I have expertise
It’s allowed me to connect with people and companies throughout the world
It’s given me a lens through which to look at the world
It’s helped record my personal history so I don’t have to rely on my memory (in a way, it’s a very public journal)

One thing I like about blogging, over relying on social media channels to reach prospective clients, is that a blog is less ephemeral. Past social media posts are harder to find. Now I have a 15-year library all in one place that anyone can search or browse. I also prefer the spaciousness of blogging that social media doesn’t permit. I can use as many words as I want.

I like blogging so much that in 2012 I started a second blog, Organize Your Family History, which marries my passion for organizing with my passion for genealogy research. I try to post there twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays). I love that blog as well.

Blogging regularly takes discipline. But it’s also something that can easily become a habit. I don’t pre-write (or even pre-plan) my posts. I just decide what to write each morning. I include blogging as a daily task on my Trello task management board, just in case I need a reminder. And I also keep a Trello board of blog post ideas.

After 15 years and more than 1500 posts it can feel challenging to come up with fresh ideas. (Thus this post borrows a lot of its words from a post I wrote a year ago on the blog’s birthday.) If you have topics you would like to see me cover on the blog, please share them in the comments!

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

Tagged with: blogging, blogs, habits, writing