My 100th Blogpost
Wow, I can hardly believe it—this is my 100th blog post!
When I first started this journey, I never imagined I’d get this far. Whether you’ve been with me from the beginning or just joined the adventure, I’m so glad you’re here.
In this post, I’ll be reflecting on the highlights, challenges, and lessons learned along the way. So, grab a cup of coffee, get comfortable, and let’s dive into the story of how we got to 100 posts together!
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| Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash |
Highlights
Personal Improvement
This is my number 1 highlight of writing online: personal improvement. This improvement has two dimensions
- Getting better at writing: My English has improved, and when I compare my recent articles to my first few posts, I think I can explain things more clearly now. The posts feel better structured and there isn’t too much fluff.
- Learn new things through explaining them: I believe that teaching is the best way to learn. When you have to explain a concept to someone new to the topic, you’re forced to start with the basics. This makes you reflect on your gaps in knowledge: If you can’t explain something in simple language, you most likely don’t fully understand it yet.
Best article ever
Especially with the transparent metrics at Medium, you can easily observe how well an article is perceived. When an article surpasses 50 reads it is always a highlight. So many people read my thoughts: how cool is that - thank you to all readers!!
Other than my About Me, my most-read article is Top 7 Books for 2024. I wouldn’t have thought that when I published it first, but it seems as if list-like articles are well received because this article also had many reads.
I think it’s great that you can earn money on Medium through the partner program. However, as frequently discussed on the platform, it’s often unclear how the earnings are calculated. Since “reading time” is probably a big part of how earnings are measured, it’s a good idea to look at the articles with the highest earnings too.
However, the types of articles that earn the most money are quite different from those that get the most reads. It seems like articles deeply connected to personal stories tend to earn more on average. My article with the highest earnings is 5 Learnings from A Head of Digital Transformation Management - a personal reflection on my role as a Head of Digital Transformation Management.
Unlocking a different lens
Since I started writing online, I’ve noticed that I learn new things differently.
When I read a book or an article, listen to a podcast, or watch the news, I look at it through a different lens, thinking, “This is interesting: how could I share this in an article?”.
This different lens helps with memorization.
As I mentioned in “Personal improvement”, I believe you only fully understand something if you can explain it to someone else. When you learn something new and think about how to share it, it makes it easier to spot gaps in your knowledge.
Challenges (and how to overcome them)
Find motivation to write
In general, I didn’t have many issues with finding the motivation to write. After getting the hang of writing (10-15 articles), it got second nature and now I enjoy it a lot.
However, there are “those days” when work is very stressful and many things are going on. If a day is full of responsibilities it can be hard to find motivation to sit down and write for two hours.
Two things helped me to overcome it:
- Have an article backlog: When I’m motivated to write, the energy doesn’t stop after finishing one article. I usually keep going and end up writing several articles at once. This way, I’m not forced to come up with something on “those days” when I’m not feeling it.
- Shorter writing sessions: At first I only started a writing session if I was sure I’d be uninterrupted for the next 2 hours. However, in our busy lives, this isn’t always possible. I had to change my mindset. If I am in the mood of writing and just have 20 minutes, I just write. I won’t complete an article, but I can at least jot down a thought or write an outline.
Publish consistently
I’ve read this dozens of times before I started to write online: you need to publish consistently if you want to create a following.
This can be incredibly hard.
Especially if you are working full-time, and have a family and other obligations.
What helped me were the following things:
- Don’t over-commit: Not everyone can put out three articles per day. If you over-commit, chances are that your motivation quickly fades. The solution was to set a realistic goal: I wanted to write 100 articles in my first year, which meant writing about two articles per week.
- Have an article backlog: As described in the previous section, an article backlog can help tremendously. If you are some articles ahead it reduces the pressure: you can still publish consistently even if you take a week off from writing.
- Have an idea backlog: Having a collection of ideas for articles at hand is very useful when you are in a writing mindset, but don’t know what to write about. Grab an idea and start!
- Create a publishing schedule: This has two benefits. Firstly, it takes the pressure off, if you pre-define what to publish when. Secondly, it helps you organize a variety of topics and article types, keeping your content fresh and engaging for your readers.
Perfectionism
I used to rewrite and edit my first few articles multiple times before publishing them. Did they get better? I hope so. But I’ve realized that spending too much time perfecting each article isn’t always worth it.
It’s more important to see writing online as a learning journey. If you make a few typos or miss some grammar details, the world won’t end. In fact, with features like comments on Medium, readers will often help you spot ways to improve.
As Eve Arnold often says, there’s no better way to get better than to practice in public. Only if you put your work out there you’ll be able to become better!
Lessons learned
Follow-up posts
I learned that follow-up posts can be quite successful. This is especially true if they follow up an already successful article or comment.
Be clear
Cut the fluff.
There is so much content and every day there is more created. So people consuming the content have hundreds of options. Don’t steal their time with beating around the bush. Get to the point and be clear.
Length
Article length is a controversial topic and depends on the article type.
For a deep dive or a detailed how-to, longer articles are essential. But in general, I find that 1,000 to 1,200 words is a sweet spot. It’s long enough to offer something valuable without demanding too much of the reader’s time.
What I learned, is that mixing up article lengths can be a great thing. I started with articles that were 5-6 minute reads but later added some shorter pieces (150 to 300 words). This variety caters to different types of readers and helps you become more concise - there’s no room for fluff in a 150-word article!
So let’s keep it with that and don’t create some additional fluff!
Thank you for reading!
Cheers, Matthias