If you’re trying to be a daily blogger, note – it does make an impact on your life

So I realized recently that I don’t talk about blogging very much on my blog. Which makes sense since my blog is focused on domains, but as a blogger I feel like every once and a while I should talk about what I do every day.

When I started this blog I had absolutely no idea I would still be writing eleven years later. I also didn’t realize how this would impact my life because it does, and mostly in a very good way, but in some ways it certainly creates complexity.

As you know I run a startup, which means that I work pretty much all the time. While people who work at big tech companies like Facebook or Google get to enjoy a “work-life balance” I get constant stress and work that really never ends. Of course, as a founder you give up this work-life balance because you should be doing something you truly believe in. So for me, this sacrifice as been well worth it.

Then you layer in my blog. I write blog posts usually after work so typically sometime after 7PM. After working all day, a lot of people come home, decompress, have dinner with their family, etc. When my day ends, I usually try to have dinner, and then it’s often back onto my computer to write my blog post.

Sometimes what I want to write about just pops in my head, other times I start to search around and see if I can find something interesting that I think all of you would enjoy. Over the years I’ve kept an eye on which posts/topics get the most reads and comments, and I try to keep those coming. This means, sometimes something pops into my head and I think, eh – I don’t think my readers are going to find that very interesting.

If I ever miss a weekday, which does happen from time to time, I feel guilty. It’s a strange feeling but if I go to sleep and didn’t write a blog post that day, I actually have trouble sleeping and feel compelled to write a post right away, if I don’t then it just eats away at me all day.

Vacations are also tricky. Usually, if I’m planning on going away for a week and actually “trying” to unplug, that means I will spend typically an entire weekend day just writing to schedule the posts for the week. This year we went to Yosemite and I wrote four posts in our tent the day before we went on a backpacking trip and actually were completely unplugged.

Okay, now I’m making it sound like blogging is a hassle – but it isn’t, it is a commitment though. What I learned over the years is that blogging is actually incredibly relaxing (for me), in some ways it’s a bit like meditation. For over a decade now I’ve been writing, pretty much every single day, and it has become a lot more than just writing a post, this is a core part of my life. It’s the way I center myself at the end of an incredibly busy day and I honestly can’t imagine life without it.

Okay, so now let’s get back to the title of this post – I’ll remind you so you don’t have to scroll up, “If you’re trying to be a daily blogger, note that it does make an impact on your life”

I was talking to a friend last week who was interested in starting a blog. They asked me how hard it is to stay consistent and keep blogging every day. And well, I told them pretty much everything I wrote above. They told me, “wow – I need to think about that, I’m not sure I like writing that much”

Blogging every week or writing a Medium post here or there is one thing, but running a daily blog is a serious commitment. It’s a commitment to your readers to make sure that your content is a priority and that you pay attention to what they’re reading and commenting on and bringing as much of that as you can. If you can make writing part of your daily zen practice, then it can make a very positive impact on your life.

At the same time, it’s not for everyone and if you want to live your life as you do today, this might be more of a sacrifice then you’d want to take on. All that being said, I hope all of you live well into your hundreds because my plan is to keep on writing! If you made it this far, thanks for reading 🙂

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton