Yesterday, on December 6th - the Finnish Independence Day - I learned that I have apparently written 180 blog posts in 2016. The detail alone surprised me, but the context of how I learned this trivia was even more surprising. I was one of the mentions of my many achievements as I was awarded the MIATPP award - Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person - at Agile Testing Days 2016 in Potsdam, Germany.
I'm still a little bit in a state of disbelief (influential, me?) and feeling very appreciated with the mentions, likes and retweets on Twitter. But most of all, I get stuck on the idea of 180 blog posts - how did that happen?
With the number coming out, I wanted to share the secret to regular blogging with all of you. I learned it from people who talked to me about my blogging and in particular from Llewellyn Falco.
The secret to regular blogging is not planning for it. Not monitoring how much you're blogging. Using all your available energy around blogging into the action instead of the status.
There's a time for doing and a time for reflection. I apply cadences to reflection. There's the daily cadence of showing up to try things. There's the weekly cadence of seeing progress in small scale. There's the monthly and quarterly cadence of trying to see flow of value I generate. And there's the annual and lifelong cadences of appreciating things I've learned and people I've learned with.
I write for myself. I still surprises me that people read what I write. I'm still "just a tester" believing no one is really just anything. I live and breathe learning, and blogging is just one of the many tools to learn. If I write (or give face to face) awful advice, I can learn from it. If I don't give the advice, if I don't share my experience, I'm one more step away from being able to learn what could really work.
Share to learn. Care to learn. And wonderful things will emerge.
I'm still a little bit in a state of disbelief (influential, me?) and feeling very appreciated with the mentions, likes and retweets on Twitter. But most of all, I get stuck on the idea of 180 blog posts - how did that happen?
With the number coming out, I wanted to share the secret to regular blogging with all of you. I learned it from people who talked to me about my blogging and in particular from Llewellyn Falco.
The secret to regular blogging is not planning for it. Not monitoring how much you're blogging. Using all your available energy around blogging into the action instead of the status.
There's a time for doing and a time for reflection. I apply cadences to reflection. There's the daily cadence of showing up to try things. There's the weekly cadence of seeing progress in small scale. There's the monthly and quarterly cadence of trying to see flow of value I generate. And there's the annual and lifelong cadences of appreciating things I've learned and people I've learned with.
I write for myself. I still surprises me that people read what I write. I'm still "just a tester" believing no one is really just anything. I live and breathe learning, and blogging is just one of the many tools to learn. If I write (or give face to face) awful advice, I can learn from it. If I don't give the advice, if I don't share my experience, I'm one more step away from being able to learn what could really work.
