I suspect I may drag out the end of the year with a few reviews. But today I wanted to reflect on my blogging here at Physician in Numbers.
I passed my 1 year anniversary in the fall, but 2019 is the first year I blogged the whole calendar year. I have a few accomplishments to celebrate, and some reflections.
Accomplishments
I completed 1 year of blogging. I missed a few days here and there, but mostly posted 3 times a week. I hear many blogs don’t make it that far.
After being featured in an interview with WealthyMomMD (I’m Katrina) in early September, I had some visitors to the site. That was very exciting!
Soon after that my post Fees Always Matter caught the eye of the Physician on Fire, and was featured in a Sunday Best round up post. That brought more visitors and was even more exciting!
Goals Achieved
I had wanted to accomplish a few other things when I started blogging. Here are a few I managed:
I did not become a prolific commenter, but I did finally comment on several of the many blogs I follow regularly. It made me feel like less of a lurker (lurkers have a creepy undertone) and more like a member of a group.
I wrote about some goals, like exercising, in the hopes I would be more likely to reach them. Though I failed spectacularly in my exercise goals last week (to be detailed in Friday’s post), overall I did a much better job exercising 150 minutes because I felt the pressure to blog about them. Some of the other goals mentioned in my Future Me posts are clearly aspirational, but I think blogging about them helped me make some progress.
unexpected benefits
I hadn’t really planned on this, but blogging on a weekly basis (if not twice weekly) has really buffed up my writing. Though I write multiple progress notes daily, that sort of writing doesn’t often stretch my brain in quite the same way.
Mr. Physician in Numbers says blogging has sharpened me up, too. I guess I get to the point more quickly in conversation.
I also find I feel more confident at work. This might be age and experience, but I think feeling like an expert–even if just in my own blog that few people read–bleeds over into my real life.
What Next?
hide or seek
Since September and October, when my readership spiked after the blog was mentioned on bigger, more popular blogs, very few people have stayed on to read more. I laugh when I read blog posts about wanting to hit 10,000 blog views a month; I don’t think I’ve had 1000 views since starting the blog.
Actually, I just checked–I topped 1000 views, but I think some of those are me, being counted by accident.
I sometimes feel jealous of other blogs that are more widely read. They seem to be much more successful. If my posts are helpful, or entertaining, no one will know, because I don’t think anyone reads them.
On the other hand, I feel pretty empowered to post whatever I like. Who will be offended by my writing? Who will argue with me, telling me this is useless drivel? No one knows what I write, or cares!
Mostly, I think this boils down to not knowing what I want: safe obscurity, to natter away on whatever strikes my fancy? Or a little bit more Internet fame, and the opportunity to interact with others (still anonymously, since I have issues around being outed to my boss).
I have an inkling of what I should do to get the blog more attention, but I’m thinking, for now, that I prefer a little obscurity. Maybe.
quality or quantity
Related to that is deciding what I want to do about my blogging schedule.
I have been posting (mostly) 3 days a week: Mondays about money, Fridays about fitness, Wednesdays about whatever. Some weeks my posts are, shall we say, less polished. However, having a schedule to stick to keeps me from polishing a post endlessly.
I could, as Mr. Physician in Numbers suggests, take a little more time on each post and post only weekly.
Pros: better writing, less pressure to post (this sometimes kills Sunday nights, and even Tuesdays), a little more time to gather my thoughts. Hopefully I would be prouder of my posts and more open to publicizing the blog.
Cons: Skipping one or two posts could break my streak, which as I’ve noted before, is one of my big motivations to keep things going. And the pressure to perfect my post could lead to more stress than I have now with my M-W-F posts.
More Immediate Plans
For now, my hope is to get back into blogging more regularly.
I foresee some end of year wrap ups, some Future Me updates (once I get at least one goal done), and buffing some posts that are 80% done.
Maybe a summary of setting up a spousal IRA, because I want to get it done, and I might as well research it a bit.
I might noodle around with organizing my posts a little better, and putting together a round up list.
If anyone besides me or my spouse is reading, do you have any suggestions or preferences? What brought you here?