30 Posts in 30 Days: Quantity vs Quality
Last month, I began an experiment to publish one blog post every day. It was fun, and I’m glad I tried it, but have decided to stop. Here’s why:
1. My writing often felt incomplete. One day is not enough time to choose a topic, explore its nuances, create a story around it, and come out with something meaningful. My writing felt shallow, and I found myself rushing to a conclusion to get something posted. I didn’t like that: I was sacrificing quality for quantity. There is truth in getting better with more repetitions, but at some point you need to create work you are truly proud of.
2. Posting every day was taking a long time. I would spend 2-4 hours each day on a post, and that took away from reading or working towards more serious writing projects. Before this experiment, I would dedicate a day to reading and thinking before writing, or writing more short stories. Now, those parts are missing from my practice.
As a result, I’ll go back to my old publishing schedule: Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. That way, I’ll be able to take time to rest and read, but more importantly, write without feeling the need to rush to conclusions.
It’s interesting to note that the results of my experiment are similar to those of Derek Sivers, who also tried writing daily a few years ago. Despite this, I believe there is still utility in daily posting, which I’ll explore another time, but for now, for me at this time, this experiment comes to a gentle close.
For interest, these were the 30 posts that wrote, starting from the announcement of my experiment:
1: My Daily Posting Commitment
2: Taking The Leap and The Asymmetry Of Reward
3: Trauma and Software
4: Life is a Verb
5: Useful Make Believe
6: The Magic
7: Rain
8: The Joy of Being Wrong
9: People Are Unbearingly Interesting
10: Suspensions In Time
11: Suggested Resolutions
12: The Effort and The Reward
13: Perfection and Goodness
14: The Problem With Sparknotes
15: On Giving Your All
16: The Secret
17: Aching Kind of Growing
18: That’s Interesting
19: ChatGPT and Creating
20: Knowledge Vs Experience
21: Here We Go Again
22: On Half-Finished Ideas
23: Planting The Little Acorns
24: Why Storytelling Matters
25: Our Worst Days
26: My Favourite Newsletters and Inputs
27: Books Speak To Each Other
28: A Fine Day
29: The Riches of Daily Life
30: Centre of My World
Onwards and upwards.
2 thoughts on “30 Posts in 30 Days: Quantity vs Quality”
It’s been a great experiment to observe Eric! 🙂 From the perspective of an observer, I was rather surprised over some of the posts from the past 30 days! Overall, the insights I learned were very fascinating to ponder about, that you were able to achieve this level of quality :)) Out of curiosity, based on your personal preference, what has been the most optimum posting schedule for you which optimises both quality and quantity? Anyhow, I continue to look forward to your regular posts. Thanks Eric! 🙂
This is a subjective question, but for me, probably 2-3 times a week. This experiment showed me the importance of extended periods of reading and thinking, and daily posting was just taking away from that. So now I’ll try to spread out my posts a little, and develop what I’m pondering into (hopefully) more thoughtful ideas. Thanks for following along, hope you’re doing well Bryan 🙂