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My Reflections On 23 Days Of Blogging In August

My Reflections On 23 Days Of Blogging In August

Today is my last day blogging each weekday for the month of August 2017. I've written twenty-three new blog posts alongside my friend Jim Karwisch. As the challenge came to an end, I felt a sense of Deja-Vu. It then it hit me. I've done this type of writing challenge before. In fact, these previous challenges have equipped me to make it happen this month.

Past Writing Challenges & Examples

In 2015, I silently participated in the Your Turn Challenge from Winnie J. Kao, Seth Godin's Special Projects Lead. The essence of the challenge comes from a statement Seth told Winnie. Every day you don't post a blog, you fail. So, what if you learn to publish a new blog post every day, no matter what? 
 
I participated in this seven-day blogging challenge and it kicked off my 2015 blog writing. While I wasn't able to publish in seven consequence days, the challenge directly led to me finishing blog posts about purpose, mission, vision, core values, and the Formula for Intentionality.
 
Excluding my question of the day and content roundups, I wrote just over thirty blog articles in 2014. In 2015, I ended up writing just under thirty blog posts.  At the end of 2015, I began writing my first book, Path Of The Freelancer. This extended over the next eighteen months where I was writing what seemed like all the time between my book and blog. In 2016, I wrote almost forty blog posts and this was alongside writing a book. My writing muscles definitely grew during that time.
 
Once I had finished writing the book and transitioned into promotion mode in early 2017, I decided to do another daily writing challenge to help promote the book. It led to me experimenting with Quora, writing answers to questions every day of the week for three months. I wrote a little over sixty answers on Quora during this time. By the end of July 2017 and before starting my August Blogging challenge, I had written eighteen blog articles on my personal blog. 
 
After running across the podcast from Being Freelance with Guest Lauren Hooker on her year of blogging daily, I suggested to my friend Jim that he start blogging daily to help grow his coaching business and that I'd be willing to do it alongside him to help grow my personal platform. He agreed and we've now both completed this blogging challenge. In August, I've written twenty-three, so I've now written a total of forty-one posts for the year.

Blogging Daily

I've followed the daily bloggers Seth Godin and David Cummings for several years now being taught, encouraged and inspired to follow in their footsteps. Their example of blogging daily speaks louder than the well-crafted words they put together, and now the question is, do I continue this new habit? Inspired by the month of writing, Jim suggested that we continue through September and invite others to join us. I agreed and we have each recruited three friends to join in on the challenge. I suspect I'll sustain this weekday writing habit through November (with some possible art work along the way). Blogging every weekday with a month off in December, I'm on track to publish over one-hundred blogs for the year. This will be more articles than the three prior years combined.

Website Traffic Update

What's also interesting is the momentum that begun before I started this writing challenge. Here is my website traffic since January. I had a huge boost in July allowing me to tap into this momentum as I followed through on the challenge for August. 

All Website Traffic

 
Website Traffic From Search Engines
A good amount of this growth has come as the result of traffic flowing to my site from the search engines. The volume of visitors also picked up this month with me sharing all of my blog posts across social media and email.  
 

Acceleration Reminded Me Of My Backlog Of Stories & Ideas

In addition to growing my discipline to write, I've also experienced the benefit of refining my writing process and clearing out the dust that accumulated with less active blogging. Writing here and there doesn't require much planning and structure, but when I intentionally escalated the volume, it pushed me to get my systems in order. This has also shown me how much great content I've got in the pipeline to share. This excites and inspires me to continue going with Jim Karwisch on this weekday blogging challenge. I see the benefit for me to write and publish this treasure trove of insights to provide value to my readers, so I'll see you tomorrow when I begin another month of weekday blogging.

A List Of All Articles From August 2017

In case you missed any, here is the full list of published blog posts I wrote during the month of August.

Week 1

  1. What Could Twenty Three Days Of Blogging Do For You Or Your Business?
  2. How I'm Leveraging Business's Needs To Empower Freelancers
  3. Why I Impose A Cap On How Much A Client Can Work With Me
  4. How Answering These Five Questions Can Give You Instant Clarity And Focus

Week 2

  1. This Simple Metaphor Will Give You And Your Team Clarity On Roles And Responsibilities
  2. We Caught A Fishing Pole That Caught A Catfish At Lake Powell
  3. This Is One Thing I Would Have Done Differently 12 Years Ago
  4. Are You Trimming Hedges When You've Been Asked To Mow The Lawn?
  5. My Invitational Prayer For God To Bring His Order Into My Life

Week 3

  1. How Switching To A Healthcare Sharing Service Has Saved Us Almost Forty Thousand Dollars
  2. How I Leverage My Kids' Defiance To Teach And Correct Them
  3. What Is The Deal With My Email Greeting?
  4. How I'm Focusing More Clearly On My Business Offerings
  5. My Current Prayer & The Meaning Behind It

Week 4

  1. Make One Simple Change When Asking This Question
  2. We Need To Take Initiative Because Personal Development Doesn't Just Happen
  3. These Were The Reasons I Chose To Self Publish My First Book
  4. What Is Personality Testing & How Does It Affect Our Behavior?
  5. My Simple Workflow To Capture & Publish My Best Writing Ideas

Week 5

  1. This Simple Ingredient Improves Your Blog's Effectiveness
  2. The 17 Tools I Use To Move Blogs From Concept To Completion
  3. Our Stories Free Others To Share Their Struggles

Photo by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash

Weekday Blogging Challenge

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