Blog updates in forever. Since a year, a lot has changed in my life and my drive to continue blogging.
Why I stopped
Many reasons factored into why I stopped updates, but the main contender is priority. From work-related increase of responsibilities, to a shift in other projects that bring joy, the blog just couldn’t be the highest priority for my long-term goals, until now.
Other Free-time/Past-time Projects
I recently finished some of my other projects. Some projects are fun such as creating my own tabletop rpg and set of rules, and others serve to give me a buffer for professional development. Coupled with this I can confidently spend less time on the search and more time organizing my knowledge by writing posts.
Runway
In a startup, runway is the amount of time left until funds run dry and bankruptcy (Chapter 11) is filed. This is the biggest reason I started job-seeking again, as my well starts to runs dry. I’m glad that working as an SE was able to fund my time to try out new careers, but the recent monetary value and cost of living has sky-rocketed to where I don’t feel financially secure in California.
Work-Life Integration
With great power comes great responsibility, and that is true for promotions as well. Starting 2022, I didn’t have time to work on the blog. While I got a nice raise of 20k to my annual salary, it meant work played a larger part of my life and would engrained in it. I would be working with clients in other timezones and commuting 3-4 hours to office per trip. It also accelerated my burnt out, but that’s it’s own story.
What I plan to do
Contrary to the “write it when you think it”. I’ll be trying to restablish a cadence and reflect on what I’ve learned in my four years of working. I’ll set milestones to come up with topics ahead of time, rather than spur of the moment. I’ll also add functional improvements towards the minimalist design of the blog.
Design Decisions
I’ve wanted tags for a while but never thought of what they could be. After looking back at the current state I realize how cringe “MAGICAL” as a blog title is. I’m going to rename the blog (again), and reuse the acronyms of magical as tags.
I’ve also wanted comments, but seeing as hosting a real-time RSS feed isn’t cheap, it’s been put on definite hiatus. The whole reason I went with this site style was frugality and minimallism, so I have no plans to increase the financial burden.
Posting Plan
In an effort to practice following a posting plan and integrate professionalism into the blog, I’ll be creating a content plan. With the focus on meeting deadlines and conveying high-quality findings.
To start off I’ll be planning these 4 topics that hit me hard while I was evolving as a Technical Writer.
1. Why I became a technical writer?
I’ve been asked this in nearly every interview, but never had a good answer under pressure. If you were to ask me day one, I’d chalk it down to creativity and freedom, but after working in it for almost 2 years it’s changed to be so much more.
2. Work-Life Harmony
Years ago, I wrote about Work-Life Integration, but after a couple “corporate” experiences, I realize that integration, isolation, and assimilation have edge cases where elements of work or life cannot be balanced.
3. Experiencing Imposter Syndrome
A prime cause of accelerated burnout and a fear of horizontal growth. I’ll go deep into what kind of imposter syndrome I relate to, and how I reframe it positively to overcome the “imposter” part.
4. Scrum-Like Project Management
I’m no project manager in title, but working with a diverse set of people have helped me discover what my project management methodology is. It’s not Scrum, but it involves finding the what works and improvising the rest.