Start a blog
Nothing will be a good substitute from starting a blog, or writing a post, right today!
No matter:
- how many blog articles you read,
- how many books about blogging you consume,
- how many things you learn to blog about,
nothing will be a good substitute from starting a blog today!
If you have a blog, publish a post today!
For startes, you can use WordPress. Not free, but probably the simplest.
If you are a programmer, you can set up a blog with GitLab Pages or GitHub Pages.
Either way, you'll have a BIG step behind you instead of on the ever-escaping horizon.
What if my blog quickly becomes obsolete? It will need updates, perhaps the entire platform will go out of business one day! What then?
It's much easier to copy ("migrate") and edit content that already exists somewhere, than write it all down. Much easier.
I don't have anything to blog about!
Whatever you do, you'll certainly notice gaps in knowledge that is available on the topic.
Normally we find the solution and move on.
Imagine how much easier life would be if everyone wrote down the answer they had found for a given non-trivial question.
Even if that answer seems very obvious to you when you find it, it may be of great help to someone else.
As Paul Graham put it:
Knowledge grows fractally. From a distance its edges look smooth, but when you learn enough to get close to one, you'll notice it's full of gaps. These gaps will seem obvious; it will seem inexplicable that no one has tried x or wondered about y. In the best case, exploring such gaps yields whole new fractal buds.
– http://paulgraham.com/getideas.html
Once you find such an answer, writing it down helps make sure someone else looking for it, will have the choice to spend their time otherwise, perhaps with more benefit to them.
On top of that, it is much easier to organize your knowledge somewhere instead of just keeping it in your head.
It feels weird to be writing down my thoughts and findings. This feels like my "private" space.
A good part of your experience does not need to be kept confidential. Instead of saving it on your computer, you could just as well make it available to other people.
They gain a lot this way, and you don't lose a thing.
Incidentally, that's just how Google states its purpose:
Google’s mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
– https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/