You should start a blog_

if you've thought about blogging you're in either one of two camps, the "yeah, I should probably do that", or the "why would I do that, sounds hard" lot.

Or maybe you do have a blog, I wouldn't know.

I'm here to tell you though that you should definitely start a blog, and here's why.

1. You'll increase your own knowledge

Explaining a topic to someone else is a great way to learn it yourself. Though you think you understand a topic (motorcycle engine repair, for example), and you can indeed repair any engine you work on, the ability to instantly recall the terminology and confidently express yourself while explaining the process comes across as a different level of understanding to others and to yourself.

Through the process of writing, you'll find that you'll be able to explain things more clearly and concisely, becoming able to recall the information more easily and in an eloquent practiced manner when prompted, as though you'd rehearsed it (you did).

And your own understanding of the topic will increase in general as you fact-check and verify certain information before hitting the publish button. After all, you wouldn't just go on the internet and publish lies.

2. You'll help others

You're a good person, yeah?

Remember the times you were stuck on some weird and obscure issue, or you were trying to learn something incredibly niche but were unable to find any resources that seemed to match it?

You copied your error message into Google with no results, StackOverflow closed your question as a duplicate of something unrelated, and their Discord #help forum completely ignored you (typical).

All until the one fourth page Bing result of a blog post written in 2004 appeared and with a terminal one-liner that was just right, installed an obscure library that finally fixed your skill issue.

"Thank god for blogger" you thought, "Google would be nothing without them."

It's your opportunity now to do your ✌️ karmic duty ☮︎ and pay it forward.

Random bugs you resolved are also a great topic to blog about when looking for ideas. There's a whole tag on this site dedicated to "micro-articles" for issues that held me up at work because the behaviour was undocumented.

It may seem "this is too small to post about", but it's not. It's perfect to someone. More on this later.

3. You'll up your rep

Now you may be a good person, but you're also a smart person, right? Right.

I know it, you know it. But does that hiring manager know it? Do your peers know it? Do your friends and family know it?

They must know your genius. Your brain is not smooth and in fact has deep wrinkles, wrinkle brother.

Having a base of your works where you go through and explain a variety of topics and projects in a way that's easy to understand is a great way to show off your skills and build a reputation for yourself.

Show them you work hard, you educate others, you're a knowledge disseminating machine who's active in the community as a

thought leader.

Seriously though, having a corpus of work that you can point to and say "I did that" is a great way to show you actually do play a more involved role in your space than others, even if it receives little traffic; your ability to explain and document concepts goes a long way in the interview process and the workplace.

Consider it.

4. It's free networking

I'm guessing you're not the kinda person who enjoys the LinkedIn SOP of over-enthusiastic "networking" and "connecting" with people you've never met and never will.

_{Psst. It's okay, neither am I. 👍}

Your blog, with its niche content, has the potential to pull the continued interest of people who are actually "space-adjacent" to you. Example, if your blog is about your experience in startups, or in a specific programming language, their thoughts will turn to you when considering for example, a new advisor, hire, or external developer for a project.

Your name will come to mind when they make recommendations to others like yourself when recommending resources. It's a good thing.

What do I write about?

Anything. Everything.

Roadblocks you encountered at work, stories of your own personal projects, that time you took a sick day and your boss saw you at the cinema.

It's all good content, and it's all interesting to someone.

Don't watch the view count, don't watch the follower count. Just write, and your flow will come to you.

Conclusion

Start a blog.

If you don't know where to start, but you like the look of this one, I've put together a repo with the code for a starter in NextJS, along with an accompanying blog article for how to write it from scratch if you'd like to learn something.

You should honestly code it yourself though, it's a good chance to have a simple project you can learn from and solidify your knowledge, wrinkle bro.

Ok, bye.