Hello World 2.0

The past

It has been 7+ years since I started blogging on the Internet. It was a way of getting myself out there and working on my writing muscle a little more. I have never been a strong user of the english language, therefore it was a step in the right direction for me to change that.

A few years after starting my site and writing occasionally I also increased my reading load. In order to increase my retention and learnings of the books I was quickly consuming I decided to share my reviews publicly. Between the occasional blog and the regular book reviews I started to build some sort of cadence.

To think I’ve written over 300+ posts is just staggering to me (my first one is here). However you just have to start and write. You post them one by one and after months and years the number begins to build. I’m a better writer and I’ve learned so much throughout the process.

The present

Over the past few weeks I’ve tasked myself with moving away from WordPress and GoDaddy and instead use Ghost’s platform. WordPress and GoDaddy has served me well however I feel the platform is quite slow and weighed down.

In contrast Ghost’s platform is super simple, extremely fast and has the integrations I need to use today and tomorrow. It has driven me to roll up my sleeves and remember how to code a little in order to get the site just right. All in all I’m happy with my v2.0 and will continue to tweak going forward. What is different is that I’ve broken up my book reviews and blogs into two different sections. You can easily subscribe to each via RSS.

The future

I’m writing this blog to continue the efforts I started all those years back. To put myself out there, to speak my mind through words and to learn and give back throughout the process. Writing has been challenging plus being consistent is a thing. To achieve this routine is key and friction must be minimised.

Hence my decision to use Ghost as it simplifies the workflow, distraction and allows me to just write. With migrating to Ghost I’m hoping that my workflow of writing in Ulysses and publishing to Ghost will make things easier.

I’ve also structured this post in a way that I’ll be using quite a lot going forward (e.g. past, present, future). Throughout each week I come across many quotes, learnings and ideas that I want to pull together into a weekly digest that is primarily for me to reflect on. Yet why not also share this with the world? You can simply subscribe via my website and also join in on the learnings (see the purple subscribe button at the bottom right). The plan is to get the newsletter process all setup in the next couple of weeks with a consistent plan to send them out by Sunday each week. Enjoy!