Building in public

I have been fascinated by the idea of building a business in public for quite some time, years, actually. Building in public is about sharing your progress, your successes and failures, while you are building your business. I haven’t put any research into this topic, and (until recently) I haven’t followed anyone who is actually doing it. But for some reason, I really like the concept. Why build in public? The two obvious benefits of building in public from a business perspective can be: [Read More]

Writing and publishing a blog-post for 30 days

This is my 30th blog-post in 30 days. A little over thirty days ago I decided that I will finally try to blog daily, at least for a limited amount of time. At the time I thought that it would be really cool to challenge myself to blog for 30 days. At the same time, that seemed like a very tall order. How to write a daily blog-post for 30 days The trick is: don’t start with the goal to blog for thirty days! [Read More]

Why do you want to do it?

Have you ever wanted to start doing something, but never got around to doing it? Maybe you always wanted to go running every day, start meditating every day, or write a daily journal. Isn’t it strange how we really believe that we want to do something, and we also know we would greatly benefit from doing it, but then we never get started? Life gets in the way. There are always reasons to put it of. [Read More]

7-day programming challenge recap

Yesterday I successfully completed my 7-day programming challenge working on MembershipNerd. I had set out to start a new project, and work on it at least 30 minutes for seven consecutive days. How did I do? I tracked 10.5 hours of work on MembershipNerd during those seven days. That is exactly three times the minimum of 3.5 hours that I had set as a goal for myself. On top of that, I also wrote five blog-posts about the progress or particular problems I was having: [Read More]

Confessions of an introvert

I quite like this definition of what it means to be introverted vs. extroverted: An introvert is a person who is drained when being with other people, and is re-energized when being alone by themselves. An extrovert is a person who is drained when being alone, and is re-energized when being with other people. Or, a little more practical: After a long week of work, the introvert says: “Finally, I’ll get some time by myself”, while the extrovert will say “Finally, I’ll get to spend time with friends. [Read More]

Blogging daily for three weeks

Update: I made it to thirty days and wrote a longer re-cap after completing 30 days of blogging, including some stats from Google Analytics. Three weeks ago I decided to start an experiment: writing one blog-post every day for at least ten days. I have written about my disappointment when completing that ten-day-milestone. Today is day 21. How am I feeling about my daily blogging after three weeks? I am very surprised that I have not struggled very much to find things to write about. [Read More]

Defining the rules for my 7-day project challenge

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am planning a 7-day challenge to work on a personal project called MembershipNerd. The most important principle for this challenge is that I will focus on the process, the daily routine, not the outcome. The reason for this is simple: This exercise is about doing something daily, not about completing the personal project. Without further ado, here are the rules: each day, I must work at least 30 consecutive minutes on the project blogging about the project does not count as working on the project, but everything else counts Why not an hour or more? [Read More]

Starting a 7-day challenge

I have been pondering the idea of beginning a new personal project. I do have a couple of ideas, but I am hesitant to really commit to one of them. One reason for my hesitation is that none of the projects really excite me. And at this point I don’t really want to commit to a project if I am not genuinely excited. Especially, because I know from experience that I will feel bad about myself when I eventually drop those projects. [Read More]

Taking a trip on a blank page

Writing is like taking a trip. What if you feel like you want to take a trip, but you don’t have a destination? If you don’t know where you want to go, how can you even get there? How do you know you are on the right path? How do you know when you have arrived? So many unsolved questions. That’s what it feels like to me when I sit in front of a blank page. [Read More]

Design your feedback loops

Once you start thinking about feedback loops, you will find them everywhere. In nature, your body, your personal life, your professional life, your neighborhood, your city. Everywhere. Feedback loops are incredibly powerful. Their main feature is the power to change the system that is receiving the feedback. A system that is receiving feedback, can and most likely will change over time. What feedback loops are in your life? Have you thought about designing your own feedback loops? [Read More]