canyonwalker | September Blogging & Backlog (Reply)

It's been a couple months since I wrote about my stats on blogging. Here's a check-in on the month just finished, September 2024. I wrote 57 entries in the month, for an average of 1.9 per day.

As I often do with goal setting I set a range of three goals, low, medium, and high. The low, or baseline goal is the minimum I want to meet. The medium goal is my target. And the high is my aggressive goal or stretch goal.

My baseline goal has been to write to my blog at least once a day. Years ago I softened that from "post every day" to "average at least one a day". I wish to reassert the original meaning now as I've managed to post every day for nearly 6 months. My last skip day was April 2. I like the discipline and commitment of writing every day. I haven't always felt like it this month.Several days I asked myself, "Does it really matter if I don't post something tonight?" I decided yes, it matters. It matters to me.

With my average of 1.9 posts/day in September I ably surpassed my target of 1.5. That's more than each of the past two months. What really boosted me in September was the week long trip Hawk and I took early in the month to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Travel, originally for business but in recent years mostly for pleasure, has always been the main driver of my blog.

I fell just short of my stretch goal of 2/day. I fell short in August and July, too, though came closest in September. Could I have reached 2/day? Absolutely. I have a mental backlog of at least 10 posts I could have written in September... if I'd had the time and the will to do so. Like I noted above, there were days it took effort just to post once.

What's in this mental backlog I mentioned? I'll jot down a few of the items here so they're at least no longer exclusively in my head:

There are a few more blogs I've been meaning to write from the hiking & 4x4 trip we took two weekends ago. Yes, that trip is 10 days past now. And there are at least 2 entries, maybe 3, more I aim to write about it.

I'm behind on blogging about the two TV streaming series I've watched this year. There are be easily 5+ blogs in that category. Though the farther I get from having actually watched the shows the less likely I am to write, or to write in detail. So depending on how long it takes to get to it, they probably won't be 5 entries anymore.

Politics. As I've remarked before on the topic of politics, though I seldom post about it in this blog it's not because I don't follow politics but because I've chosen to prioritize it lowly as a topic for blogging about. I have wanted to blog about political current events at least a dozen times this month. And of course, that backlog only ever grows. I don't know how many political entries I'll get around to writing in the near future. As I said, while thinking about it is very much top-of-mind, writing about it is low on my priority list.