Another Year! Celebrating This Blog’s 16th Anniversary

This week (on Friday, to be exact), this blog will reach its 16th anniversary. In some ways, it seems like just yesterday when I posted my first post.

As we approach my blog’s 16th anniversary, I can’t help but remember how things started. I posted my first post on Feb. 7, 2004.

Actually, I posted my first blog post in about November of 2003, but it wasn’t really a blog per se. I started a static website and posted a short essay. I meant for it to be a post that would stay up a short time until I came up with something better. When I did, I’m sorry to tell you that I deleted the original post and replaced it with the second.

I only published three pieces on that single static webpage before I decided to find a better way.

That “better way,” for better or worse, ended up being an account on America Online’s blogging platform, AOL Journals. I was there for about a year-and-a-half or so until concerns about the security of our content led me to Blogger.

In 2007, I bought this domain and moved to WordPress.

I don’t regret that decision at all. I went about my merry blogging way for more than a decade.

All the while, I never lost a sense of amazement that week after week, month after month, people still visited. They (you) still dropped by to see what I might say next.

That’s very humbling.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve seen a decline in visitors and page views, although I saw an increase in January. Don’t ask me why.

Maybe it’s normal with all of the privacy regulations and cookie policies and what kind of data Google Analytics can and can’t keep.

Or, maybe I’ve worn out my welcome for a handful of folks.

Still, I do try my best to be entertaining, informative, or both. Preferably both when possible.

But last year, I finally admitted something.

The pressure of daily posting, something I’d done for more than six years, was beginning to be too much.

I started posting every single day a year before my real job changed. Suddenly, I was managing a professional website. That involved a lot of writing. Adding that pressure to the daily pressure of writing on this blog was more than I realized.

So last year, on July 1, I finally pulled the trigger on a decision I’d been contemplating for a while: I changed my posting schedule.

Instead of posting seven days a week, I decided to drop that to five days — Monday through Friday. I didn’t change the key topics I write about. I only changed the number of posts per week that I write.

I’m quick to admit that I still feel pressure to publish. I’ll even tell you that there are days when I struggle to find a topic to cover. (At least, one that I haven’t already covered in a similar manner.)

But reducing the amount of pressure, even a small amount, can make a big difference.

If there’s one thing I learned over the last year, that was it.

So as I celebrate my 16th anniversary at this blog, I encourage you to look for sources of pressure in your life.

Can you make a small change here or there and reduce it a bit?

No one likes drastic changes. But sometimes, a small adjustment is more than enough to keep you going.

I hope you’ll take time to look at what might be causing unnecessary levels of stress. Then act to change that. Every little bit of positive change, no matter how small, helps.

Thanks, as always, for reading.