I'm Starting a 30 Day Challenge to Get Back to Blogging

I randomly found this blog post about T cells. It’s written by Jamie Heather, an immunology PhD student in London, who posts his science thoughts online. He posts a few times a month, but he has kept it up for a few years. I only had to read a couple of his older posts to realize that this is a guy I could grab a beer with.

Then I realized that the only content in my blog was four badly formatted posts with broken links, and that I hadn’t posted anything new in two months. If browsing a few posts from a total stranger living in London made me think he was a cool guy, why am I not making it easy for other people to reach the same conclusion about me?

So I’m starting a 30-day challenge:

Every day, for the next 30 days, I will write something on my blog. It doesn’t have to be earth-shatteringly interesting, funny or clever, just whatever I’m thinking about that day. One paragraph is the minimum, two if I’m feeling inspired.

To find time to write I’ve also decided to quit my morning news-reading routine, which usually lasts an hour. I’ve deleted all the newsy links on my toolbar to make it harder to fall into temptation. I’ve also set up filters on Gmail to automatically remove the newsletters I’m subscribed to from my inbox, and to tag them with a special label so I can check them after I’m done working for the day.

With a bit of luck, 30 days will be enough to develop the writing habit, and I’ll be ready to blog about my stay in French Guiana doing viral metagenomics. I should write a post about that soon.

Until then, wish me luck.