Welcome to today’s update, have a quick watch of the video version and meet me below for the rest of the write up:
I need to rewind a bit, to catch up with one thing that happened this week. It’s quite a significant milestone for my semi-boring journal. Every now and then I was getting subscriber along the way. And by subscriber, I mean WordPress/email type of subscriber. I respect such followers the most probably, as these people very consciously decided to trust me enough to subscribe and receive updates about everything that I commit in writing.
Yes, it’s you, my dear reader(s). I’d like to say huge thank you for being with me, regardless how long you happen to stumble upon my updates. I started without expectations and to be honest, while I obviously wanted people to read what I write, it was more of a dream, and I approached it realistically, assuming that it will be almost like a written notepad, but slightly more public.
This week I hit 50 of you subscribers, readers, listeners and watchers here. I can’t express how amazing it feels to know that along the way, despite some single subscribers falling off, it was mostly just a growing trend, and there’s now 50 people receiving “poke” from WordPress, whenever I publish a post. This is exciting but also carries some responsibility. I don’t want to spam you, and it is no longer just some blog exercise without consequences. I now know that whenever I decide to post some half-crap post, it will be notified to 50 people and they can get disappointed with content, so I risk their trust.
It means that I need to start planning for next level transition. Unfortunately I am half-blind. I have some insights about audience, but that’s just statistics. What I lack is certainly engagement. What I mean by that is, that I’d love to hear from you at least a sentence or two, about:
- what made you decide to subscribe?
- what content do you like the most?
- what is the perfect day and time when you actually want to read?
- what frequency would be the best for you, if you want to be up to date and read almost if not all of what I write?
- is daily to much?
- what are the worst things in my writing that piss you off?
- what things you see as obvious improvements?
Questions in my head are just spilling onto the keyboard, so you can see how much I crave your feedback and support. You are the elite! The first group of 50 people, the founders of this community. Whether you will stay or not, you are at this particular stage one of my big 50. Your saying has weight, and I cannot express how much I want to hear it.
I want to test it here, so if you have spare couple of seconds/minutes, this is already a huge value if you can write couple of words and send it through:
One of the things that I want to change in near future is the format of this journal. To streamline writing process, but also to make better quality write ups. I think about doing something that I call 6-1 dump (I know, not the best naming). What it is, is just a simple technique that I used before for planning my weeks and I think it might work here.
It consists of 6 daily “dumps” of main bullet points for the day, rather than long write up. More like a bullet list of key happenings, highlights and things to remember for 7th day of summary write up, and a longer post.
Not every highlight or bullet point needs to be used, but it gives two fold value:
- You as a reader have a very short, quick read, and you know what to expect from the longer write up. If you find any interesting bullet points across 6 days, and want to know more, you will be pretty much knowing when to come to read about it, and maybe even plan for a longer read, with clear expectation what is coming.
- I can focus more on the quality and short notes, keeping memory of what happened across the week, and then having a bulk set of topics to write about.
I know it might backfire. Because the 6 post in the week will be short, I might get used to them, so the seventh day will feel like a chore. Especially that it might mean that it will be a significantly longer write up due to the load. On the other hand, I won’t have to write about boring and mundane things, when the day is dull, so I can trim the fat. I think it is worth a trial period ans I can see how and if it works. Your feedback is also important here.
While my YouTube channel is at 6286 subscribers, Instagram at 1180 followers, TikTok at 440, X/Twitter at 112… it’s you 50 that at some stage created WordPress account, made a blog and possibly still have it, and if you read, you read the long form content – it is vastly different from short form, quickly switching and low value feeds of social media. I don’t say that the other channels are less valuable, but the audience there has different retention and expectations. People there don’t look for content that occupies them for more than 15-30 seconds. Here is different. You focus, you read, you consume, and you comprehend – you are patient, especially considering what I write and how I write. Thank you. Sincere and massive thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
As for today’s update, it was quite an active day, so let me write about it tomorrow instead (here goes my testing of “bullet points”). For now that’s it. Stay tuned and see you tomorrow.
Blunt Force Healing 
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