Article summary
At Atomic, we all share the pain of writing blog posts to help with our marketing efforts. As well as helping the company, I’ve found that writing a regular blog post also helps me. The obvious benefit is that it improves my writing skills, encouraging me to share my ideas and thoughts in a succinct and informative way.
Then there are other benefits which are not so obvious, like how the act of pondering what to write about can lead to personal reflection.
Reflecting on Recent Events
When writing a new blog post, the usual starting point is to think about what happened since the last one I wrote. What have I learned? Did I make any mistakes that I learned from? Did anything good or bad happen on my team?
Reflecting on My Journey
Looking back over the last few weeks (or a longer period) is a good way to remind me of what I’ve learned and accomplished. Before I joined Atomic, I had never tested a mobile app, and now I’m writing posts about the tricky situations that using the back button on Android can get you in. Reflecting back on this kind of thing lets me give myself a small pat on the back for things that I knew little about and am now explaining to a wide audience.
Reflecting on Changes
Looking back can also remind me of changes I’ve made in the way I work. Why did I make those changes, and how have they affected me? What other changes have there been—have I changed how I communicate with my co-workers, or has my daily routine changed? Maybe I did have changes planned, but I didn’t follow through—why?
Taking time to reflect is a valuable thing to do. If you don’t have a blog to write, then keeping a personal journal can be an effective tool for reflection. Do you take deliberate time to reflect? If so, let me know in the comments.