I’m writing just before July 4th, which in the United States is a national holiday. My family is taking advantage of this extra time off to travel to St. Louis for the first time. This is just one example of the many scheduling challenges that the summer season brings to my writing schedule.
Normal Schedule
Typically I am able to get my posts written in the hours before work by getting up an hour or two before I would have to in order to make it to the office on time. My wife gives me a hard time about getting up early, but getting at least one post done a week is something I am very proud of and don’t want to compromise on.
Dealing with the Summer Schedule
The question is how to deal with the changes in time expectations, but still get everything done. This week, for example, I only have 3 work days and will be traveling the rest of the week. The most important thing I have done to handle this situation is having 3 to 4 weeks of post done ahead of time. Knowing that I have a buffer of posts reduced my stress level related to my blog tremendously.
The other way I handle weeks with a lack of time is posts like this which are non-technical and therefore take a lot less time to write. The downside is these type of post don’t get very many reads. On the positive, it allows me some practice in a different writing style. I also hope that even if it isn’t super popular that someone gets some value out of it.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, someone found something useful in this post. If you do like this type of post I would love to get some feedback on some non-technical topics that you all might be interested in. I don’t see this blog ever changing from primarily technical topics, but it is fun for me to mix it up occasionally.