Why I Write Blogs (Even If No One Reads Them)
I didn’t start blogging to build an audience. I started because I was tired of solving the same problems twice.
I’d figure something out—some weird bug, a clever workaround, a hard lesson—and then forget it. A few months later, I’d hit the same wall, with only a vague sense of déjà vu and no real shortcut back to the fix. So I started writing things down. Not for the internet. Just for me.
Turns out, blogging became a lot more than just note-taking.
Writing Helps Me Think
When I try to explain something in writing, I realize pretty quickly whether I actually understand it. Sometimes I think I get it—until I try to put it into words. That’s when the holes show up.
Writing forces clarity. It slows me down just enough to untangle the mental mess and turn fuzzy ideas into concrete thoughts. And when I can explain something clearly, it sticks.
It’s How I Debug My Brain
Blogging has become my version of rubber-duck debugging. I start typing to work through an issue, and halfway through a sentence, I spot the real problem. Or I realize the thing I was about to build already exists—probably better, faster, and battle-tested.
Writing helps me step back and question my own assumptions. It’s less about polishing ideas and more about catching bad ones before I ship them.
I Turn Struggles Into Mini-Experiments
Every time I run into a problem—some cryptic error message, a performance bottleneck, a design decision that keeps me up at night—I treat it like an experiment in a blog post.
I write down:
- What broke
- What I tried (including the dead ends)
- What eventually worked
- What I’d do differently next time
It turns frustration into progress. And it gives future-me a breadcrumb trail back to sanity.
My Blog Is Basically My Second Brain
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve googled a problem and ended up on my own blog. That’s when I know I’m doing it right.
I use it to:
- Search for syntax I forget
- Revisit bugs I already solved
- Share context with teammates without repeating myself
It’s faster than digging through old commits or Slack threads. And it scales way better than my memory.
I Write to Find My People
I don’t write for SEO or social media points. I write so people like me can find me.
Other engineers building weird stuff. Devs who care about the details—performance, developer experience, trade-offs. Curious folks who don’t want another copy-paste solution from Stack Overflow.
Sometimes a blog post sparks a DM or a conversation that turns into something bigger. That’s a bonus. But even if it doesn’t, it still helps me sharpen my thinking.
Not Everything Needs to Be Public
Some posts never leave my notes app. Architecture decisions, regretful code, half-baked thoughts—they still get written down.
Those private writeups help me stay honest with myself. They’re less about performance and more about clarity. For when I need to remember why I made a decision months later—or explain it to someone else without guessing.
Why I Keep Doing It
I write blogs because it helps me:
- Think more clearly
- Debug smarter
- Document the messy parts of my dev journey
- Learn deeply by teaching myself
Even if no one else reads them, I do. And that’s enough.