Embracing Blogging: Lessons from Simon Willison

I’ve always wanted to start blogging but never saw myself as an author and felt I didn’t have the time to dedicate to it. However, my perspective began to change when I came across Simon Willison on Mastodon. I started following him because of his awesome LLM tool (more on that later!), which piqued my interest.

Eventually, I found his blog and discovered a treasure trove of useful and interesting content. I was struck by how much he wrote and his reasons for doing it. Simon suggests focusing on two specific types of content: Today I Learned (TILs) and descriptions of personal projects. The “Today I Learned” format involves writing about things you’ve learned, without the need for an in-depth dive into every topic. Simon has found great success with TILs, having published hundreds of posts over the last few years, and recommends it as a format for quick and satisfying online writing. Similarly, he advises writing descriptions of personal projects as a way to document the process and as a crucial aspect of project completion.

I’ve started so many projects with the idea that they’ll be generally useful, only to get them to the level of almost working for my specific purpose without completing them and making them available for others. I’m hoping to document my next big idea and see it through here on the blog.

Simon says that blogging can be a powerful tool for productivity by focusing on quick, satisfying content formats such as TILs and project updates. In short, I’ll be doing some selfish blogging, and maybe it will be of interest to others. I’m hoping to use some of the lessons Simon shared in my own life, though I don’t expect to be as prolific an author as he is.

, Cal