Embracing Blogging: Lessons from Simon Willison

I have always wanted to start blogging but never saw myself as an author and felt I did not 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, 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 posts and descriptions of personal projects.

The Today I Learned format involves writing about things you have 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.

I have started so many projects with the idea that they will 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 am 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 will be doing some selfish blogging, and maybe it will be of interest to others.

Cal