The One About The Resolutions

A Blog? In 2021?

Yes, I’m starting a proper weekly blog, I’m psyched.

I’ve wanted to put more writing on the internet for a while. I’m generally a fairly private person, the only place you can currently find out much about me on the internet is my LinkedIn profile. I also tweet very occasionally (@AndrewWhistle) but will be now using my twitter ruthlessly to promote this blog.

I don’t really expect anyone to read the blog but that’s not really the point. I want a place where I can spend time practice my writing where the stakes aren’t too high (I can’t get fired from my own blog) but I still have to put out good work because anyone who wants to can see it.

I know that blogs are not amazingly popular anymore and anyone who wants to get famous is getting on TikTok (is that still the big thing? with social media I always at least a year behind), but the humble blog is the most free and open way to publish content on the internet, so I’m going to stick with it for at least a year.

What’s the plan?

I’m going to be writing posts that are at least 500 words long once a week and publishing them at 5pm every Saturday of the year. I will occasionally edit the posts after they go up (this rule is required so that I don’t stress too much about hitting the publish button).

I’m going to be writing every couple of days, drafting on paper beforehand and then developing these drafts into posts that I feel comfortable publishing. One of the reasons I don’t post anywhere is because I feel I can always improve what I’ve written, so I think the weekly deadline will help me actually finish a lot more work.

What’s the blog about?

It’s not really about anything specific. It’s not going to be weekly updates on my life, that would be boring. Here is a list of posts that I intend to make, this might give you some idea of what I’m going to be doing.

• The right way to introduce people to VR
• Why we need a UBI
• Why big tacos are better than small tacos
• What do you even do in a maths degree?
• Is flying evil?
• What actually makes fresh air fresh?
• Planning Thursdays: My best idea of 2020
• Australia’s world-class poverty traps

It is very likely that not all of the above will get made, as many of the posts I intend to write will require significant research and it may turn out that there just isn’t a good enough story to publish.

Other Resolutions

I am also going to read 52 books this year, starting with Principles by Ray Dalio. This will probably come up in a couple of blog posts but is otherwise a separate endeavour. Now that I have finished univeristy, I want to make sure that I keep learning and I plan to do that by reading a lot of books.

I also have a secret resolution that I will talk about at the end of the year (probably in the last blog post) but it would ruin the point a little if everyone knew about it.