J. R. Swab

No View Counts, No Worries

Categories: [Content Creation]
Tags: [blogging], [meterics]

The creation of this site is done with an open-source GUI called Publii. I stumbled across it about a week ago, and it sounded exactly like what I needed to make this blog. I wanted to stay away from WordPress this time and was looking for a static site to keep to keep the load times to a minimum.

Publii does not have a way (as far as I can find) to show the number of visitors that come to my blog. I'm ok with that and plan to keep the visitor count on each post a mystery for the first full year of blogging on this website.

Looking at the Numbers is a Distraction

It is easy for me to get wrapped up in the numbers. Thinking about what post did better and how to replicate the highest numbers instead of just writing something that I would read. Seeing the metrics becomes a game of chase with no clear end goal. Every time there is a new high, that becomes the norm and the goal scales.

Every site I ran int the past fell into this trap because I always added some form of metric tracking. Whether from Google or the built-in WordPress view counter, the numbers were there for better and for worse. When starting a new blog, it's heartbreaking to see that no one is reading. Even if you know how "the game" works, it's still a blow to motivation.

The view count distracts by keeping new blogs unmotivated as well as keeping us from writing what we want. It puts us in the mindset to write to as many people as possible to keep the counts high. I don't want to write for everyone, I want to write for that one person out there that thinks as I think and will find value in what I have to say.

So far these posts have been very "meta." About itself and what I want to do now that I am back on my own domain. I promise there will be other content focused around technology, faith, self-growth, and whatever else may be of interest over the next year. But mostly tech...

Will I still set a goal?

Yes, I said in the previous post that I want to post something every day for the next year. I am thinking about changing this a bit to be 365 posts by the end of 2019. That will give me about one day a week that I can miss if something comes up and I can't get a post written up.

So maybe my goal will be to blog daily and have at least 365 posts by December 31st, 2019. That way I can go over but must not go under the post count. I'm looking forward to this different type of goal and how it will impact my attitude moving forward.

Goal setting is beneficial as long as they do not get in our way.