Advice on starting a programming blog

I started writing this blog earlier this year. So far, I've found it to be a valuable experience. It encourages me to:

• Look for interesting things in the work I do
• Deeply understand the topic I'm writing about

In this post, I cover some of the challenges I face when blogging, and the techniques I use to get around them.

Content

I face two main problems when trying to write: perfectionism and difficulty with correctly scoping posts. I follow a rule which I've found helps with this:

Write a blog post every week

The hard deadline of publishing each week forces me to keep the scope of what I'm writing about small and encourages me to not worry too much about making it 'perfect'.

Motivation

Writing a blog post a week isn't easy. I'd recommend finding an external source of motivation. I have a deal with my partner where I give her £5 for every week I miss a blog post. Aligning my desire to not lose money with writing a blog has been helpful. There's a Berlin-based group called Iron Blogger who do something similar.