Blogging as personal training?
About two weeks ago, I started participating in an early morning body conditioning and strengthening class at my work. I’d been feeling increasingly out of shape, and I decided that if I wanted to make a change, I’d need to incorporate the activity directly into my day’s routine. With kids out of school for the summer, I could make the 8 am exercise class right after biking into work.
My routine thus changed to this: wake up at 6:00 am, drive to catch the commuter train at 6:40am, bike from the city center to my work by 7:45 am, and then start the exercise class from 8:00 until 8:50 am. Then shower, eat breakfast, and begin work.
So far, this has worked pretty well. The only problem is that waking up this early sometimes makes me a bit tired and needing a nap. (For that, there are nap rooms!) But I’m determined to keep this schedule, at least 4 days a week. Regular training seems pretty important as I get older. I’m 48 years old now, and more and more I’m feeling the effects of age. I once read that before 50, you can do pretty much whatever to your body and it will bounce back. After 50, it’s not the case. You have to take care of your body so much more if you want to avoid physical decline.
This physical training regiment has prompted me to reflect on other types of training, such as tech comm training. For the past 6 months, I’ve prioritized work above all else. The periodic layoffs earlier in the year instilled a kind of fear in me, prompting me to think that I needed to perform documentation miracles to show impact and value. I basically started figuratively flooring it at work, often working on projects at home or sometimes on weekends, and seemingly doubling my output.
But lately I’ve been feeling signs of fatigue, and I started drawing parallels between the need for physical training classes in the morning and the need for regular training on my job. What’s the equivalent of regular job training? For me, part of my training has been regular reflection on my blog. My blog is where I sort through experiences, reflecting on issues that matter to me, and try to improve the state of things. Somehow, in flooring it this past six months, I let my practice of regular blogging [training] dry up, and I’m convinced that long-term this will only lead to eventual burnout.
Part of the problem is that I’ve focused so much on my prompt engineering series, I’ve neglected the more slow-form, reflective posts like this one. The prompt engineering posts are more knowledge sharing than reflection. They’re a kind of training, for sure, because the series propels me to constantly search out new techniques and approaches with AI. (What you don’t see in this series, which is also exhausting, is the parallel biweekly prompt engineering study group sessions that I lead at work, consisting of a smattering of seemingly random tech writers across various orgs, many showing up for the first and only time.)
So perhaps this is my meandering way of saying that I plan to write more reflective blog posts like this one. Posts that are meaningful to me. Posts that support my training related to the practice of technical communication.
Whether that training lines up with your needs is unknown to me. Everyone has different challenges, unique to their company, role, products, platform, and point in their career. Sometimes the issues I wrestle with are similar, but sometimes they aren’t. But here’s the thing. Although we’re taught that we write for an audience (the rhetorical triangle), I’m not so sure that’s true for blogs. I have to write for myself, to focus on the directions that I want to go. Otherwise, there’s little point in writing at all, for I’m not a job coach, nor am I trying to expand my visibility or influence. I’m simply using writing as a tool for my own reflection and personal training.
Beyond reflective posts, a good training regimen involves action. In our body strengthening and conditioning class, we don’t just sit around thinking about life. Nor should technical writing training consist of reflection only. My training is also based on experimentation. I explore a problem I’m facing, brainstorm a solution, and then evaluate the outcome.
Not all training will likely be appropriate on this blog. There could be confidentiality issues, social challenges, or other areas that aren’t something I want to write about publicly. But for the past 20 years, I’ve known how to mask issues in more generalized, nondescript ways that are safe.
I also need to carve out a regular space for this training. Just like the physical exercise class, it needs to happen at a specific time every day, in a specific location. That routine seems to be key for me in being regular and successful with the activity.
This is all leading up to the need for a topic. In all reality, I’ll likely just keep writing about AI because that’s what I’m interested in. But the posts will be more reflecting and inwardly focused rather than solely pushing out ready-to-use prompts.
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.
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