Ask the Readers: What’s The Most Important Lesson You’ve Learned?
This week’s Ask the Readers discussion should be an opportunity to collect a number of profound lessons in one place. The question I’d like you to answer is: what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about blogging or being a webmaster?
When I sat down to write this, I thought I’d answer the question from my own perspective here. I was worried that it would take some time to nut out a reasonable answer. I’ve learned a lot of things in my various engagements with the web and anticipated that it would be hard to pick out the most important one. Strangely enough, it wasn’t hard at all.
Realizing the importance of giving if you want to receive as a blogger has been life-changing for me. It’s transformed blogging into a passionate hobby and led to some incredible opportunities and experiences (and continues to do so).
That’s the most important lesson I’ve learned. What’s yours?
I’ll be looking for another most valuable commenter this week. Here is a quick summary of what I’ll be looking for:
- Active participation in the discussion.
- Thoughtful consideration of the question.
- Engagement with other commenters and reflection on their answers.
What I won’t be taking into consideration:
- Names, identities and affiliations. I’ll be judging by comments alone.
* * *
I was incredibly impressed by the quality of comments on last week’s question: What does your writing budget look like?
Despite it being a very close race, I’d like to say thank you to Spicepuppy (who highlights some of the best content on the web) for being last week’s most valuable commenter. Her answer to the question was packed full of ideas and tips other bloggers could use. My favorite was to save posts for a specific purpose, rather than hoarding content in a general savings account. Would you be more likely to save content if you were putting it in a ‘one week at the beach’ fund? I think I would be!
To continue the finance analogy, if you want to save up for a specific goal, it often makes sense to create a separate account that will not be touched for any other purpose. If you want to have enough posts saved up for a one-month emergency buffer, then store your extra posts in a separate area and declare to yourself that you won’t touch them unless you really need them. If you don’t enforce this strictly, you may find it too convenient to dip into your emergency fund anytime you have a bad hair day.
You can read the rest of the comment to get some more great ideas.
Spicepuppy stood out for me in that discussion because she phrased her answer in a way that was outward looking rather than inward. It was clearly aimed at helping others as much as it was aimed to express her own thoughts on the question. Spicepuppy had evidently read the comments of others and respectfully engaged with another reader who disagreed with one of her points.
Though there can only be one MVC a week, I also wanted to thank Paidtwice for her continuing engagement in the discussion. That’s a winning quality and I’m sure it will see her take home the prize sometime soon.
Spicepuppy is now eligible to win a one-month featured link in the sidebar. I’ll be deciding on the winner of that prize at the end of December, and the criteria will be based around participation across future Ask the Readers discussions until that time.
If you’d like to be featured in a post on this blog (or go into the running to win a sidebar link) then all you need to do is participate in the discussion on this post. I look forward to seeing you in the comments section.
The question, once again:
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about blogging or being a webmaster?
