Just start writing...

Don't let the unimportant details get in the way of getting started

For too long, I keep filing away ideas I want to write about under the “I’ll do that once I’ve got a blog set up” tab.

Meanwhile, I’ve “set up a blog” at least half a dozen times in my life, but every time the effort fizzles out. Whether that “blog” was on WordPress, Tumblr, Medium, LinkedIn, or Substack, it’s never quite stuck. Often, I picked too niche of a theme that it didn’t have the staying power to keep me interested.

I keep getting caught up on asinine details that prevent me from starting.

Should I post on LinkedIn, Medium, or Substack? Should this be a newsletter? Do I need to follow a specific format every time, like Tim Ferriss’ Five Bullet Friday?

And my blog needs a witty name... And domain name! Right?

Finally, I want to write about a diversity of topics: parenting, startups, short-term rentals, life updates, and plenty of other random things. I can’t write about all of that in one place?!

All of these questions are unimportant when you consider that they have effectively blocked me from just starting to write for at least several years.

So, I finally just decided to put up a Substack newsletter with the uninspired name “Aaron Kardell’s Blog” at the equally uninspired location of blog.aaronkardell.com. I’ll eventually set up sections – so if you only want to pay attention to specific topics, you can subscribe to those and not the rest.

I’ll see how long I can keep up a once-a-week cadence. I hope this practice becomes a forcing function to improve my thinking and to become a better writer. If I’m lucky, maybe a few topics will save others time in having to learn the hard lessons themselves. 

Sometimes, you have to get started.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash