Bahaa ZidanLessons Learned After Writing One Article a Day for 30 Days
On May 11th 2025, I sat out to write one article a day on this blog. The initial goal was to revitalize the hobby of writing in my life. I showed up every day. Even the days I was really tired and had no time. And in showing up I learned a lot. And I think it's fitting to close the challenge talking about my learnings.
Quantity Breeds Quality
Prior to starting this challenge, I had the misconception that those who focus on quantity always produce bad quality products. I thought that those who focus on just getting something acceptable out the door are never going to produce something extraordinary or even be able to think about it. I was wrong. Quality is not this ephemeral unicorn that visits you in the astral plane to bestow ideas upon you. Quality is a direct result of hard work. Quality is not out there. It's in yourself. And the more you do something, the better you become. The better you become, the higher quality you produce.
Scope Management
Having to write an article everyday while showing up to the rest of my professional responsibilities was not easy. And for the first time in a very long time, I was forced to pick my battles and manage the scope of every article I set out to write on this blog. No more big workshops, exhaustive guides, or long editorials. If I only have 30 minutes to come up with an idea for an article, write it, and deploy, I must reduce that idea to the minimum it can be. And while that wasn't fun at first, I realized that the best writing is concise. People like tips a lot more than they like tutorials.
The Elusive Viral Article
Speaking of what people like. One of the things I learned is that you never know what people actually need. Prior to this challenge, I used to scrap so many article ideas thinking that the documentation already exists and I don't want to create something redundant. I was wrong. What can be clear to me might not be clear to someone else. And vice versa. I sometimes find myself searching for a specific solution to a specific problem and find a person basically paraphrasing the docs. That person is helpful whether I like it or not.
Learning Solidified
As programmers, we come across many concepts, patterns, solutions, and technologies on a daily basis. I found that the absolute best way to really learn these concepts is to communicate them in my own words. It's a world of difference between starring a repo, adding a link to my notes app, and actually trying to teach people about it.
The internet I grew up in used to consist of forums primarily. Then social media happened. And that all went to 💩. Contrary to most social media where it's basically impossible for 99% of people to promote anything they publish, Reddit can produce fairly consistent results for your promotions if you know how to use it.
While Reddit might look like any other social media at first glance (albeit a little weird with all the r/), it's not as simple as it may seem. Reddit has a culture. And whether you like it or not, you have to abide by that culture or at least respect that it exists. Furthermore, every subreddit has its own rules. And again you have to respect the rules of the subreddit you're trying to promote your work on. I learned all of that the hard way.
- Stay strictly on topic.
- Self promotion is generally not allowed.
- Some subreddits allow self promotion on the condition that you explicitly state that in the title.
Lorem Ipsum [self promo] - You might still get banned if the moderators think you're treating the sub like a write-only platform and not community.
- That's the keyword here: Community. The best way to utilize Reddit is to actually engage with the people on it. Answer questions, participate in discussions, and be kind.
- And then find creative ways to promote your work.
Just Show Up
I always struggled with sticking to something I sat out to do for myself. If other people are involved, I'll show up no matter what. But if it's a hobby or a healthy activity for myself, I may show up for a week or two and then I'll find the lamest excuse to stop. I thought that some people lack discipline while others have it. I was wrong. Anyone can show up if they put their mind to it. It's all about finding the conviction to do something. Conviction can only be ironclad if its source is deep within yourself. I know it's very corny but I really wanna leave you with this:
You're not lazy. You're lost.