Excuses for Not Blogging

During my sophomore year at the University of Illinois, I, like many of my peers, was seeking a summer internship. But how do I stand out amongst the other talented students seeking the same thing?

And just like that, a light bulb went off in my head – why not blog about the material I am learning in my courses? This would help with knowledge retention, and be a shiny new addition to my resume!

Alas, I didn’t launch a website until August 2020; over THREE YEARS after coming up with the idea, and a full year after graduating! Why? Because I kept making excuses.

In this post I will list my excuses and explain why they are nonsense. This post is for anyone who was like my younger self: someone who wants to start a website and create content but is chained by their excuses.

Read on for my excuses:

I don’t have the money

As a poor college student at the time, this was my chief excuse! In reality, website are very affordable to create and maintain. I registered my domain name with Namecheap for about $2/year and the web server I host this site on is about $5/month.

I don’t have the time

Blogging doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Most of my blogs are things I am already doing anyways: CTF challenges, playing around with Linux, or journaling. If I were to have started this blog in university, I would have wrote about the topics I was already studying.

Matt Might has an excellent post on tips for academic blogging that I try to live by.

I don’t have anything interesting to say

Neither do I! Yet I still write anyways. There’s no shame in reinventing the wheel, and you never know when your content will help someone else (or even yourself). Find your niche and blog about the things you are passionate about.

I don’t have the technical skills

If you can use Google, then you do have the necessary technical skills. Content Management Systems like WordPress and Wix make setting up your own site simple. I originally started on WordPress, but made the switch to Hugo later on. If I can do it, then anyone can.