About being “Doug-like”

I had to smile at least a bit when I read this Twitter message from Aviva Dunsiger the other day.

Just so you know, my mind won’t stop buzzing with your * question. I was going to read, but now I’m going to blog. Maybe I’ll do a Doug-like thing and schedule this post for tomorrow though. Will give me more time to think & re-read.

— 𝘼𝙫𝙞𝙫𝙖 𝘿𝙪𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙚𝙧 (@avivaloca) May 15, 2021

A “Doug-like thing”, eh?

That got me thinking. I’m not sure that it would call the action a “Doug-like thing” but more like my own personal routine. I often wonder where I’d be without it and I think the answer is that I wouldn’t be on the blogging map at all.

When I started blogging years and years ago, things were much different. The blog posts were motivated by who knows what and blogging was something that I did when I had done everything else I wanted to do in the day. At the time, I picked up a bunch of followers and for that I was so grateful. It would hurt though when other things pushed blogging off my to-do list and I’d get inquiries about whether or not I had given up on the blog.

It was around this time that I decided that I would elevate the priority for blogging in my routine. Chances are, you don’t know me, but I hope that you believe me when I said that blogging or writing anything but “Doug-like”. Growing up, I hated English class and any class that required essays or major writing / research projects. Of course, this was long before computer and writing was accomplished by using one of those pen things or later on, a typewriter. I would much prefer to solve a mathematics problem or write a computer program. Yes, I was the person in the class who wanted to know how long or how many words were required for the assignment. Don’t you just hate answering that question?

Blogging really started as a coping tool in my job. I had to reach out to all the elementary and secondary schools in the district and things like new OSAPAC software just couldn’t wait – everyone needed to know and blogging to let folks know worked out well for me. Eventually blogging became a major habit for me and I forced myself into making it a regular habit. Unlike essays or research papers, it was my forum and I could create and do what I wanted in terms of style, the actual writing and it was as long or short as I wanted it to be! I am personally impressed that I retained enough from English classes to actually put sentences and paragraphs together, mostly literately.

Like any good habit, it requires work and personal commitment to make it happen. If you’re a follower of this blog, you probably know my routine – Aviva certainly does. I write, then later proofread and edit, and ultimately schedule a post for 5am. Most weeks, it’s eight posts. A double check can be found in my weekly summary which comes out Sunday afternoons at 5pm. That’s actually a very satisfying post to write as it lets me revisit what I had written the previous week. Before that, often posts were made and then forgotten.

My routine also has a couple of other things – Friday, it’s “This Week in Ontario Edublogs” and Sunday, it’s “Whatever happened to …”

I like to thing that the routine makes me a regular blogger but the reality is that I can end up writing any various parts of the day. Sometimes, the topics are of interest to others, other times not. The key is that all have at least some personal interest and investment on my part to make them happen.

A 5am deadline just ensures that it happens.