I'd like to address some of the citations in that post, they really stood out to me.
> CAUSE I CAN'T MAKE A BLOG POST, GOD DAMN IT. I have ADHD.
I can relate... I have attention deficit disorder too and it's extremely difficult to start working on anything. I take top tier medication and it makes it much easier to maintain focus but getting started is still difficult.
Somehow against all these odds I managed to publish a bunch of articles. They languished unfinished for quite a while though. Wish I had a general solution for people but my advice is probably too specific to my case: it turned out the only tool that can make me productive is Termux. It gave me the ability to start working on stuff anywhere and anytime. So whenever I get the sudden motivation to do something, I make the most of it. Requires enormous effort to write any amount of text on a tiny screen made even tinier by the touch screen keyboard but it beats the alternative which is writing nothing because my laptop is too far away.
Hell I wrote my own goddamn programming language inside Termux because of all this. As far as I know it's the first and only programming language to be literally born inside a mobile device. Lots of C code, all written in a tiny 135x8 terminal emulator window. Never stopped to think about how insane that is until now.
> if I try to make a blog post, it'll end up being abandoned and unfinished, as I am unable to edit it into something readable and postable.
I felt that one too... I would worry way too much about perfection, try to make sure everything's correct and substantial. Actually felt guilty if I published before it was perfect. Which is the same thing as saying I felt guilty if I published anything at all.
It took someone here on HN telling me something like "if your comments are good enough content for this place then they're good enough content for your blog" for me to finally stop caring. I got that sort of realization that seems obvious in hindsight. It's my site, I can do whatever I want. I dunno why I ever thought otherwise. If I make mistakes I'll just fix them. If at a later date I have more to add, I'll just add it.
I'm starting to think "readability" and "postability" are very harmful concepts. It's OK to be imperfect. Actually it's probably better to be imperfect. Everything is more sincere that way, more human. Perfection is a machine's job.
> but I can do rambly tweet threads. they don't require a lot of attention for a long time, they don't have the endless editing I get into with blog posts, I can do them.
I do the same thing but with HN comments instead of tweets. The rate limiting the moderators applied on my account is actually helping stop this addiction. I've realized that over the years I discussed certain topics many times. HN has definitely helped me shape my world view but the moderators are right about the fact this isn't the place for repetitive discussions. I've resolved to turn all these thoughts into articles at some point.
> CAUSE I CAN'T MAKE A BLOG POST, GOD DAMN IT. I have ADHD.
I can relate... I have attention deficit disorder too and it's extremely difficult to start working on anything. I take top tier medication and it makes it much easier to maintain focus but getting started is still difficult.
Somehow against all these odds I managed to publish a bunch of articles. They languished unfinished for quite a while though. Wish I had a general solution for people but my advice is probably too specific to my case: it turned out the only tool that can make me productive is Termux. It gave me the ability to start working on stuff anywhere and anytime. So whenever I get the sudden motivation to do something, I make the most of it. Requires enormous effort to write any amount of text on a tiny screen made even tinier by the touch screen keyboard but it beats the alternative which is writing nothing because my laptop is too far away.
Hell I wrote my own goddamn programming language inside Termux because of all this. As far as I know it's the first and only programming language to be literally born inside a mobile device. Lots of C code, all written in a tiny 135x8 terminal emulator window. Never stopped to think about how insane that is until now.
> if I try to make a blog post, it'll end up being abandoned and unfinished, as I am unable to edit it into something readable and postable.
I felt that one too... I would worry way too much about perfection, try to make sure everything's correct and substantial. Actually felt guilty if I published before it was perfect. Which is the same thing as saying I felt guilty if I published anything at all.
It took someone here on HN telling me something like "if your comments are good enough content for this place then they're good enough content for your blog" for me to finally stop caring. I got that sort of realization that seems obvious in hindsight. It's my site, I can do whatever I want. I dunno why I ever thought otherwise. If I make mistakes I'll just fix them. If at a later date I have more to add, I'll just add it.
I'm starting to think "readability" and "postability" are very harmful concepts. It's OK to be imperfect. Actually it's probably better to be imperfect. Everything is more sincere that way, more human. Perfection is a machine's job.
> but I can do rambly tweet threads. they don't require a lot of attention for a long time, they don't have the endless editing I get into with blog posts, I can do them.
I do the same thing but with HN comments instead of tweets. The rate limiting the moderators applied on my account is actually helping stop this addiction. I've realized that over the years I discussed certain topics many times. HN has definitely helped me shape my world view but the moderators are right about the fact this isn't the place for repetitive discussions. I've resolved to turn all these thoughts into articles at some point.