Reflecting on 2017: Blogging

It’s been a great blogging year, though I’ve been so busy that finding time to write and format blog posts and to read the posts of other bloggers became tricky. I applaud all bloggers who are able to post regularly AND find time to keep up with the posts of other bloggers. If you work full time while doing this, please give me some tips on how you manage it all without getting burnt out.

I still miss the Year in Review post WordPress usually puts together for us at the end of the year. It did a great job of concisely wrapping up our blogging year for us and presenting such stats in a nice graphic, which we could then post on our blogs. Since that’s no longer available, I have to do this myself, but since I am busy and have limited digital art skills, I’ll just talk about it all in a usual post. I guess it will be boring for some, but it’ll definitely be very useful for me.

I’m glad to see that my blog has grown a lot since the last blogging reflection post I did last January. My site views and visitors have increased from 16,000 and 7,000, respectively, to approximately:

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Reflecting on 2017: Life

Every new year morning, before I roll out my bed, brush my teeth, or talk to anyone, I grab my computer and make a long journal entry where I reflect on all I did in the past year. I reflect on what I accomplished, what I failed, and what I hoped for. As I mentioned in this Weekend Reads post, I usually do this while my family is at church. I see this as a spiritual process though it does not involve church, and it helps me to see how much I’ve developed over the year and assess what areas need further improvement.

I’ve only been doing this for a few years now, probably since 2012 when I started making one-word goals for the year, and it has benefited me well. By reflecting on the past, these journal entries give me perspective on the future. At the end, when I’m mentally and physically spent from all the writing and reflecting, I’m left with is a single word that becomes my goal for the upcoming year.