My 600 Daily Posts Reflection: Finding My Why, Inspiration, And Voice

24 Jun 2026 #writing

Why

These last 100 posts made me ask why.

Likes and attention are tempting. I’ve questioned if a blog is the right place to be. Writers I follow on social media have already moved to Substack. Everybody seems to be thriving there.

Sometimes blog aggregators make me rush to count votes each morning. Analytics, votes, replies, mentions… “How did my posts do yesterday?”

I’ve had to remind myself to write for one person. To build something I like. To do it for my own health. To quiet my inner critic.

Inspiration

Since May, I’ve started to take walks every day.

Every afternoon, I get outside to breathe fresh air and stretch my legs. I’ve noticed how my mood changes when I do it. Even if that’s just to walk around my block. Maybe I’m just convincing myself to keep walking.

I leave my phone behind every time. On Sundays, I go analog. To capture ideas, I use old receipts and a tiny pencil that fits into my wallet. I’ve learned not to rely on my phone for notes. Paper doesn’t run out of battery.

Those walks have inspired most of my posts. For the last 100 posts, I’ve published more stories from small life moments. Not keeping a phone in my pocket makes me notice the world. Who would have thought it?

Voice

Beyond walking, the last 100 posts felt different.

A post doesn’t feel like an assignment anymore. It feels more like a spark to capture. Some sparks need more words. Others just a couple of sentences.

I try not to hit a word count, but sharing an idea without fluff. Something that doesn’t need an AI summary.

My most-read posts

From analytics, blog aggregators, replies, and social blogs:

• Write Not to Be Read (Yes, You Read That Right)
• Bubbles Made It: A Newspaper-Style Feed
• A Life Lesson Learned From Dressing Up at the Airport
• I’m Adopting This Weekly Practice To Escape From Screens and Reconnect
• A Love-Hate Letter to Coding
• A Simple Exercise to Instantly Improve Your Sentences
• The Most Painful Career Lesson My Best Job Taught Me

My favorites

Not every popular post is a favorite. But these are the ones I enjoyed writing the most:

• The Secret to Surviving 30 Years In One Job (And to Live a Happy Life)
• Why I Don’t Do Sales Calls (On Either Side)
• A Nobel Prize–Winning Writer Made Me Ask Why I Write. I have to read this one every time I feel like quitting or writing just for attention.
• 10 Life Lessons I Wish I Knew When I Was 25 (And Nobody Told Me)
• My Productivity Mentor, Life Coach, And Therapist Is 4 Years Old
• A Latin Party For a Gringo Who Never Knew What Happened. This one takes me back to a party that made me laugh like I was 5 again.
• How a Membership Roundup Helped Shape My Horizon Goal. Here’s where I wrote about my goal of documenting my life into books.

As an honorable mention, here’s My First Post Interview (On Coding, Writing, And Side Projects). Also available in Turkish. Merhaba!

Here are my 100-post, 200-post, 300-post, 400-post, and 500-post reflections.

Don't Create For Everyone: The Bean Soup Theory

23 Jun 2026 #writing

Mark Thompson introduced me to the The Bean Soup Theory:

Feedback from outsiders can tempt you to reshape work not meant for them.

Write a bean soup recipe for girls needing iron, and someone will ask, “What if I don’t like beans?” Then comes the temptation to tweak it.

Replace bean soup with creative work and the principle still applies.

My first product was an intermediate video course on unit testing. When I asked an ex-coworker for feedback, he asked: “Did you include about AI to generate tests? Did you also include…?”

Better to know who you’re creating for and who you’re not. And sometimes the best audience is yourself.

The Secret to Become a Billionaire (Revealed By One)

22 Jun 2026 #misc

Paul Graham shared how to earn a billion dollars.

Being the founder of a startup incubator, it’s not a surprise he recommends starting a successful startup.

For that, he recommends building something people like so much they tell friends share about. For that, solve a need of yours. And for that, build projects just for fun.

After all, entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be complicated.

Or maybe the alternative is to become a time billionaire.

Two Cashiers Taught Me the Real Secret to Great Customer Service

21 Jun 2026 #misc

Buying a birthday present…

“We have these tote bags. They’re so practical,” she told me.

I was secretly buying a birthday present for my sister. “I’m looking for Hello Kitty merch,” I told her when I entered the store. My sister was turning 30, but still adored Hello Kitty. She left the register and guided me to a red aisle with almost every Hello Kitty item you can imagine.

When I showed her a photo of my sister, she recommended the right lipstick—Hello Kitty-themed, of course. “OK, I trust you,” I said and went with her recommendation.

After a few minutes, buying a lotion…

Moments later, I was in a skin-care store. It was a single-aisle store, bottles of all sizes behind bright, mirrored selves.

I pulled out my phone and showed a photo of the lotion I needed to buy.

“Have you used it before?” the cashier asked me. “It’s an errand,” I said. “You can buy a refill instead,” she searched for the lotion on the shelves. “Did you know that’s only the first step in a good skincare routine?” she said. “You also need…,” she started to list other products I didn’t know about. I only said thanks and smiled.

I wasn’t really a client. I didn’t know about their products or skincare routines. I had said I was there to buy one exact product. The lotion from the photo.

Guess who offered me a better service? The first one: the one where I bought the Hello Kitty bag. I said what I needed and got exactly that.

Lesson: Meet your clients, readers, prospects, or whoever where they’re at. Sometimes help is giving them what they asked for. That’s the best customer service.

Two Windows Shortcuts I Accidentally Discovered

20 Jun 2026 #todayilearned #productivity

#1. Close a window.

For a moment, I thought something had gone wrong with my computer. One of the windows I had opened mysteriously closed.

After a “wait what” moment, I realized I had accidentally pressed Delete while holding Alt and Tab. That closes a window without asking for confirmation. That was it!

#2. Change your keyboard input language.

I didn’t understand why my keyboard input language kept changing between English and Spanish.

That’s a bit annoying when coding: Symbols aren’t on the same keys. My muscle memory defaults to the English layout.

This week, I noticed Ctrl and Shift changed the language while coding the old way. That’s a common key combination inside Visual Studio: To compile, or close tabs…

Sometimes I press those two keys when thinking…and that changes the input language.

To turn it off, go to “Advanced keyboard settings.” Then, to “Input language hot keys,” look for “Between input languages.” Click on “Change key sequence” and unset it.

Et voilà! Mystery resolved.