Three hundred and sixty-four days ago, I started the #100DaysToOffload challenge, in an effort to get myself unblocked from actually writing again.

The idea is to simply write, specifically, to publish 100 posts on a personal blog in a year. It shouldn’t have been too hard, once I got going.

It started off really well, with daily posts through Blaugust (at least I achieved one challenge, and got back into a groove, for a while). Some posts were really popular, too!

To be fair to myself – I came fairly close to success here. 88 posts to date, 89 when I publish this one. Just 11 from victory.

Options!

• move the goalposts. Recalibrate! Maybe I can give myself another 10 days by moving my start date forwards, and then posting twice as much (10 days forward = -10 posts from my existing total; so 20 days to write 21 posts).
• post 11 short posts right now!
  • well, I suppose I could. I have at least that many ideas / projects in my head that I want to offload.

What have I done wrong here?

I feel like I’ve done a lot wrong.

I lost focus. I took a trip one time, got out of the daily habit, and never got it back.

I’ve got things I meant to post about, dammit.

I feel annoyed and angry at myself for not doing it.

and eventually, that loops around into me feeling even more blocked – the mountain of guilt became another barrier to progress.

I marked today’s date on the calendar, so I could see it. I checked how far away from success I was, a couple of months ago. July? That’s ages! Lots of time to finish this off. Easy.

As an aside, one week ago, I lost a friend. That was a bad day, and it has been a weird week, and I’m tired. That’s not the reason for any of this. It was a shock. It threw me off, but I was already thrown off.

…

and of course – I’ve done nothing wrong.

Right back at the start, I wrote about writing for myself, for the sake of writing, because it’s something I enjoy – not because I owe it to anyone (except for myself). I’d held myself back before. That feeling came back in, a bit, but look at me – here I am – writing today.

What next then

I’ve been doing a lot of stuff lately!

I’m going to schedule some posts with some of the panels and interviews I’ve done over the past few months, to get them out there in a different format. That can keep things ticking along, even on days when I don’t have time or energy.

I’ve been coding (a bit!) and I want to share a few of those side projects. If I don’t write about them, it does not make them less valid. [hey, brain, read/listen to/understand what you are writing right now]

There are some Big Things happening in the world and in the tech world. I want to write about my thoughts on those things, too.

And then there’s my lapsed newsletter, and the mostly-formed, just-not-executed, plan to do my own podcast.

Maybe I’ll never learn to offload all of the things from my head.

Standby for more: another day.

https://andypiper.co.uk/2025/07/16/trying-and-failing-to-offload/