That'll Do Blog, That'll Do

If you've been paying attention to my last few blog posts, it should be pretty clear that I'm feeling pretty tired.

I've already given up on one thing this year (running D&D sessions) and I think it helped a little bit, but it was also more than six months ago and I'm still feeling pretty tired.

So, in the interests of recouping a bit more mental space and a small, almost meaningless amount of time each week, I'm going on a blogging hiatus too.

But before I do that, I might as well summarise the last four-and-a-bit years I suppose.

You know. For posterity.

Someone Tell Me What Happened

Since kicking this blog off in May 2021, just before I started working at Atlassian, I've written and published 211 articles, the content of which adds up to 234,751 words.

In order to accomplish that, I've spent 394 hours of effort, which is about two hours a week, excluding the time setting up and otherwise tweaking the blog platform itself.

I didn't post every single week, but I think I did pretty good all told, mostly meeting the initial expectations that I set when I started out.

Every Single Human In The Stands

According to Ghost, the platform on which this blog is hosted, I have 23 subscribers.

Looking through that list, I know pretty much every single one of those subscribers personally, which implies that this blog never really reached any wider audience than my own personal contacts, at least not so much that it inspired someone to subscribe anyway.

For subscribers, the average open rate was 76%, which is solid, though the average click rate (i.e. for clicking through on links inside the blog posts themselves) was 1%, so mostly people were just reading the new thing and moving on with their lives.

From a Google Analytics point of view, it's actually irritatingly difficult to put together the view that I want to put together, which is an all-time 1, 7 and 30-day user activity over time chart.

Or, more accurately, it's trivially easy to get that chart, but it's tiny and difficult to read with no obvious way to make it bigger.

Anyway, ignoring what looks like a spam spike in the middle of August, and the earlier spam spike back in March 2024, I think I had around 80 30-day users, which didn't really change all that much over the entire lifetime of the blog.

I probably could have done more to advertise and grow my readership I suppose. I tried a little bit, I linked the blog posts from a few different places, but it was always more about the writing for me.

Was At A Complete Loss For Words

By views, the top five all time blog posts were:

The one where I gushed about working at Atlassian.

Atlassian, My Time Has Come Along

In my triumphant return to blogging [https://www.peopleandpandemonium.com/new-blog-who-dis/], I very briefly mentioned that I was made redundant, but that I’d also found a new job. What was probably not obvious though, was that both of those things happened in a period of about two months, starting in

People and PandemoniumTodd Bowles

The one where I described the forced promotion process for M50's at Atlassian.

Gunning For A Promotion

Over the course of my career, I’ve been promoted a few times. There’s nothing unusual about that. It usually comes as a bit of a surprise though. Typically, I’m just trundling along, doing whatever I think is best, and then BLAM, all of a sudden I’m filling a different role

People and PandemoniumTodd Bowles

The one where I talked about pair programming with my engineers as a manager.

It Takes Two

Joining a new team [https://www.peopleandpandemonium.com/atlassian-my-time-has-come-along/] as a leader is never easy. At least, it isn’t for me. When you join a new team, you’re operating with the smallest amount of context possible, both about the people you’re now responsible for and the space that they operate

People and PandemoniumTodd Bowles

The one where I announced that I survived the forced promotion process.

Pulling The Trigger

Earlier this year in August, I wrote about how Atlassian was getting rid of the M50 level of manager in order to flatten the management hierarchy and speed decision making. I’m an M50. That is to say, I was an M50. It’s been a pretty wild couple of months, but

People and PandemoniumTodd Bowles

The one where I talked about constant growth in a team creating mediocrity.

The Mediocrity Machine

Being part of a growing team is generally a pretty good feeling. If a business is willing to continuously invest in a team, adding more and more people over time, it’s a strong signal that whatever the team is responsible for is important and that the business wants more. That’s

People and PandemoniumTodd Bowles

I don't know what sort of conclusions I can draw from the list above. Maybe that people pay more attention to the career movements of other people as opposed to ideas about how to be better on a day-to-day basis?

But He Knew Exactly What To Say

To anyone who has read a single one of my blog posts; thank you. I hope you got some value out of my words and that it helped you be more awesome or think about things slightly differently or maybe just made you appreciate semi-random pop culture references.

To my wife specifically, who proof-read every single blog post I could not have done this without you and your desire for me to actually learn how to use commas correctly.

Alas, all things must end, so with the summary done, no more blogging for now.

Funnily enough, this isn't the first time I've given up blogging, so don't be surprised if I return one day and resume shouting my thoughts and opinions into the void that is the internet.

I wouldn't hold your breath though, because last time it took two years and a new job before I started writing again.