One of the great things about writing a blog is there is a chronological archive. When I find a blog I’m particularly interested in, I’ll spend some time digging through the archives. Often I’ll find some really interesting posts that I wouldn’t otherwise have come across. But do you read through your own archives?
Recently a few posts about The Long Tail of blogging have popped up in my Google Reader (here’s one from Problogger). I’d been noticing that many of my older posts receive visitors each day, but hadn’t thought any more of it. After I read the Problogger post I decided to have a proper look and see what my visitors were reading in my own archives. It was an interesting exercise as a blogger – I was able to get more of an idea about what my visitors are interested in, which helped to generate some ideas for future posts.
What I unexpectedly found though, was that reading through my old posts (although my blog is still quite young) gave me a sense of my own journey. I was able to reflect on how my ideas have developed and how others have influenced me.
I have also found my archives useful in maintaining a sense of accountability. The things I have written about in my posts I have generally done, much more so than I would have previously. There’s something about making a public statement that tends to keep the ball rolling.
Why not spend a little time going through your archives and seeing what gems you find? You could even leave a link to your favourite post here in the comments.
Here’s one of my favourite posts from my own archives: Giving love to your family
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I enjoyed reading your blog and particularly enjoyed the photo of the archive collection. My daughter works in a library so I have a fondness for archives etc.
Your blog about family love is interesting.Time is the most valuable commodity for family and it is in such short supply. In many families it is not freely given as parents are exhausted. I worry that today’s children will ot know how to just “hang out” with family or to spend time with them talking and doing stuff. These are the things that bond families -they are the glue in relationships.
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Lovely post, Journeyer – and you make a good point. I know keeping my SustainableSuburbia.com blog has made me more conscious than I already was about how I try to incorporate sustainable practices into my everyday life. It certainly does act to keep one honest!
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Hi Allegra! Thanks for coming by. I agree absolutely about families spending time together. It’s one of the reasons my husband and I are adamant that I will continue to be a stay at home mum in the foreseeable future.
Hi Jess, good to see you here too
I guess it just goes to prove what all the experts say about writing down goals and committing publicly to them.
Our blog is like a scrapbook of our son’s life so far. Well, he is the most interesting thing we have to talk about most of the time! I don’t think we would have recorded so many little bits and pieces from his life if I had to actually scrapbook or write them down!
Recently a friend of mine started a blog, and looking for some ideas, she read all the way back to nearly the beginning of our humble little blog to see what, exactly, we posted about since we do seem to post quite a bit. She called me up after she was done reading and thought it was just lovely to be able to go back to the archives, like finding an old photo album or a bunch of letters you had forgotten about
Very insightful ~ just as journal writing or flipping through old photo albums reminds us of our past experiences & thoughts. It’s an inspiring experience to contrast remembering how those moments felt in the moment and compare them to now, when they are hindsight.
My blog is only a few months old but a post titled How I Define Clutter is my favorite to date.
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One of my daughter’s teachers read through my blog recently. She mentioned a post today I had completely forgotten about! Looks like I’ve still got some reading to do
Brilliant!
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