Small Pause

As is tradition, it's time to take a bit of a break and recharge the batteries so that they have enough juice in them to start the writing engine again some time in January.

But first, a little bit of summarisation and a little bit of reflection.

Speak

This year I wrote 45,774 words over 46 blog posts. I missed a few weeks back in May because of a somewhat expected visit from Death herself, but ignoring that, I did one post every single week since coming back from my last hiatus.

The average size of a blog post this year was 995 words and I am happy to say that I have now vomited forth a grand total of 198,990 words upon the internet, which is so close to a large round number that it is surprisingly irritating.

I wrote for ~4600 minutes this year, which is ~77 hours of my life that I can't get back, but it's still much much smaller than the amount of time I sank into playing video games, so you know, maybe I should re-evaluate my life choices.

The act of writing still pleases me, but I wrote more filler and stream of consciousness posts this year than I have in any previous year, which may be an indication that I am running out of things to write about.

I also didn't write a single short story this year, which probably indicates that whole thing was just a phase, like that extended period where I told myself I could be competitive at online shooters (I could not).

Look

The platform that this blog is hosted on (Ghost.org) tells me that I have 20 subscribers now, of which 86% were engaged over the last 30 days. That's 3 more subscribers than last year, and a little bit more engagement.

I'm not exactly taking the internet by storm, but growth is still growth.

Remember, if you're a regular reader of this blog and you're not subscribed, you can easily give me a direct line to your brain by clicking on this handy-dandy button.

Subscribers are only part of the picture though, there are tens of people who read this blog without bothering to give me their contact information, and that's fine by me.

That's where Google Analytics comes in and according to it, I have 37 30-day users, which is pretty much exactly the same as it was last year. I peaked at 883 back in March though, which is crazily impressive!

Unfortunately, it's also not real.

That spike in March was some sort of spam event, with a bunch of page views coming from referrals from Polish shopping webpages? I remember looking into it at the time and I couldn't figure out how to exclude those visits from the reports, so here we are.

The trash data does make it hard to see my actual readership over the year, but taking a few data points at random, I peaked at ~110 30-day users back in August and have been relatively steady at ~40 for the majority of the rest of the year.

That's slightly better than last year, which is nice.

Stay

Talking specifics though, the top 5 blog posts of 2024 by views were:

The one where I ranted about accidentally 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

The one from last year where I wondered if I would even get promoted at all.

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 organised a charity stream FOR DEMOCRACY!

A Streaming Cup of Liber-TEA

Like all operations involving the brave, disciplined and highly trained Helldivers, our efforts were incredibly successful. Any reports you hear to the contrary should be forwarded to the Ministry of Truth for verification. But seriously, we raised $2,430 for the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation, which is the best I’ve

People and PandemoniumTodd Bowles

The one where I rambled about how people management was tiring.

Weapon of Choice

I’ve been managing people in some form or another for about seven years now. That’s about a third of my professional life. I’ve learned a lot of different things over that period of time. Things that make me more effective at delivering value and getting the most out of the

People and PandemoniumTodd Bowles

The one where I announced that I wouldn't be an Engineering Manager anymore.

Yeeeah, About That TPM Role

There is no easy way to say this: I’m not going to be an Engineering Manager at Atlassian anymore. Instead, I’m going to be a Technical Program Manager (TPM) at a large Australian-American company that is focused on unleashing the potential of every team. . . It’s Atlassian. I’m going to be

People and PandemoniumTodd Bowles

Similar to last year, there was a bit of a theme of career trajectory and changes in the top posts. Again, I hypothesise that this is a result of most of my readers coming from LinkedIn, which is all about that sort of thing.

I'm happy to see the charity stream right up there at #3 though and weirdly happy to see the one about accidentally creating a mediocrity machine in a growing team sitting right at the top of the list. It's definitely worth a read if you haven't already read it.

Sit

That seems like just about enough writing for one year.

But, as always, the last words are probably the most important.

If you took the time to read anything that I wrote this year, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Attention is an incredibly precious and increasingly scarce resource and the fact that you spent some of yours on the words that I wrote means the world to me.

Thanks aside, this year has been a mixed bag. From a career perspective I've now got a job that fits better with my current mindset and desires (i.e. not being responsible for people, just things), which is great. From a personal perspective there has been some drama, but nothing that I can't handle.

Best of all, thanks to the inevitable march of time, I'm one year closer to retirement, which I am greatly looking forward to. The day when I can disappear into the mountains and be free to do whatever I want will be a fine day indeed.

Hopefully society won't collapse before then.