On celebrating my third month of blogging, I would like to share with you what beginning to write has done for me so far. If you’re in IT and are on the fence about writing, you may want to check out these benefits.
Writing taught me to take notes, to have a writing journal for ideas that disappear if you don’t capture it somewhere. Write (or type) an idea down within 30 seconds of thinking of it. I developed the habit of note-taking to capture my thoughts.
Writing taught me how self-motivated I am. Throughout the writing process you set a target and work on achieving this target. You set the deadline and allocate your resources and execute the plan. The process is a commitment which is internally driven instead of externally dictated.
Writing taught me to be specific and precise. In the absence of verbal communication tools, most importantly face to face interaction, be very careful of written communication so you don’t deliver the wrong or a misleading message.
Writing taught me to develop the sense of contribution, purposefulness, the value of sharing, along with the sense of community. It’s important to be able to organize and put my thoughts into an article that will contribute in one way or another to the reader.
Writing taught me to actively participate and comment on different posts and contribute in different groups, even sometimes I initiated discussions, which encouraged other group members to participate.
Writing taught me to seek clear thoughts and thinking, to generate and develop my ideas. Actually, being alone evolved into a productivity exercise. Clarity of an idea can’t be achieved without writing it. A very fundamental concept but not everybody bothers to master it.
Writing taught me to emphasize multitasking, capacity and ability to cover a wide range of topics as well as tasks. Also, optimization, efficiency, and the ability to provide the ideas within the post space and timing constraints.
Last but not least, writing inspired me to meet other people from different countries and visit sites through my blogging that I would otherwise not have visited.
Writing is a mental activity which helps in developing and strengthening the following skills:
- Research, analysis, synthesis, and of course report writing skills,
- Communication and presentation skills,
- Attention to details, follow-up and feedback,
- Creative thinking, interdisciplinary know-how, and knowledge transfer,
- Project and time management skills,
- Team building, networking skills, and marketing skills,
As a closing remark, writing or blogging can improve your technical skills because writing makes you understand technology better and keep up with advances in your field. Also, writing will develop your technical knowledge because as you write more articles, you accumulate and grow your database of technical know-how.
If you think about the above mentioned points you might find that they add not one, but a number of skills and may benefit your career.
I hope you enjoyed this post, let me know in the comments what challenges you face with writing, how you overcome them, and what benefits writing has brought to you.