Welcome to the first “Life Update” post on my blog.
As a “Tuesday post”, this one will be more personal than financial. Expect a return to regular finance content on Friday.
This post is part of a new series called “Life Update” to record my accomplishments over the last month. It’s a way for me to remain accountable to myself for future months, and as a diary of what I have achieved so far. I’ll cover statistics from my blog and X profile, as well as things I did well/ not so well throughout the month.
The structure of my Life Updates is likely to change as I publish more of these, so expect changes between editions. For now let’s get into it.
Things I Achieved
In this first Life Update, I want to talk about achievements first. I have a couple of things I’m extremely proud of this month.
Website Launch
This month saw the launch of this website! While the site had been live in the past, I had never dedicated the effort towards it that it needed.
I’m now a few articles in and I have a content schedule that I’ve announced publicly, so I feel accountable to make it work.
I don’t feel as though I’m going to run out of topics any time soon, however I would like for my writing speed to increase. This should get better with practice (as things tend to do).
But I’m loving being able to post stuff online that’s mine and mine alone. There’s a freedom associated with running a website that I really enjoy.
Active X Posting
Posting actively on X has become a new hobby for me.
Instead of playing video games for many hours a day, I’ve instead dedicated time each day to making threads and posting replies on larger accounts. (I do still enjoy gaming, I haven’t cut it entirely!)
My plan is to continue leaving valuable replies on larger accounts, and actively engaging with smaller accounts. Many X users are trying to grow their audience just like I am. Engaging with those accounts will give both of us more exposure and a higher chance of picking up followers.
I want this to be a sustainable part of my day that I can use to organically gain traction on the platform.
I am thinking about other options for creating content (i.e. YouTube), however I want to ensure I can remain consistent with my blog and X first.
Statistics
I’m posting the statistics of my blog and X profile for posterity. I want to capture this information so that I can see the progress from one month to the next.
It’s not my intention to get competitive about the numbers. I’m sure many accounts have grown faster than mine, and many have grown slower. The stats simply are what they are.
- Total blog posts published: 4
- Website views: 61
- X posts: 225
- X impressions for month: 8,224
- X followers: 17
A lot of these numbers are pretty low for now. I would love to have more X followers!
But I’m surprised at how high the X impressions were. My posts were seen over 8,000 times in the month, or over 250 a day. That’s pretty good, and it can only go up from here if I maintain the same level of posting.
The key thing for me right now is consistency. I don’t want X or my blog to be a flash-in-the-pan. I want content creation to become a consistent part of my life, and I think I can maintain this momentum. I’ll scale it back if I have to, but I’ll do my best to maintain it.
Things I Enjoyed
While it’s nice to talk about the big wins of the month, I also want to talk about stuff that I enjoyed.
Working on my Websites
A large part of this month was spent working on my two websites: Scott On Fire, and my business website. I’ve been busy doing the initial setup of the websites. This mainly involves creating the images used around the sites and formatting the WordPress templates. For my business site, I also set up a Calendly integration and wrote some basic copy for my services.
The next aspect of working on my sites is of course writing content. This has been an ongoing practice for a while, but it’s nice to finally put content on this site. A discussion I had with my friend which led to start of the Investing Series helped a lot to get started.
Growing an X Following
I’m also really enjoying the process of posting on X. It’s nice to interact with people on the platform, and I’ve found a couple of accounts that I enjoy interacting with.
I will admit it still feels a bit strange to comment and chat publicly online, but that is just the nature of X. I’m sure I’ll get over that feeling before long.
Things I’m Working On
I don’t want my Life Update posts to be backward focused. I also want to talk about the future. Here are some of my goals for March 2024:
Landing my First Business Client
After 6 months since I quit my job to find an ideal lifestyle for myself, it’s now time to slot work back into that lifestyle.
The next few weeks are going to be dedicated to finding a consulting contract so that I can start earning an income once more.
While I will be working as a consultant, the circumstances differ greatly from my last role.
I’ll be working through my business, rather than through an employer. Which means I call the shots, and I can choose the contracts I want to take.
I have worked hard during my time as an employee to learn as many high-demand skills as I can. Now that I am working as a freelance consultant, my opportunities are wide open without sacrificing my earning potential.
Consistent Content Creation
This is the first month I’ve been creating content and publishing it online.
I want to make sure that I can keep this momentum going – especially if I end up picking up some contract work.
Right now I want to make sure that I can continue to post consistently on my blog and X.
Building an Exercise Habit
A few months ago, I ran 10 kilometres in just over 70 minutes. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done (and I was exhausted afterwards).
I found that despite training diligently for that event, I didn’t continue my running habit after it was over. Almost as if I needed an external goal to keep me accountable in training.
I started tracking my exercise again in February in an attempt to build this habit again. I went out for dedicated exercise (walking & running) a total of 9 times in the month, for about 32 kilometres total for the month. Not much, but something to beat!
I’d like to get my running to 3 times a week and also fit in walks where I can. After that I want to add different types of exercise to my fitness regime.
Closing
I think this is a good place to wrap up my first Life Update post.
I have some more goals, but I don’t want this blog to become super personal right away.
Hopefully I can come back next month and tick off at least a couple of these goals.
I’m most excited to see if I can maintain my content goal. I’ve enjoyed it so far and want to see if I can make it work!
If you want to see how I’m travelling with these goals, I’ll be posting about them (and more) over on X @ScottOnFire. And of course I’ll make another post like this next month to see how things have progressed. See you then!
- Started tracking website visits via analytics on 26/02/2023. ↩︎