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Chris Bongers
Chris Bongers

Posted on • Originally published at daily-dev-tips.com

I blogged every single day for a year

It's been 365 days since I started my blogging journey, and this will be article 365.

I know many of you want to know my secret, and the truth is there isn't one.
You don't need to be a magician, wizard, or mage to do anything with discipline.

It's all about making time relative and making an effort.

Background story

Of course, 2020 was a horrible year in some way or another. People lost jobs, they lost people dear to them, they lost freedom, and much more.

People also gained opportunities, working from home, spending more time with loved ones, not sitting in traffic for hours.

The covid situation is anything but good, and there are many downsides.
But for me, I lost about an hour of travel time every day, which I considered an opportunity.

And you know what? I decided to use that time to start something new, a blog that is!

It's really as simple as making time relative and using it optimally.
Before I did this same trick with volunteer work.
I decided watching TV as much as I did was pointless.

I could easily stop watching TV for 3 hours a week, which I dedicated to a volunteer job.

In the end, you don't even notice these changes in any negative way. More often, they will spark motivation.

So why blogging?

I started a lifestyle blog in 2018, but it never really took off. The articles were long and took forever to write.
I did have much passion for writing them since they were things I enjoyed.

However, it just didn't satisfy me enough.
With his came some imposter syndrome about not being a good enough developer and not getting enough time to improve me.

I thought long about this and decided why not combine learning and improving by writing it down?
I've always been a person who remembers things best by writing them down.
And so Daily Dev Tips was born.

I write a single article every day. These articles cover everyday topics I face as a developer.

What did you achieve in a year?

A year goes by quick. It almost feels like not much has happened.
But thinking about it, so many things happened!

Not just in a blogging field, but in general.

  • I decided to spend more time in a place I feel my best
  • Got a super fantastic dog
  • The woman I loved said Yes to my proposal
  • I got a new job in a pandemic
  • I achieved financial freedom

And as far as the blog goes:

It was a superb year, heck no traveling, but many good things happened, and I'm sure it will come.

Which articles are you most proud of

I'll sum up my favorite articles from last year.
These are by far the most viewed and loved articles:

  1. CSS Frosted glass credit card
  2. Vanilla JavaScript Modal Popup Box
  3. JavaScript Mouse Tracking Eyes 👀
  4. CSS Truncate Text With Ellipsis
  5. Goodbye comments, welcome Webmentions 🙋🏼‍♂️
  6. Vanilla JavaScript Check if Date is in the Past
  7. CSS for the Scrollbar
  8. Vanilla JS add event listener on multiple elements
  9. Top 10 Chrome extensions for developers 👀
  10. Making a footer stick to the bottom with CSS

What's next?

This is a question I truly don't know. To be honest, doing this daily is quite strenuous, not particularly during the week (remember that free time?).

But the weekends can be killing, not just for me, but also for my partner.

So I might have to drop to weekdays only, and I'm sure no-one will really be sad about that.

I tend to keep up the blog, grow even bigger and help more people to become better developers themselves.

It would also be super cool to talk at some events, so who knows?

Thank you

From the bottom of my heart, thank you!
Yes, you, the reader of this article, are a part of this now.
By reading my articles, sharing them, liking them, you motivate me to continue this journey.

To the stars and beyond!

Thank you for reading, and let's connect!

Thank you for reading my blog. Feel free to subscribe to my email newsletter and connect on Facebook or Twitter

Top comments (16)

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xinnks profile image
James Sinkala

An article a day for a whole year! That's some feat.

Having personally set a goal to write an article a week and knowing the work that goes into writing one, congrats to you Chris.
And, what a year you've had.

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dailydevtips1 profile image
Chris Bongers

Thanks James,

Yeah it's been some year, glad I've done it.
Really inspired to go on now 🤩

Best of luck with your goal

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dailydevtips1 profile image
Chris Bongers

I'm still super jealous of people doing youtube daily 😅

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rahoulb profile image
Rahoul Baruah

Excellent.

I did a daily email for over a year, but only five days a week. Also I cheated and often batched them up.

It was surprisingly easy to do though - I worried less about getting things perfect because I knew I had a chance to correct it not long after.

Well done on a year.

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dailydevtips1 profile image
Chris Bongers

That sounds like a good challenge as well! great work.

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daviddalbusco profile image
David Dal Busco

365 articles in a row that's pretty impressive 🔥

Last year I did a "an article everyday for a month" and it was quite some work, therefore I can imaging that doing this on a year level is a looooot of work and such a commitment 👍

Congratulations Chris 🥳

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dailydevtips1 profile image
Chris Bongers

Thank you David, yeah it's quite the challenge.
They are "fairly small" articles, and I must say was so cool to do.

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rakeshb profile image
rakesh boddu

A pretty impressive feat. Congrats Chris

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Chris Bongers

Thanks Rakesh! ✨

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phantas0s profile image
Matthieu Cneude • Edited

Wow! That's great. You can be proud of yourself! This is a fantastic achievement.

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Chris Bongers

Thanks, I am actually.
It's a huge achievement looking back on it.

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tlylt profile image
Liu Yongliang

Wonderful work Chris🙆‍♀️, I have enjoyed reading about the less known HTML & CSS features & tricks in your daily blogs.🦄

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Chris Bongers

Awesome, let's see if I can find some more hidden gems this year 🤩

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Pavel Kovar

Respect

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Chris Bongers

Thanks Pavel!

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Michael Otu

Waw..