This blog is anonymous. I wrote a bit about that in my blogging journey, how I made the mistake of announcing my first blog to all my friends and family then got self-conscious, and how that really stifled what I wanted to write about. I wrote about it in more detail in another post, but the simple version is this: this space is mine, a Room of My Own.

Blogging felt like it belonged to a privileged few (a leftover belief from the early 2000s — I binged on those blogs like no other), and it wasn’t until Facebook that writing in public under my own name felt accessible.

I also believed continuation had to be earned - that validation or “success” would give me permission to keep going.

That whole thing around visibility and validation is captured so well in this quote from Baby Reindeer

…because… because fame encompasses judgment, right? And I… I feared judgment my entire life. That’s why I wanted fame, because when you’re famous, people see you as that, famous. They’re not thinking all the other things that I’m scared they’re thinking. Like, “That guy’s a loser or a drip or a fucking fa*ggot.” They think, “It’s the guy from that thing.” “It’s the funny guy.” And I wanted so badly to be the funny guy.

*“Why keep your blog anonymous, why not just journal then?” *someone asked me after we emailed about one of my blog posts. And although I do journal privately, writing publicly (even anonymously) does something different. When I know someone might read what I’m saying, I have to distil the idea. It forces clarity. I stop rambling and try to focus. And the bonus is that sometimes what I write resonates with someone else, and we exchange ideas.

Over the last few years, and through my blogging struggle (I hate that it was a struggle: start, stop, change domains, shut down, start again), I’ve also realised that what I want to write about here isn’t something I know many people in real life are interested in.

And even when I do try to have those conversations, I don’t really get anywhere in depth. It almost feels like there’s no real interest in topics that are admittedly a bit niche: do I put my notes in Obsidian or Bear? Where do admin notes live? How do I track the books I read? Or my thoughts on success, scarcity, work, life, and all that.

There are probably people in real life who are interested in productivity and examining life this way, but maybe, like me, they keep those opinions elsewhere.

I do sometimes talk about productivity. People love discussing it at a high level, but I want details: where do you put your meeting notes? How do you track your to-dos, personal vs team vs project? Every now and then I meet someone at work who enthusiastically walks me through their system, how they streamline OneNote with Teams and Outlook (which I also use at work). I love picking up little bits and pieces.

And on that note, I secretly admire people who don’t care about any of this and just… get on with it somehow.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t necessarily need people who know me to know what I think about certain topics. Some things just aren’t for your professional life. For me, there’s a clear separation between work and life, and I like to keep it that way. Even though I do make friends at work, as I wrote about in (my very first!) blog post What Happens When Your 9–5 Defines You I still want a professional boundary between what I say here and who I am at work.

I want the freedom to write whatever I want, without worrying whether it’s work-appropriate.

If I want to write about weight loss, menopause, or something else like that, I don’t need everyone (not that everyone would be reading it, but it would feel that way to me) at work knowing about it. If I want to write about relationships, I haven’t really, so far, but I want that option, without wondering who might read it.

My blog has mostly been about my favourite topic in the world: obsessing over tools - how I use them, why I use them - and optimising processes, alongside examining the life topics I tend to fixate on. I want this blog to be a mix of everything I am.

Maybe if I wasn’t working, I’d feel comfortable opening it up at this point. But I haven’t told anyone about this blog at all. And if someone ever read it and worked out it was me, fine. But that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

I know a lot of people use their blog as a professional CV. In some ways, I wish I could do that. I even had a domain with my full name, which has just expired. But I don’t think I’d ever be comfortable with it, and I don’t really need a static personal site. I have LinkedIn for that, and, I suppose, I’m quite Gen X in that way.

What I do want is a blog. Something I can be prolific on, or not, as much as I want. And that freedom, that anonymity, is what makes it possible.