To end the month of August with Blaugust, I wanted to write about some lessons learned.

I will reach my 15 blog posts goal as I publish this one, which is great! I did it! 🙌

One thing Blaugust helped me with was to lower my expectations, meaning, less perfectionism. I usually have an idea to write a blog post, and then I want to write a structured post, with intro, development and conclusion. And get all the references right, and edit it perfectly, and add the right images, and so on. Doing all of that takes time, and I realized I don’t have that much time anymore. Blaugust helped me see that I can break a few self-imposed rules about what a “proper” blog post needs to be.

And that means that I can share my thoughts while they are still fresh, without being over-polished. Not all posts need to have a conclusion, I can just throw away some thoughts and hit publish and that’s okay.

The post No big deal was from a draft I started two years ago and had never published because I thought it wasn’t good enough.

The post The only woman in the room was written during a lunch break, and I didn’t worry too much about structure.

The post Iron Maiden: Run for your Lives 2026 was written in a hotel lobby on some downtime before I left to catch a train. And I hit publish in the train station lobby minutes before entering said train. And that meant there were some typos in that post, which were corrected when I saw them.

All these really pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I’m glad they did!

But also, I don’t have that much energy anymore. Aging is real, and with it comes a shift in priorities where protecting my time and energy matters far more than obsessing over an ideal draft. Between work, personal life, house chores, reading, blogging, my well-being routines and whatever else, I have to be intentional about where my energy goes.

I planned on reading more of the other blogs participating, and I did read a few, here are some blog posts I enjoyed from which I discovered new bloggers for my RSS feed:

• Kobo vs Kindle – Divergent Rays
• Blaugust 2026 Group Project: Tell Us About Your Very First Blog – GamerLady P Blog
• The Internet Doesn't Exist – Matt's Blog
• I Don’t Want to Be the Product: Returning to the Tiny Internet – Pour The Coffee
• My Writing Workflow – Heart Soul Machine

Looking back on this month, I am so happy I decided to participate in Blaugust. It was exactly the push I needed to re-evaluate my relationship with writing and get back into a healthy rhythm. Writing 15 posts per month might be my upper monthly limit as of right now, and that’s okay!

Congrats to everyone else who took part this year! It doesn’t matter if you hit your goal, posted once or just spent the month reading along. I believe we’ve all learned something! It’s great to see that there are people interested in keeping the personal web alive and delightfully imperfect!

Post 15 of #Blaugust #NoisyMusings #blogging

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Andreas from 82Mhz just published he is joining #Blaugust 2026. I remember I joined in 2024 and it was a fun way to keep blogging. I had an introduction post back then, and although most of it is still current, I will do a quick update here:

• I still work in construction as an estimator, and I am now considered a senior estimator in my team.
• I still love reading, and it is my main hobby, as attested by the posts on this blog. I am very much a sci-fi and fantasy reader, but I’ve been distancing myself from anything too dark or grim. I balance my reading with some fluffly romances sometimes. I’ve been better at dumping a book when it’s not working for me.
• Still an introvert and cherishing quiet time and actitivites that bring me calm: running, walking, reading, journaling, meditating and listening to music.
• I’ve started Bullet Journaling recently and it has been a big change for me. I plan on writing more about this experience. I am becoming more and more inclined to use paper and take notes by hand (I’m actually drafting this post by hand right now).
• I haven’t been playing a lot of video games lately, most of the time I will just prefer to sit down with a book. But I want to get back to some of the games I’ve started.

So for the 2026 Blaugust I want to go for the Silver Award with 15 posts in August.

I’ve been wishing to write and publish more frequently on this blog, so Blaugust is a great accountability tool to me keep me going.

Some Blaugust references I came across that inspired me to join:

• Let's do Blaugust by 82MHz
• Welcome to Blaugust by Tangent Space
• Blaugust 2026 is Coming! by Nerd Girl Thoughts

Edit: more participating bloggers that I saw who joined:

• Alexandra from the Wry Writer
• joelchrono
  

Post 01 of #Blaugust #blogging

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Yes, tmo, I yearn for the “days of “Blogging Antiquity”, before ads, or sponsors, or commercialism overran the blogosphere.”.

I agree with Jet's Blog: blogging should not be advertising.. Such a great read on Blogging Antiquity!

And as Andreas pointed out: > Even if I don’t blog with a goal of making money or reach out to the masses, it is more fun doing it knowing at least someone could read it.

R.w.a is awesome !

I spent some time today backing up my former Wordpress blog. I had posts there from 2013. I took a disproportionate amount of time to find out where the export option was. I almost gave up. But it's done. I've been debating with myself if I should delete the account. I've done that before with Medium, after I tested it for while. But for some reason revisiting my first posts on Wordpress today made me nostalgic. I could not hit DELETE. Is that what you do when you move to a new blogging platform? Just delete the old one?

I've been having a similar dilemma about social media. I deactivated my Facebook account, but haven't deleted it. Same thing with Twitter, not actually using it, but it's still out there. The only reason my Facebook was NOT deleted is... family and friends that are far away still use it. It's sometimes their only online presence. So, what if one day I want to contact them? That's the only place these people exist in my references. I keep it for “someday/maybe”... food for thought..

#noisymusings #blogging #personal

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

💾For a complete summary list of my blog posts grouped by year, click here.

🎈 Things I write about :

Sections:

🎨 #NoisyMusings: a little bit of everything 📂 #Productivity: organization, methods, apps, GTD 📚 #Books: everything book related

Some Topics:

#apps | #Nirvana (the app, not the band) | #Todoist | #GTD | #MSTodo | #notes | #journal | #journaling | #BookReview | #ReadingList | #Reading | #ReaderGoals | #BookWyrm | #TheStorygraph | #weeknotes | #podcast | #GTDnotes | #100DaysToOffload | #projects | #goals | #DnD

#internet | #socialmedia | #attentionresistance #minimalism | #digitalminimalism #outdoors | #Hiking | #winter | #iceskating |#skiing |#music | #heavymetal | #puzzle | #health | #tech | #linux | #blogging | #Blaugust

So, the idea of starting a blog or online journal sparkled in my head by September, 2012. I was having a very boring day, so I decided to write down a list to shake things up:

1. Start a blog to write things down and organize list(s) and thoughts about life, universe and everything.
2. Reduce time browsing Facebook drastically: it is really depressing when you realize you’ve spent half an hour on Facebook and the most useful thing you saw was some news about a cool book coming out (and it was just some advertising, actually…). Note: I got inspired by this post @TheOnion — a must-read all you Facebook slaves!!
3. Okay, there was just one more cool thing on Facebook today: some cute art saying that making lists keeps us creative. Yeah. Lists. Great.
4. Say “no” more often. It is good.
5. No multitasking. Multitasking is bad for your brain (there was some study I read about this, but I’ve lost the link, sorry).
6. Assume my antisocial side, no need to feel bad if you don’t enjoy karaoke.
7. Just say “no”.
8. Sometimes people don’t care about what you find essential in your work, well f@#* them.
9. Swim today. No excuses.

The list was called “A list out of boredom” when I wrote it. And after that I tried to continue blogging, but it actually didn’t work out very well. Looking back, I realize today that it was a difficult year for me. I had to make choices. I skipped many activities I usually enjoyed, but at least I had a main goal in mind, and I’ve managed to complete it. It was a big and long project: a master’s degree.

I was completely exhausted after this achievement! I needed some time to cool down and reorganize myself. I started making changes in my life, including routines, habits, life style and so on. I stumbled upon GTD, minimalism, paperless life, zero waste lifestyle, simplicity. And all those things changed my world view. And are still changing me.

I’m still in the process, and now I’ve found time and energy to dedicate myself to this blogging project.

In a way, I believe I’m going through some changes which, hopefully, are for the better. From the things I wrote on that list in 2012 I can say today that I have achieved them all, one way or another. I see that as a sign of growth and evolution. I’m very happy about it!

And maybe that’s what this blog is all about, besides thoughts about life, the universe and everything!

#writing #noisymusings #blogging

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.