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Originally I was going to come up with a massive list of things we could do to make the world a better place.

And then reality came around to give me a swift kick in the derriere.

I’m under the weather, I’m short on time, and I’m burnt out on blogging. I feel like I’ve posted about everything that’s come to mind, but that’s a problem since there’s still another 65 posts to come after this.

But then it came to me while I was exercising infinite levels of patience while waiting for my iPod Touch to get looked at in the Apple Store (another story entirely on its own) —

Why not make blogs on all the things that we could do to improve the world one by one?

My synapses thanked me, glad that they finally had something they could sink their metaphorical teeth into.

But that’s tomorrow. Today I’ll—and it’ll probably be the last time I do this before the year’s end—take a look back and see what I’ve learned in 2011.

WHY BLOG?

One of the biggest questions I’ve had to ask myself is why the heck I would choose to try and blog once per day in a year where I have so much going on.

In hindsight, likely not my smartest decision. Time is a precious commodity, and we should use as much of it as possible doing things we enjoy.

The only reason why I chose to blog in the first place is because I’d failed so badly at keeping the 2010 20K up to date. And that in itself was a blog to accompany “needs” that stemmed from my inability to plan ahead in the first place!

So maybe blogging isn’t the best fit for me, but I don’t think that I’d be as sure of that as I am had I not done this in the first place! After December 31^st is but another New Year’s Eve lost to memory, I’m pretty sure I’ll never try to write with this much structure and schedule ever again!

WHAT DID BLOGGING TEACH YOU?

Blogging about life improvement has taught me far more than I’d ever expected it to—originally I’d just thought that I’d write blogs and figure out what I’m all about, but all I found is that it ended up being more of a chore than anything else.

Blogging is fun, but it has to be on something that you’re passionate about. If you just try to do something for the sake of doing it, it’s simply NOT sustainable.

However, though it was a pain at times to get content out when there’re other things I could’ve been doing, there’re definitely things I learned that I’ll be able to apply to future endeavours. Some examples include:

• Why WordPress is such an awesome platform
• How to market all the things you’re doing
• How to create interesting content
• That people do read stuff on the Internet—they just might not always feel compelled to comment on it
• If you want to stand apart from the crowd, blogging takes a huge initial investment of time and effort

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO AFTER THE 2K11 24/7?

All things must come to an end. When this year’s through, I see myself looking at:

• drawing more comics
• designing custom WordPress sites
• starting some businesses

I think it’s time to tap into my other creative aspects again, and figure out what more I have to give.

We all learn our life lessons at a different pace, and while I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to inspire and help others, I’m pretty sure that blogging’s not the only way to go about it.

Thanks for your support so far!

–Casey E. Palmer

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