I Buried an Unsustainable Medium Project
At the beginning of 2022, I decided to start journaling with a twist: my journal would be a public article on Medium.
Four months in and I buried the project.
It was exhausting to dwell on the day and write with no purpose other than to get my thoughts of the day on “paper”.
I felt no joy in assessing qualitatively or quantitatively the course of my day. It didn’t look like I was creating or achieving any palpable goal.
It was supposed to be an ever-changing article that served as my public journal however, it was mentally draining to write every day in a somewhat vague form.
So I decided to start writing only on a weekly basis.
I managed to write until the end of April. But then again the process was becoming anything but rewarding.
The article was already 16 minutes of reading time with no recurring readers. In a spawn of 4 months of existence, It had profited me $1.90.
Should I even call it profit?
Unfortunately, I have no prints to support the results, but it was by far my worst performing article on Medium.
The frustration was so real that I just deleted the article before even thinking of sharing its results and my thoughts about it.
I guess you have to trust my words on this one.
Before doing so, I kept the article pinned on my profile, even if it was attracting no interest from the community — or even mine.
While re-reading it, due to it being so vague, I felt that my life was too stale and repetitive. It was mostly “work was good” and “work was bad”.
When it came to the personal side of things, I had to retract myself because there was so much I was willing to post online.
Building this project gave me a false sense of accomplishment in journaling.
Nonetheless, I believe that for some people seeing their achievements written down can motivate them to keep doing more and better.
Might be the case that I’m being too hard on myself about a faulty project. Or maybe journaling really isn’t for me.
Nonetheless, I don’t see myself wasting any time with it any time soon.
