Why you should document or share knowledge | experiences by writing blog posts or documenting them.
The essence of writing or documenting experiences are worth it. “There is no joy in possession without sharing.” — Erasmu
In this article, we'll be looking at some of the reasons amongst many others why you should share knowledge by creating a blog post or documenting experiences| thoughts | or hacks for personal or public purposes.
It's important to put into consideration the reasons for sharing knowledge or experience by creating content either for personal or public access.
In honesty, sharing knowledge is a sign of gratitude as W. Clement Stone rightly put it:
If you are thankful, what do you do? You share.
I’m looking forward to seeing the amazing stuff you’ll begin to do after exploring the reasons below:
Sharing helps to concretize learning and leads to further discoveries
Writing aids an individual or team to reinforce learning a concept even with further discoveries.
Simply because:
“The miracle is this: The more we share the more we have.” — Leonard Nimoy
For example, in the process of writing this article, I discovered new reasons why I should always write. Explaining a technical concept or bug fixes through writing helps one to be more grounded because in the course of fixing or researching discoveries is been made.
Another way to retain knowledge or insight gathered from experiences is to share them.
Ease of lookup
“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.”
— Olin Miller
Writing facilitates the ease to make references or look up something useful to you or someone else. It feels like why should I even bother to document stuff or write things? If you’ve referred to code snippets or an article that describes “how to” you’ll certainly agree that the challenges in documenting or writing are nothing compared to its benefits.
Common knowledge might be shared by many people, but no knowledge dangles unattached to any subject. Unlike water or gold, knowledge always belongs to someone. Jennifer Nagel, Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction
For example, I’ve had different occasions where I had to easily access an article to look up an implementation or share the link with someone.
It's an act of giving
In Writing and documenting experiences we’re giving out a value that’s not measurable. If you want to give consider writing as a channel. It seemed like writing a review by the year was meant for me alone until someone highlighted some points that are worthy of consideration on their part.
If you ask people why they give, the readiest answers offer clues to the mystery. God wants me to. I feel better about myself. Others need it, and I have. I want to share. It's only right. Deepak Chopra.
Information can be given too just as we do with money.
Exposure
There’s more to what we know because there might be other "valid" perspectives on a subject matter. For instance, publishing an article about “Arrays in Go programming language” will attract different sets of programmers | developers etc that will chip in one or two comments based on their level of expertise in GO or other programming languages.
Time management
Just imagine the time that will be saved by sharing a link to a blog post that can answer the same or similar questions you've seen or fixed based on your experience to a Javascript discord channel or Whatsapp groups or even to people who you got in contact with through a networking session.
Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade! -Anthony Robbins
What will it look like to explain to every developer intending to or having a challenge on hosting an application on Heroku for just 5 minutes compared to writing a single article about it?
It could be challenging to take a day or more to write an article but it's a strategy to manage time. For example the article below will help to manage time because they'll be needed:
6 things to consider when choosing development tool kits
Top recommended tools every developer should have in their locker
Most Recommended Principles of Time management you should know
Opportunities
Writing brings about different kinds of opportunities such as:
Networking
Jobs
Offers
Visibility
Connection with companies that own products you write about or mention.
Adds value to resume, portfolio
How to get noticed on LinkedIn: Profile Walkthrough
From applying for jobs to reviewing job offers
Enhances and increases the ability to put thoughts together and be more organized
“Organization isn’t about perfection. It’s about efficiency. Reducing stress and clutter, saving time and money, and improving your overall quality of life.” – Christina Scalise, Professional Organizer and Author
Some of the questions that make writing | documenting a challenging task are:
Where to start?
What should be captured?
How the article will flow?
How to end the article?
A writer or not at one point or another answering these questions is an integral part of human existence. The more article you write the better and easier it becomes to put thoughts together and be more organized.
“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” — Benjamin Franklin
Outlive your existence
Last but not least published articles outlive our existence. I've come across thoughts captured in 1620 that are resourceful and insightful.
“Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.” — His Holiness the Dalai Lama
For example, someone could come across these articles 100 years from now __yea
A reflection on my journey | Dev - Retro 2022
7 ways to becoming Productive as a Developer
Most recommended ways to master a programming language or framework
Conclusion
We’re all writers because we’ve got something to share or learn from any time anywhere. _Alemsbaja.
There is so much impact that can be made in our personal and communal growth if we document or share quality and resourceful articles | and thoughts. Here are Tips for writing high-quality and excellent articles.
Find more articles on my Hashnode account
If your preference for learning is visual and motion-based content, I also have a youtube channel where I intend to share content as a means of contributing to sustainable development goals.
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