Here’s a quote from the trusty Jim Neilson’s blog from December 28, 2023:

Here’s a thought: blogging is like composting. The banana is what you’re after. But as a byproduct of the banana you get the peel. And if you compost, you can make good use of the peel. Similarly, whatever you’re building is what you’re after. But as a byproduct of whatever you’re building you undoubtedly learned, observed, or cursed at something along the way. And if you blog, you can make good use of that experience! Even if the banana was spoiled when you opened it, you can still compost it. Similarly, even if you ship nothing, there’s a blog post in that failure-to-ship. Composting recycles organic materials to enrich future plant soil. Similarly, blogging recycles experience to enrich future projects (and self) with wisdom.

I absolutely love this concept. It’s definitely meta (with the lower case, not anything like the company) in that what you get from blogging your experience is at a higher, or outer, level that both the experience (e.g. coding a feature) and the direct outcome of that experience (the code),

This applies broadly to any endeavour where you learn as you do, and the learnings are lost quickly if not captured, clarified, solidified in some way. Writing seems one of the most usable and sustainable over the long term.

As with folks who journal, the self-discovery is as important as living the experience. As well, learning to write about your experiences in useful, helpful ways is a learning project on it’s own, and is also useful to write about. (Sure, you can keep writing about the experience of writing in ever-widening circles, but I trust you to stop when it makes sense.)