Sell yourself, sell your work

I have a personal rule which has worked really well for me: if I do a project, the price of doing that project is that I have to write about it.

Back when Twitter threads didn't suck (they could be viewed by people without Twitter accounts) I'd use those - tweet a description of my project with a link, then follow it with a few photos and screenshots.

These days I use my blog, with my "projects" tag: https://simonwillison.net/tags/projects/

I blog all sorts of other stuff, but if I was ever to trim back the one thing I'd keep doing is projects. If you make a thing, write about that thing. I wrote more about that here: https://simonwillison.net/2022/Nov/6/what-to-blog-about/#pro...

Projects with a GitHub repository make this even easier: describe the project in the README and drop in a few screenshots - that's all you need.

(Screenshots are important though, they're the ultimate defense against bitrot.)

I have many projects from earlier in my career that I never documented or captured in screenshot form and I deeply regret it.

> if I do a project, the price of doing that project is that I have to write about it.

Definitely something I need to do. I've been meaning to do a "what I did in 2024" blog post but since I didn't keep track, trying to figure it out has postponed the post for 3 months already...

I'd suggest a smaller scope, as writing for a whole year can be a bit of a daunting task.

I second this. Small chunks is easier than one massive thing all at once.

I also have the habit of keeping a `~/notes.md` file, which I can access at the drop of a hat with a shell shortcut (I use fish, so I have the function `nn` which calls `$EDITOR ~/notes.md`). If you use multiple computers, which I do, you can use a common git repo with a branch for each computer as a backup. I generally end up writing a few notes every day, which means if I want to publish something in the future I have good source material to use.

Apologies if this post was a bit self centered, I hope my sharing my methods might be useful :)