I’ve been self-hosting my own website and various blogs for years now and I’ve learned many things but the most important thing I’ve learned is that if it’s not easy to update/use then I’m simply not going to use it long term. That being said most blogging software is not easy for me personally to use.

I’ve tried most of the well known blogging software out there and since I’m so finicky about the software I use on a regular basis none of them really worked for me. They either lacked a feature I needed (mainly some form of mobile support that doesn’t totally suck) or were too geared towards businesses and monetization that it turned me off from the software entirely. I’ve also been self-hosting for so long that I really would prefer to host my own blog so I have control over it. So self-hosting it is.

So I’ve come up with a simple workflow to update my website but for blogging I’ve become so used to microblogging that if I can’t post from my phone I’m not even going to bother, which is why mobile support is important to me. Granted I am working on breaking that habit since it’s never done me any favors, but I have worked out that drafting my posts in Obsidian on my phone works well enough for me. That way I write my posts on my phone and publish them on my computer later. I’ve been admittedly slow at actually pushing updates to my website and blog (opening Filezilla does not particularly spark joy for me for some reason) so that’s something I am going to look into possibly automating that process or possible ways I can make uploading to my server smoother.

I also have to remember that it can’t be too easy for me to post either. This is very much a me thing but I struggle a lot with overthinking and worrying if I should’ve posted something or not. If you’ve followed me on social media before you’ll notice I delete a lot of posts sometimes very shortly after I posted them and that’s why. So that’s why I’m not making it too easy for me to post. Uploading posts should take a bit of time so I can sit on them for a bit before I decide to share them. It’s a balancing act I suppose.

For those curious, this blog is built using Hugo. While I do use Eleventy for my website, I find it easier to use Hugo for blogging since it’s very easy to set up and get a nice looking blog up and running.