Today I sent out a post-event newsletter for this year’s Createcamp. I thanked the attendees for their time and participation, asked for their feedback and wether or not they would be interested in having another Createcamp in the future.

I really enjoy writing these newsletters. I’ve written three before and one after the event and I have to say, that I really like putting them together.

Instead of addressing the whole group, I always write like if I was talking directly to the person. That way it feels really personal to me and it makes it a lot easier for me to write. That’s what I learnt today.

I’m packing things together for Createcamp tomorrow. I went to get food and drinks and checked in with the venue to ensure things are ready for when we arrive.

So far everything seems ready. And I couldn’t have done it without the extensive amount of stuff that I’d written down. Again I realised today how important lists are. That’s what I learnt today.

It happened this morning like it does sometimes: I looked at something and I got an idea. And then, when I started thinking about it, I got another idea. And then another, and so on. Up to the point where I wanted to start immediately with things because I felt like something might slip my mind.

So I opened up OmniOutliner and started writing everything down. When I sat down later, I refined what I had written and made some annotations. Once again I realised that writing things down is just incredibly valuable. That’s what I learnt today.

When I committed myself to write everyday, I didn’t really consider that it might be necessary to write on my phone occasionally. Up until now, I had to use my phone several times to manage the daily writing exercise, mostly when I wasn’t near a computer or when I didn’t have my laptop with me.

Today, as I’m writing this, I’m at home and I have my laptop ready. However, I was tempted to just sit on the couch and use my phone instead. But after typing a few words, I switched to my laptop again. Typing on my phone just doesn’t really feel like writing to me. At least not yet. That’s what I learnt today.

In a recent episode of the unfinished business podcast, Andy Clarke is joined by Jeffrey Zeldman and Jeremy Keith to talk about writing on the web. Jeremy explains his 100 words project and stresses the importance of writing for yourself on your own website. They also touch briefly on the subject of learning and how we sometimes feel we stagnate in learning new things.

This very inspiring conversation got me thinking. To be honest, I’ve been guilty of holding back and self-censorship when it came to writing, although I’ve always wanted to write more. And the reasons are always the same: either I thought the subject I was going to write about wasn’t interesting enough, or I assumed someone else had already written about it.

But when it comes to learning, I don’t really have the feeling of stagnation. Although I’ve been working in web design and development for about 8 years now, I’m picking up new things every day – not to mention the stuff I’m learning outside of work.

I think it really depends on what we define as learning. If we’re talking about picking up a new skill then sure, we don’t learn new things everyday, simply because it usually takes more than one day to do something completely new with confidence. But for me, learning is much more than familiarizing myself with a new technique. In it’s essence, I see learning as a gaining of knowledge. I think people are constantly learning new things, however small they may be, but they’re not really aware of it anymore.

To overcome one issue and appreciate the other, I decided to write about the things I learn everyday. This may be something web design or development related or something completely different. The point is, to recognise that learning happens every day and to be conscious of it.

And that’s what I learnt today.

Although the relaunch isn’t much of a relaunch. It is more of a fresh start – a new launch. This site used to be my online portfolio and blog where I shared the way I had been working as a photographer.

When I started doing webdesign in 2007, I instantly fell in love with the web. Becoming very passionate about it, I spent a lot of time learning and later setting up my own business in 2009. The frequency of my writing declined until I finally stopped altogether.

Writing has always been a part of my life. I’m also a great believer in sharing – that’s why I started writing in the first place. So I decided to share and write about stuff related to the things I do now. The things that I am passionate about.