How I write a Tony Tries blog post
Today we are looking at how I aspire to go about writing a typical article on Tony Tries Stuff. You will learn about the tools I use and the processes in place to help me write these blog posts. Hopefully this post inspires you to start writing your own blog or improve your existing workflows
My tech stack
For those who aren’t familiar, a tech stack is typically used in the context of app development as a list of programming languages and other tools used to build the app.1 I have used the term ‘tech stack’ in this post to describe all the tools I use to write a post for Tony Tries. A simple flow diagram of my tech stack (critical only) can be seen below.
The main elements of my tech stack
It’s worth noting that I have not yet fully adopted all elements of my tech stack. Some elements are tagged with Aspiration meaning they are tools that would benefit my workflow that I have not yet fully adopted in my day to day.
Now let's tackle them one by one, along with the phase in which they are most relevant.
Before post
This is one of the most crucial steps to the process, which is ideation. My mind is often full of ideas of what to write, but more often than not, these don’t always translate to posts on Tony Tries. And so, I try and capture my ideas somewhere as soon as I have them. They can be something as grandiose and unachievable like flying to the moon, but that shouldn’t stop me from capturing them.
Once I have captured an adequate number of ideas, I can then decide which ones to take forward and which ones to keep in my backlog. Therefore, when I am in the mood to actually write something, I can just look at my backlog and decide which one excites me the most to take forward.
And for this purpose, there are two apps that simplify my process:
- Apple Notes: As someone quite immersed in the Apple Ecosystem, I find Apple Notes incredibly helpful in jotting down ideas almost instantaneously. I also write a short paragraph describing the main points I would like to cover. And so, when I have some time set aside to work on my blog post, I’m not stuck staring at a blank page.
AspirationNumbers: This is a data processing app similar to Excel, used mainly in Apple devices. I mainly aspire to use Numbers as a way to give each idea of mine a unique reference. Having a unique reference associated with every idea allows me to track the progress of that idea across all the other elements in my tech stack.
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Writing post
If you would like to write consistently, you need to have a plan. It doesn’t have to be the best plan, but it has to be a plan nonetheless. It doesn’t have to be fancy as well, even a whiteboard with some post-it notes can do the job. But keeping things simple comes at the cost of spending a lot of time managing the plan instead of writing.
You also need to minimise the friction associated with writing, meaning you need to make it as easy and pain free as possible for you to go from wanting to write to actually writing the post. It’s no good if every time you feel like writing a sentence, you need to spend ten minutes turning on your Windows 95 PC, and then waiting for Word to open, and then inserting a floppy disk containing the .doc file, which you can then edit to make changes.
I believe the process of writing a post needs to be as easy as pulling out your phone and texting a friend. This can very well be achieved, and I will showcase below how I go about that.
- Joplin: This is the only app that I use to write all Tony Tries blog posts. It’s an open-source cross-platform cloud-synced markdown-based note-taking app (I know, lots of hyphens!). Bear Blog — the platform I use for posting my blog posts — is Markdown based. Manually adding Markdown to text is cumbersome. And so having access to an app like Joplin that has keyboard shortcuts and on-screen buttons to Markdown text (like adding links, making text bold, etc.) makes life so much easier! It also saves all your progress to a cloud provider of your choice, meaning you can quickly edit your posts from your phone and those changes will be up-to-date in all your other devices.
- iCloud: iCloud is my cloud provider of choice to store all my documents and other assets (like pictures) that go into a Tony Tries post. Having all my documents in one easily accessible location on the cloud means I always have access to all my assets at all times.
AspirationTrello / MS Planner: After some consideration, I decided to go with either app to keep track of which stage a Tony Tries post is at any given time. I also hope to maintain a content calendar that shows what post should be posted when. The main reason to do so over keeping track in your mind is that your mind isn’t an immutable source, meaning what you were thinking one day can easily differ from one day to the next.- Safari: Safari is my web browser of choice, primarily because I am in the Apple Ecosystem. I mainly use safari to learn more about topics I write on, provide links to resources, and to fact-check my writing.
AspirationSuper Productivity: I wrote about Super Productivity over on Tony Recommends Stuff, so do check that out if you haven’t already. It’s a task manager app that also integrates time tracking. I would like to use Super Productivity to break down the tasks in any given Tony Tries post and tackle them one at a time.- Hugging Chat: I’ve been primarily using Meta Llama 3.1 as my AI of choice. It’s able to understand requests very well and provide a tailored response in seconds. Hugging Chat is the client I’ve been using to access Meta Llama on my phone. I mainly use AI to get a quick answer to a question that I have or to organise my thinking. It’s worth noting that AI models are known to ‘hallucinate’ which is the term used for when it provides an answer that simply isn’t true. Therefore, always be cautious and responsible when using AI.
- Language Tool: This is an open-source alternative to Grammarly. It helps proofread my writing and refine it as well. I mainly use Language Tool after I have finished my first draft, and before I copy it to Bear Blog.
- Bear Blog: Finally, once my post is ready for the internet, I use Bear Blog, which is (hopefully) my blog for life. I wrote a detailed article on why I moved over to Bear Blog from Substack in a previous article. Bear Blog is open source and maintained by Herman. It is a simple blogging tool that creates beautiful blog posts written in Markdown. Once I have completed my proofreading, I simply copy and paste the entire article into bear and I can rest easy knowing the post will look stellar.
After post
Getting to this point usually feel like an achievement in its own right. Although some may prefer to simply posting a blog a forgetting about it, I personally would like to have others benefit from it. And so, I like to let people know that I have posted something.
I tend to use various social channels to publicise my posts. This way, people have more than one option for where they find my post. Once someone feels motivated enough to subscribe to my RSS feed, they can then get automatically notified every time I post. But until they get there, I need to use one or more channels to announce my post.
These are the avenues that I used to regularly get people to read my posts:
- Lnk.Bio: Instagram does not allow you to post links to websites in your post description. This is a problem for me as each of my Instagram post is associated with a link. So I use Lnk.Bio which is a link in bio web page generator. It mimics the layout of the posts in your Instagram profile, meaning you can direct users to the link in your bio to see the associated blog post.
- Instagram: This app probably needs no introduction. It’s one of, if not the most popular social media app at the moment. I personally use it to draw attention to my blog posts. Instagram used to be my biggest source of traffic when I was using Substack. And so, if my priority is to get more views, then I need to make sure I engage my audience on Instagram.
- Mastodon: This is an open-source alternative to Twitter. With all the recent controversies with using Twitter, I chose to migrate to Mastodon when I set up Bear Blog earlier this year.2 Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, which are interconnected servers that hosts various social media platforms. So my posts on Mastodon can be viewed by anyone on any other platform as long as they are also part of the Fediverse.
- WhatsApp: My final avenue of choice to get attention to my posts. I typically send out WhatsApp messages with a link to my post to people I know. This allows me to directly interface with the people who I think are most likely to be interested in my posts.
Alright wise guy … how much is it costing you?
Believe it or not, but by being quite deliberate with the choices I made for my tech stack, I am able to avoid paying any recurring fees (except iCloud, which I mainly use for my personal life). I have made some one-time purchases which were unavoidable (totalling ~$125 including web hosting!). Other than that, I mainly use FOSS (Free Open Source Software) to do most of what I need to do.
A good architecture is like a good story: it has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and it’s easy to follow.
-Ralph Johnson (unverified)
I’d love to hear from you, are you able to relate with my tech stack? What elements form your tech stack? Tell me all about it on Mastodon!
Thanks for taking the time to read what I’ve created! I’ll catch you in the next one.
Until next time,
Tony
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