Every week I go through a lot of articles, on all kinds of different subjects, to try and keep abreast of what’s going on in the tech industry. I subscribe to my fair share of newsletters, I scour Twitter for interesting links and I have a Pocket list as long as my arm. Hopefully this means I’m pretty well-informed, but there’s two problems with this.

Firstly, when it comes to the tech community I’m predominantly a consumer rather than a producer. I read all these articles and learn about all these different technologies but I barely contribute anything myself.

Secondly, I spend a lot of my time reading and not enough time doing. I get all this inspiration but it has no outlet.

This year, having worked very little so far (in case you didn’t notice, I’ve been travelling), I’ve felt this even more which is partly why I decided to start writing articles.

One of the mental barriers I put up for myself is that I don’t have any projects I can use to experiment with new technologies. It’s all very well going through a “hello world” tutorial but it doesn’t get you very far – it doesn’t show you how the technology works in the real world.

I also have an issue with attention span: there are so many shiny tools out there and I want to learn them all. Obviously this is a ridiculous goal and, coupled with my lack of real-world projects, means I end up immobilised rather than productive.

Which is why I’ve decided to take up the maxim, “see one, do one, teach one,” in order to try and solve all these problems at the same time. When I come across a new technology that I can see being of use to me, I will attempt not only to read about it but to find an application for it and write about it.

And now I’ve written it down it’s real and has to happen.