I often feel down on myself for not having time to focus on blogging. I've written things in the past that have been well received, attracted lots of traffic and opened up opportunities, but doing it regularly seems like too big an undertaking.

Then I remind myself that I routinely bash out HN comments of 200-300 or more words, and it takes only a few minutes. And you get instant feedback through votes and replies, which makes crafting the ideas and editing the copy so much easier and faster.

The combination of having something specific to respond to, the rapid feedback, and not having the pressure of posting a standalone piece that needs to justify its own existence, makes HN place I can write very freely.

Now I sometimes think of my longer HN comments as blog post drafts just waiting for me to dig them up and publish them.