Recently one of my email subscribers asked me an interesting question:
What is something you wish you’d done at the start of college?
Straight away I knew my answer:
I wish I’d started my personal blog, PaulMinors.com.
Now obviously I went on to do this anyway. But I didn’t start blogging until a few months after I’d already graduated and started working.
The way I see it, I missed out on 3 years where I could have been blogging, learning about WordPress, CSS and finding my voice. When I started my website, I wasted a lot of time riding this learning curve which delayed the growth of my business.
If I could have accomplished all this learning during University, I would have been able to focus on the actual business side of my website a lot sooner.
At University, you have SOOOO much free time (although it may not feel like it). When you start working full-time, your disposable time is dramatically reduced. All those times I was sitting in COMLAW 101 lectures, bored out of my mind, I could have been learning how to build a website.
I’ve already written about the benefits of starting a blog. Even if you have no desire to start a business, a personal blog can help you to learn new skills, develop an online portfolio and become more hireable.
» Click here to learn, step-by-step, how to start a personal blog
Having said all this, when you're young, it’s hard to know what you want and when I was starting college, I had widely different priorities compared to where I am now. So I can’t really say that I made a mistake because at the time I was spending my time in the best way I knew how (by focusing on studies).
So yes, I regret not starting my blog sooner, but I’m not angry at “past Paul” because he was only doing what he thought was best.
If you’re starting college, be open to opportunities and ideas outside of your studies. But ultimately you have to do what’s best for you. Don’t dwell on other ideas too much because there’s no telling what the “right” thing to do is. Just make sure that you put maximum effort into whatever you do choose to spend time on.