Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: blog anniversary

  • 10 years of daily blogging

    This week marks the 10 year anniversary of this daily blog. In some ways it’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade and in other ways it’s hard to imagine a time when I didn’t write/post something every day. What a habit this has become.

    A lot has changed since 2013.

    Back then, I was still trying to find my way in real estate development. Instagram was only 3 years old. TikTok hadn’t been created yet. And the idea of writing a daily blog didn’t feel as antiquated as it does today. I probably should be vlogging at this point.

    But here’s what hasn’t changed:

    – I enjoy writing, and I think it’s personally beneficial — even if I don’t derive any direct benefits (such as money)

    – I like having my own little corner of the internet that I control — instead of relying exclusively on centralized platforms like Instagram or X

    Today this corner is brandondonnelly.com, but I suspect that brandondonnelly.eth will become just as important over the next decade. The world is heading toward more decentralization. And if/when that does happen, I’ll be sure to write about it on this daily blog.

    Thanks for reading everyone. As usual, I’ll see you tomorrow.

  • 8 years of writing every day

    This weekend was the 8 year anniversary of writing this daily blog. It’s hard to imagine that it has been this long. Perhaps because COVID has accelerated the last little while and made it difficult to remember what day or year it is sometimes.

    I am often asked what the end game is for this blog. What am I hoping to get out of it? The truth is there is no real end game. I like reading and writing. I like being constantly curious about the world. I like discipline. I like meeting and connecting with new people. And I like having my own little place on the internet, however small it may be.

    I get dozens of emails each week from people and companies wanting to pay for sponsored posts on this blog. I’m not sure how legitimate these inbounds are, but I ignore all of them. That’s not what this blog is for or about.

    In the early days of writing this blog it was called Architect This City and the focus was a bit narrower: real estate, design, planning and all things cities. That is still more or less the case, but I do often stray from these topics. Sometimes into personal topics. Sometimes into my photography. And more recently into the world of crypto and blockchains. This is one of the reasons why I decided to move to just blogging under my own name. There’s more flexibility.

    Sidebar: I recently bought my first NFT — a CryptoBabyPunk. I’m not at all suggesting that you should do the same. It could be worthless in the future. But I continue to be fascinated by what’s happening in this space and I’ve committed myself to experimenting and learning a lot more.

    Writing something each day is extremely difficult. Some days it only takes 15-20 minutes. And other days, when I’m not in the mood or I’m exhausted from doing too many other things, it can take over an hour. It’s a big time commitment and on more than one occasion I’ve questioned whether my time was better spent elsewhere. But then I think about all of the benefits that I derive from this daily practice.

    They say that the definition of a habit is that you don’t feel normal until you’ve done it. And this blog has certainly become a habit of mine. It forces me to wake up every morning and consider at least one interesting thing that may be happening in our cities and our world. I don’t intend to stop anytime soon. So thank you all for reading over the years.

  • Five year anniversary

    Today is the five year anniversary of this daily blog. That’s over 1800 posts. 

    It’s almost hard to believe that it has been that long. It seems like just yesterday I was on year 2 or 3. But at the same time, it’s almost hard for me to remember a time when I didn’t blog every day. I guess we’re calling it a habit at this point.

    One of the most common questions I get regarding this blog is: “Do you pre-write posts?” The answer is never. Okay, almost never. Sometimes I’ll pre-write a post if I know I’m going to be on a plane for 12 hours and I won’t make the timezone cutoff. But generally as a rule I don’t.

    Part of the reason I don’t is because it breaks the habit. This is something I do every day. And I like that routine. I also want the posts to be timely and I want to be able to write about things that may be on my mind that day.

    Momentum is a powerful thing. And when you’ve been doing something for a number of years, and especially something as public as this daily blog, there’s a powerful incentive to keep doing it. That’s how streaks work.

    However, in the world of development, five years is perhaps not that long. It’s maybe one project. Streaks take a lot longer to establish.

    This summer One Delisle by Studio Gang went public and you’re now starting to see (bright neon) teasers for Junction House. Both of these projects are many years in the making. The Junction House story started in early 2016.

    So I reckon that this blog needs at least another five years so that there’s enough time for the really juicy stories to surface. I’ll endeavor to do exactly that. 

    Thanks for reading and making this community what it is. See you tomorrow.

  • 4 years

    Today is the 4 year anniversary of this daily blog.

    Sure, I’ve missed a few days over the years (my estimate is 4-5 days), but for the most part I have shown up here every day and written something. 

    Sometimes that something is very short and/or bad. I’ve had a few people say to me: “I can tell when you’re super busy. Your posts are shorter.” I’m okay with that. Part of this exercise for me is simply about the discipline. 80% of success is showing up, right?

    In some ways, what I do here is an anachronism. Here is a good vintage article (2011) that talks about two different schools of thought when it comes to blogging.

    The reality is that it’s painfully slow and difficult to build an online audience via a personal blog using your own domain. It takes years, unless you’re a celebrity, which I am most certainly not. That’s why many people give up.

    Instead, many people/influencers choose to build their audience on top of an existing network, such as YouTube, Instagram, or Medium. Medium is pretty tempting and I’ve seen lots of bloggers port over their personal blogs.

    The idea here is that you simply bring your content to where your/an audience already lives, instead of trying to get them to come to you. 

    Of course, one of the risks of this approach is that you don’t own/control the platform. What if people one day decided to stop using MySpace? I like the idea of owning (at least part of) my online presence.

    So here’s to another year on the blog. Thanks for reading! I really do appreciate it. Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.

  • 3 years of daily blogging

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    This past Sunday was the 3rd anniversary of this blog. That is 3 years of me writing something here every day (I think I’ve only missed 2 days in the past 3 years). So I have now written almost 1,100 blog posts.

    Admittedly, they weren’t all masterpieces. But that doesn’t really matter. To do good work, I think you have to be prolific and show up every day.

    The big change this year was that I “unbranded” this blog and started writing just under my personal name, as opposed to Architect This City. I got some initial pushback when I did that, but I continue to believe it was the right decision for what I am trying to achieve here.

    I recently had someone ask me if there was any change in traffic after the switch. And the answer is no. If anything, traffic increased. 

    Over the last year, this blog received about 225,000 page views. Of course, this doesn’t include the 14,000 or so people who read via email subscription and Tumblr, and never actually land on this site.

    But honestly, I don’t care about the numbers anymore. I used to. But not anymore. I blog because it:

    – Forces me to stay current on the topics that matter to me

    – Allows me to clarify my thoughts in a way that thinking alone can’t do

    – Holds me publicly accountable for the things I say and the stances I take

    – Connects me with people I would never otherwise meet

    – Exposes me to new business opportunities

    – Gives me a distribution channel for discussion and sharing

    – Allows me to learn from readers who know more than I do

    – Feeds my desire to create things (creating > consuming)

    – Allows me to exert my personal independence (I write what I want here)

    – Promotes greater transparency and, hopefully, better city building

    I could go on, but those are some of the most salient points.

    At the same time, the world of blogging and social media is all about giving first. So I do try to curate content and posts that I think would be valuable to the readership of this blog. If there’s something else you’d like to see on here, I am always open to suggestions.

    Thanks for reading! Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow. And yes, those are my old skateboard decks hanging on the wall behind my desk.