At midnight tonight, 2010 will be 66.58% over. That fact should raise at least one of two questions in your mind: 1) where the hell has the year gone? and/or 2) why is he being that specific? I don’t have a good answer to either question unfortunately. Speaking of unsolicited specificity:

In common years no other month starts on the same day of the week as August, though in leap years February starts on the same day. -Wikipedia

Okay, enough of that.

On a much more practical note, August was the highest traffic month ever recorded in Practically Efficient’s short history. Actually, traffic here has increased by leaps and bounds for each of the last 3 months – at an average rate of 67% per month.

I’m really enjoying writing Practically Efficient. I’ve also enjoyed hearing from those of you who leave comments and write me. I’m learning a lot from you. It's good to know that in between my typos and ramblings, you're finding something useful here.

A look at the most popular “all time” PE posts

The two most popular posts here at Practically Efficient continue to be a two that I wrote on MultiMarkdown earlier this year. Google seems to really have a crush on these and sends me lots of MultiMarkdown-knowledge-hungry visitors daily to view them:

I continue to use MultiMarkdown almost exclusively for web writing. If you have questions about how I’m using it or ideas for other MultiMarkdown areas to explore, please let me know.

A few August 2010 highlights

  • The month opened with a post on the latest updates to Kindle for iPad. Kindle (the service) continues to be my favorite e-reading platform, though I don’t own the Kindle device.
  • I offered my thoughts on how the 21st century is allowing creation through recycling at an accelerating rate and related it to the story of William Kamkwamba's windmill innovation.
  • I wrote a week-long series on setting better hurdles in life called “Note to self.” A lot of new folks were introduced to PE through this series thanks to a link from my friend David Sparks, one of the best experts on Mac productivity you’ll find.
  • The month concluded with a Practically Efficient first: an interview with Katie Floyd on her lengthy experience with Macs and her thoughts on other Apple things.
  • I also redesigned the archives page in August to make it easier to find past content. Let me know what you think of the layout – whether you love or hate it.

Looking ahead

You can expect to see more writing on productivity, workflows, and technology culture here at PE in the coming weeks. If you like what you see and want more of it, please let me know. The comments and emails I’ve gotten so far have been really helpful in guiding the course of this practically efficient odyssey.