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I used to be obsessed with the statistics of my internet presence. Google Analytics, Technorati, MyBlogLog… A casual observer of my browsing would have had to assume that these were my favorite websites. They most definitely were not.

I knew I was spending just as much time looking at stats as I was spending actually making things, but it seemed like a necessary evil. It felt like I simply had to look at my unique visits to know how to create stuff.

So, when I replaced my theme a few weeks ago, I decided to leave all of those tracking codes out. Not even my Google Analytics account received any data. It was a bit like quitting smoking or weening off of TV, but I don’t even think about it now. This change translates into gobs of free time I once wasted looking at relatively meaningless graphs.

Perhaps even more importantly, it also means I’m no longer as affected by the lusty temptress that web traffic is. While knowing that a ton of people saw something I made thanks to a link on X is certainly rewarding, it’s a miniscule reward compared to what happens when somebody I don’t know sends me an email that says “hey, I like whatever it is that you do.”

Yeah. That’s where the magic is.

Whoops, I slipped back into character there for a second.

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