For my blog, posts are generally spun out of something that has been helpful in my own work and warrants a write up.

For instance, my recent post on optimising Django's SQL query generation was a collection of useful tools and approaches.

Seen in this light, a couple of the benefits are: the sharing of useful knowledge, and exploring things I encounter in daily development in more detail. As well as building things, it's nice to be able to work on my written communication.