Maybe you've heard of Quora.
It's a website where people can ask questions and others can give answers. It's a website I used quite a lot for several years, both to answer questions and to read other people's answers. It has been both a place from which I learned a lot and a platform that helped me find some very entertaining content.
I currently have around 700 answers and I don't plan on stopping to write more. I do this for free. I gain nothing from it, except maybe some views from other people and an upvote once in a while, which doesn't really give me anything.
I do, however, gain something much more important than any material reward that the website could give me - experience in writing.
You see, writing articles is a great way to become a good writer and to improve your skill. But writing articles is not the only way to get better. Writing is. Writing anything at all, from articles, to prose, poems, or in my case, answers to questions.
Getting better at a skill requires quite a lot of practice and that practice can come in many ways. You might work mostly for money, so you can sustain yourself, but you'll eventually have to do some free work, for yourself, to try something new and to get better at what you do.
A painter will paint quite a few things for himself, and will do work that nobody will see. He or she has to do this in order to experiment, or to just practice what they already know, but don't master yet.
An artist will have agendas filled with sketches that nobody might ever see because that's where the artist practices his craft without critique from others and with a single purpose - to improve his technique and his ability to draw.
A musician will play the same songs, or new songs, in the intimacy of his own house, away from the crowd who usually listens to his performance, all in an attempt to improve, to understand what can be worked on to make more progress.
The same applies to writing. It's a skill that you need to train quite a lot. I've talked in past articles about how difficult it is to pick up writing after a long break. You know what you have to do and how you have to do it, but you just can't. Writing sentences is more difficult than before and putting your ideas on paper is a struggle. You only get back to your usual level after writing for a while.
It's why I write on Quora and other places despite not receiving anything in return. I practice my writing. I am challenged with subjects I might not think too much about otherwise. I am forced to write coherently, so that others understand what I try to say. All this helps me write better articles for this platform and others.
So, if you ever had the chance of doing some free work for yourself and you refused the thought, because you considered it a waste of time, maybe it would be a good idea to reconsider. Free work, done for yourself, with the purpose of improving, can do wonders.