On Blogging

Fitting blogging into your life without losing your mind, relationships, and waistline

As part four of my Essential Advice for New Bloggers series we’re talking about balance. Specifically, how to balance blogging and the rest of your life.

You remember your life, right?  Come on, think really hard.  Oh yeah, that! 

It’s true, blogging has a way of creeping in, taking over, and destroying everything in its path. Sort of like termites, only more fun.  Which is why it’s important to come up with strategies, checks, and balances to keep yourself sane and keep your blogging addiction in check.

I won’t even pretend that I know all the answers here, because I struggle with the b-word (balance) on a daily basis. 

There are four main areas where we tend to spend our time “blogging.”  These are; creating content, building traffic, reading blogs, and reading and responding to comments.  For each, I’ve come up with some tips and tricks to help you manage your time.

1) Creating content

Of all the things to spend time on, I do believe that creating quality content is the most valuable.  Still, there are several strategies for increasing your efficiency when it comes to writing posts.

• Keep a notebook
  Ever notice how your very best ideas happen while you’re driving? or in the shower? or just lying down for bed?  Buy yourself a small notebook that you can take with you. Or, keep one in your car, another by your bed, and one in your purse. Whatever it takes so that you can jot down the brilliant ideas when they happen.  Then when you sit down to write a post, you’ll have a whole list of ideas ready and waiting.
• Write multiple posts at once
  Sometimes the hardest thing is getting the writing started, and once you’re up and running, the words flow like water.  Writing on demand can be difficult and time consuming, because you’re forced to “get in the zone” for each and every post.  It’s more efficient to get in the zone once and churn out a whole passle of posts.  Then, set them up to publish at regularly scheduled intervals and take the rest of the week off!
• Follow a posting schedule
  I learned early on that traffic dips on the weekend… hence not the best time to publish your BEST POST EVER.  Set a schedule for yourself.  Mine is (loosely) Monday through Friday, with a very rare post on the weekend.  I try to publish my best stuff Monday or Tuesday when traffic is the highest.  And holidays are rarely worth posting; half the blogosphere is offline.
• Don’t be afraid to take a day off
  Remember your priorities.  Blogging is not a job (yet, anyway), so don’t treat it like one.  Repeat after me: “this is a hobby. I will not let it take over my life.”  If you take a day off (or even a week) your blog will still be there when you return.  I promise.
• Use guest bloggers 
  If you’re going on vacation, having a baby, or just have a lot going on, consider lining up a string of guest bloggers.

2) Building traffic and checking stats

Let’s be honest.  Obsessively checking your stats fifteen or thirty times a day doesn’t do anything to help you build traffic.  It’s more than adequate to check them once or twice a week.  Still, stats are addictive.  Every morning it takes a monumental effort for me NOT to leap out of bed and check my numbers.  I am a woman obsessed.  But on mornings where I do succumb to the urge, I get sucked into the vortex of blogging and before I know it an hour has gone by, I haven’t showered, and CJ is hungry, grimy, and watching TV. Oh, and it’s time to leave for preschool.  I just created a highly stressful and completely avoidable situation.

Set aside a specific amount of time for building traffic and analyzing your stats.
Although it’s tempting to check your stats first thing in the morning and then every time you walk past the computer or even think about blogging… this is actually NOT the best option.

Instead, decide on an amount of time that you can afford to spend checking stats and building traffic. Next, write a list of what you hope to accomplish during this time. 

For example, your list could look like this:
1) List blog on directory-type sites
2) Read articles on how to better optimize for search engines
3) Submit best posts to Stumbleupon and Kirtsy
4) Look at Google Analytics, Feedburner, and Topblogs ratings.  Send thankyou emails to anyone who linked to me.

Now, set a timer for yourself, turn off your email alerts, and focus.  You’ll be shocked at how little time it actually takes to accomplish what you’ve laid out!

3) Reading blogs

This is where I can spend a massive amount of time (and I suspect you probably do too)… it’s so easy to subscribe, subscribe, subscribe and POOF! before you know it you’re following a half a million blogs and spending EVERY SPARE SECOND reading them.  You become stressed, pale, and weary; a shell of your vibrant former self. 

The simple reality is that you cannot hope to closely follow 50+ blogs AND have a fulfilling life.  Really.  Put the thought right out of your mind.

This doesn’t mean you can’t subscribe to and/or occasionally read 50+ blogs.

It’s all about priorities.

Realistically, I can read about 5 blog posts per day.  Depending on where you are with blogging, this number may be larger or smaller.  It may increase and decrease with the ebbs and flows of your life.  But remember, you need to be in control of this number.  If you feel stressed because you have so many unread posts that you need to read, something is WRONG.

Fortunately, I have a few steps that you can take to bring sanity to your reader.

First, ask yourself WHY you’re reading blogs.

This may seem silly or obvious, but it’s actually really important that you’re aware of your goals behind blog reading. And, you’ll find that you need to re-ask this question as your blogging evolves.

You might find that you’re reading blogs in order to leave comments and drive traffic to your blog and because you’re building relationships and friendships with other bloggers. In this case, reading blogs will go hand-in-hand with commenting… and you’ll rarely read a blog without commenting.  You will likely read a higher quantity of blogs, with less concern for their relative quality.

When you’re in this stage, remember that you don’t have to read every single post in order to accomplish your goals.  Reading and commenting on one post a week from each blog that you follow will have the same impact as reading and commenting on every single post.  Try it!  You’ll be surprised. 

Consider setting aside one or two evenings per week where you dedicate time to reading and commenting on as many posts as possible; both those you subscribe to as well as some new ones.  This works well because you can get into the mood of reading blogs and really focus your energies. Then, the rest of the week, you don’t have to worry about what you’re missing and can focus on your other priorities.

Organize your feeds into categories that work for you.

Another option that can be helpful when you subscribe to a lot of blogs is to organize your feeds in a way that works for you.  I’ve heard of some people who organize their feeds by days of the week; for example on Monday they might read five blogs, on Tuesday five other blogs, and so on.

For a long time I’ve organized my blogs into the following groups;

• Favorites. These are my current favorites; the blogs that I naturally gravitate towards and WANT to read whenever they update.  The list changes fairly regularly as I grow tired of some blogs and become infatuated with new ones. I try to keep this list to approximately 5 blogs.  When I find I’m not as enthusiastic about checking for updates on a blog, I move it to a different category.  These are the ONLY blogs whose posts I read immediately when they publish.
• Once a week. As the name implies, I read these blogs approximately once a week.  Sometimes more, usually less.  Often blogs that were originally in my “favorites” category get moved here when I tire of them.
• When the mood strikes. I don’t read these blogs on any set schedule, but they’re there for when I’m bored, have downtime, or am looking for inspiration.  Often blogs that were originally in my “favorites” category get moved here when I tire of them.
• People I know. I try to keep tabs on these blogs because I have a personal connection with the author.  I check them anywhere from daily to weekly to monthly depending on how much time I have.

4) Reading and responding to comments

Again, this is an area where you can potentially spend a lot of time.  The worst thing I ever did was set my email to ding whenever a new comment comes in.  I’m at the dinner table and ding! a comment and it’s ALL I can do to keep myself planted in my seat.  I WANT TO READ THAT COMMENT!

Comments are wonderful, gratifying, and fun.  However, they’re a little bit like crack; addictive and not entirely healthy.

Here’s some basic rules for keeping comments in their (delightful) place.

• Turn off the ding.  Seriously… turn it off.  If you don’t hear it, it won’t take your attention away from the other, more important stuff that you’re doing.
• Shut off your computer when it’s not “blogging time.”  This makes it harder to “quickly check” your comment count and then get sucked right in. 
• Set aside time for reading and responding to comments.  This is much more efficient than handling them as they come in.

Final words of wisdom

As someone who’s been doing this blogging thing for a while… I’ve had to learn the hard way.  It’s easy to get sucked in and when you do, your life suffers.

It’s worth putting some safeguards in place to ensure that blogging is truly a compliment to your life, and not the other way around.

Set rules for yourself if necessary. Here’s some that I’d propose;

• No blogging in the evening until the kids are in bed and dishes are done.
• No blogging first thing in the morning. Is that really how you want to kick off your day?
• When you feel burned out, take a break.  Blogging is not a job until it pays you lots of money.

Now it’s your turn.  What guidelines do you have for keeping blogging from taking over your life?

See all 5 essential pieces of advice for new bloggers 

© Jenny Blackburn. All Rights Reserved.

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Catch more of Jenny Blackburn’s humorous anecdotes on being a mom, a woman, and a whole lot crazy at Absolutely Bananas. If you have questions, anecdotes, or topics for “On Blogging,” email jenny[@]seattlemomblogs[dot]com.