Bloggers Buzz

David of Blogging Pro has written How Do You Keep on Blogging that got me thinking about the post long after I had read and commented on the post. It was just one of those topics that slide into the back of your thoughts and sit there quietly churning away and the end result, now i am posting about it from personal perspective.

I fully admit to being a compulsive blogger. In addition to this blog i have a personal blog on which there have only been a couple of days since the start of the year that i have missed posting at least once. If thats not obsessive enough i also have a photoblog that is yet to have a day without a post this year. From a blogging perspective i guess i am lucky, I’m single with my dog being the extent of my personal responsibilities. I can come home at the end of the day and sit on the couch with my laptop and post as much as i like.

But as lucky i am from a blogging freedom perspective I long ago decided that there needed to be priorities in my life and that blogging was not that. So I created a list of priorities to rate blogging amoungst which also served as a rough guide to avoiding blogging burnout and it goes like this::

1. Friends and family are my number one priority. In my belief they should come first and foremost in any priorities.
2. My day job. At the end of the day this is what pays the bills as while i have started making some money blogging (and would like to make more) at the end of the day this is what supports me. As well as that its a social outlet that I enjoy being out amoungst people.
3. Hobbies - its important to have interests outside of your work and so I often find myself off doing things that interest me. That can include going away for the day with the camera and taking some photos of what ever takes my fancy or just seeing an extra part of the world that i have not seen before.
4. Blogging. Yes i do it regularly, yes i make some money from it but at the end of the day 1 to 3 are more important.

So as well as the list of prorities there are other ways that i also try to avoid Blog burn out which include:

1. Keeping in mind reasons not to post to your blog
2. Don’t be afraid to try something new or interesting (this blog could be considered that!)
3. Once in a while you might think you have written "the entry" that you consider a masterpiece of blogging. You sit back and wait for the praise and compliements to roll in, only to discover that nothing or only negative comments are posted. This is a stinker and its important to be able to mentally shrug and move on. Dwell for too long and it can have ill effects
4. Write for yourself, not for an audience. I’ve always written for myself for the enjoyment of it all. If you start trying to write for who you think your audience is then your not true to yourself and the enjoyment will sooner or later fade.
5. Keep your antispam techniques up to date. It might sound strange but then there is nothing more disheartening than trying to deal with a flood of comment spam being posted to your blog and many bloggers’ reactions are to throw the hands in the air and put it all in the "too hard basket"
6. Sequential Activity. Not everyone can do it but if you can then you should try and do more than one thing at once. For me its watching tv as that way i get my blogging and i am not trying to rush a post to watch whatever show i am Jonesing to watch.
7. Don’t be afraid to take a break.

Hopefully there is at least one thing that I’ve written that might just help you if your feeling the burnout coming.

Greg

Tags: blogging, burnout