I’m sure you remember my ramblings from Sunday where I said I needed a few days break because I simply had no blogging motivation, well I felt the need to write a post about it. I’ve spent about a week writing this post trying to figure out what I want to say about blogging and having a balance with my interests. I ended up comparing blogging to juggling.
Balancing your blog and your interests is like juggling about ten different things at the same time, you inevitably end up dropping some thing, but you’ll just pick it back up and start again. That’s how I am now thinking of my life and my priorities, I am juggling work, my social life, blogging, reading and all my other interests and currently blogging is what has been dropped in my juggling act, but I am simply picking it up and starting again.
Blogging shouldn’t be a chore.
I’ve been blogging about 18 months now and it has become one of the main focuses of my free time. I plan my hours outside work around blogging. I certainly don’t sacrifice my social life, but when I don’t have plans to see people I will dedicate those free hours to something blog related, be it responding to comments, emails or writing blog posts. Even reading books comes back to my blog, occasionally when I’m reading I will actually think about how to write a review or feature a book in a post.
Blogging is now such a focus of my free time. It is a job in itself, and I already have one of those, and what I never want my blog to become is a chore.
Taking a break is okay.
I love my blog and I love the book blogging community, but I do sometimes just want to take a break and I’ve noticed a few bloggers saying the same thing, that they are behind in posts and that they haven’t had the motivation to blog as they’ve been busy. It has made me a realise that we all have lives and blogging cannot always come first. We have to prioritise and taking a short break from your blog, or not blogging as much isn’t the end of the world. Your followers will still be there when you get back (or the good ones will be anyway).
It isn’t a ground breaking realisation, but it was significant as I have found myself remembering my other interests over the past week or two whilst I’ve been losing my blogging mojo. I’ve actually played video games again (I am the worst gamer, I always play on easy, but I still suck) and I’ve had time to just binge watch TV or watch films back to back. These are things I haven’t done in ages when I’ve had a few hours free at home because I’ve felt guilty. Some of you who remember my blog from last year will recall me saying how I’d been obsessively playing The Sims? I haven’t even been able to find the time for that this year and I miss doing ridiculous things like that.
Why are my other interests harder to prioritise than my social life?
It’s silly, because I can always find time to go out somewhere, to socialise, to visit different places and to see friends, but I can’t seem to find time for myself and my own interests, no matter how antisocial and hermit-like they may be. It is almost as if I’ve been sacrificing my other interests for my blog, and that is the most ridiculous plan because how will I ever be happy doing that?
I suppose my point of this post is that whilst you do often have to make time for blogging, it shouldn’t mean you give up doing other things. Balance is important and balance is not dropping all the other things you enjoy and focusing on just the important things, like work, a social life and your blog. It’s okay to take a step back from your blog now and then because everything will still be sat there waiting for you when you get back.
Do you find yourself sacrificing your other interests for blogging without even realising it? Or have you successfully managed to juggle things and gotten comfortable with putting something on the back burner from time to time?
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