Recently, I have felt like I’ve been failing as a blogger. No matter how hard I try to stay on top of things I always feel like there is one aspect of blogging which I am letting slide. If I’m not behind on blog reading I’m behind on commenting. If I’m ahead on blog posts I’ve slacked on reading other people’s blogs. If I’ve conquered my emails I’ve probably not gotten to spend a lot of time reading books which is kind of the thing which made me want to blog in the first place. I feel like blogging is a juggling act and I’m failing at catching any of the balls.
I have never been brilliant at organising my time. Even though blogging is something I enjoy I still procrastinate about doing it. A review I’ve half finished and needs an hours clean up will take me three hours to do and it might be three hours spread over two days depending on my mood. If you email I’ll either reply straight away or in a weeks time for no reason other than that I didn’t feel like doing it straight away and it somehow felt like an effort. I don’t know why I procrastinate from blogging but I do. And so anything blog related because a daunting task because even when I knuckle down and do things I know it’ll take longer than I want because that’s who I am.
Anyway, I’ve realised my current non-routine is unsustainable. It’s gotten so bad I no longer even know what books I’ve finished reviewing and those I haven’t. My drafts are overflowing. It stresses me out constantly being behind on things and since I’m not reading as much It’s bothering me that I’m wasting so much of my time on blog related things when all I want to do it curl up with a good book. Something has got to give!
I realised I didn’t know what had to give, though. I mean, what facet of blogging is less important than the rest?
Problem #1: Making Time To Read And Comment On Other Blogs
I’m obviously not giving up blog reading. It’s a source of inspiration and I want to see what my online friends are reading and talking about! If I gave up blog reading I wouldn’t be part of the community anymore and it kind of defeats the point of blogging. I do find that I am constantly playing catch up with blog commenting. I am never on top of it I am always behind and there are so many posts up every day!
The Solution:
What I can do is cut down on the number of blogs and read and follow. I’ve spoken before how I want people to follow me who are genuinely interested in what I blog about and I’ve spoken about how I follow a lot of blogs for a lot of reasons (not all of them good reasons). Well, I’ve realised I need to make my blog feed manageable. There are at least five blogs I follow as they’re big names in the blog community but I never read their posts anymore. EVER! I’ve got to admit I followed them, to begin with, as they helped guide me but I know who I want to be in my corner of the internet, it’s time to let them go. It makes me sad to let go of blogs but it’s necessary. Instead, I can slowly introduce in those blogs I am interested in.
Problem #2: Replying to Blog Comments
I am bad at replying to blog comments. Much as I put off blog reading as I know the reading/commenting thing is time-consuming I put off replying to comments because it’s time-consuming. I will never not reply to blog comments. I love seeing people’s thoughts, why would I have a blog and not read the comments?
The Solution:
I will start making set times to do so. I’ve actually started replying to blog comments on my way to and from work. It gives me half an hour or so of time to read people’s thoughts and reply back. I still have to sit in front of my laptop for an hour or so some nights but I’ve already found a way to cut down some of the time I spent doing so. I find responding in small doses is better because I don’t get bored (don’t worry, it’s not your comments which bore me but my replies).
Problem #3: The Dreaded Inbox Where Emails Go To Die
Over the past few months, I’ve started getting more and more emails in from publishers/authors/random people I’ve never spoken to. And I’ve found I am now signed up for all the author newsletters (some I don’t recognise, how did that even happen?) and I also have all my Disqus notifications for blog comments every where and any other response notifications for other people’s blogs. My inbox is a mess and it scares me to go in it a lot of the time. Emails die there. Every publisher who emails me ever gets an email which begins ‘sorry for the delay in replying’ lately.
The Solution:
I saw a post a little while ago over at Howling Reviews about email bankruptcy where you delete your email from a certain date then go through the rest. I hope I haven’t gotten to that point (yet) but I do plan to look back and if I’m going too far back those things are getting deleted. I also plan to start unsubscribing myself from author newsletters as half I am genuinely not interested in. I can then just keep my actual favourite authors on the list who I want to be notified on. The biggest thing is creating folders which work for me. Currently, everything goes everywhere so I am going to start adding things to folders I’ve named and get proactive with my inbox going forward.
Problem #4: Who Has Time To Write Blog Posts Anymore?
I seriously stress my self out with how much time I don’t have to write blog posts. Like I said, a lot of the things above really eat into my usual blog writing time. Sunday’s (and part of Saturdays if I’ve not got much on) will be spent writing up blog posts. I finish off reviews from what I typed up on Goodreads to make it an actual post. I write those discussion ideas which have been brewing. I even do the tags which interest me from around the internet. I don’t have enough time in the week to write a full blown blog post, I can edit and tweak at most so I need my weekends to work for me and lately, they don’t.
The Solution:
This isn’t as easy to solve. I mean, I can’t make more time but I do hope if I do the above it will mean less time spent doing all that at the weekend. The next key thing is sticking to my own mental blog schedule (and keeping planned posts written down in my bujo). I like to post Monday, Wednesday and Friday and have my usual Sunday post. I will change this from time to time, I have no aversion to posting Tuesdays and Thursdays, I just like my three times a week plan. I will also make sure all posts are finished on a Sunday and attempt to slowly build a few posts as back up for my lazy weeks. I want to stay a couple of reviews ahead of where I am and have back up none review posts on the go. I want to be able to plan ahead. I will also go on hiatus when I know I won’t be around so I’m not catching up on everything when I’m back. That means my holiday will be a hiatus. I’ve got to accept my human limitations.
Problem #5: If I Can’t Find Time To Blog How Am I Meant To Find Time To Read?
This one is the one which has been stressing me out the most. Any regular visitor will know I went through a reading slump recently. It was a major reading slump. I lost motivation to read even though I was enjoying reading and it threw me for a loop. I managed to get back to reading when I stopped stressing out over it and I may not be reading as much as I was but I’m reading again and looking forward to reading and that makes me happy but with every other blog thing taking up my time I don’t have as much time to read. It happens at weekends, with the time I put aside for blog writing I’m not reading and it sucks.
The Solution:
This is something I’ve tried to implement for myself before but I want a technology disconnect on evenings when I’m at work. I try and switch my laptop off my 9 pm at the latest (but ideally earlier so I can have a cosy couple of hours reading). I try and set aside that hour or so before bed as reading time so I can get lost in a good book for a little while. It doesn’t always work but that is my plan for reading. I need to admit defeat and accept that by a certain time there is no more blog related things I can do.
***
And there you have it. There are plenty of other problems I have when it comes to blogging (don’t speak to me about social media, I do not get it I will use it as I please) but these are the ones which have bothered me most and I’ve mostly thought of solutions for them.
Are there blogging problems you haven’t been able to face sorting? Do you find writing a plan of action helps you relax about things which have been bothering you? And would you have different solutions to my problems?
Posts
Social Icons