Challenge #67 with Blogging: Finding Time!
April 23, 2009 3:16 pm Social Media
Do you remember when you first started blogging? Weren’t you enthusiastic, eager and willing to spend hours on a blog post to make it perfect? Ah, those were the days! I remember them well!
I am a big advocate of blogging. I believe in its value. However, it has become increasingly challenging to blog as often as I used to because of my busy schedule. My friends reprimand me with sarcastic IMs and tweets: “How about you blog more often, Reem?!?!”
I am extremely honored that I have loyal readers who enjoy my content. I wish I had more time to allocate solely to blogging. I am sure I am not the only person who battles with their conscious when their blog has stale material from a month ago <insert guilty look here>.
Blogging Isn’t Just Writing
Blogging is time consuming because it includes many factors, not just writing. If you want to have a successful blog, you have to:
1- Come up with good ideas that you know your readers will enjoy
2- Write the posts
3- Edit the posts to make sure they don’t have too many grammatical mistakes, the tone is consistent, the message is clear, etc.
4- Tag and publish the posts
5- Promote them on social bookmarking sites and twitter
6 - Monitor comments and contribute to the conversation
Although some of those factors aren’t as demanding time-wise, they can still appear daunting when your to-do list for work is two pages long! However, I feel like blogging should be part of your to-do list!
Reem’s New Approach to Blogging More Often
For many of you struggling with the same problem as me, I thought I would share a technique I have decided to start using as of today!
1- Brainstorm during the week for blog ideas
- Conduct your research
- Ask questions on Twitter
- Talk to friends
- Read blog posts
2- Write and edit your blog post on the weekend
- You don’t have to type it right then and there. Write it in your notebook if you are out and about
3- Pick a day that isn’t usually very hectic and publish on THAT day
- Being consistent is always a good way to gain and keep your readers
4- Promote your post as soon as you publish it
- User Poprl as a URL shortening service so you can monitor how many people clicked on the link
- You can ask a friend to submit it to social bookmarking sites, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Sphinn, Digg, etc.
5- Monitor your comments and contribute to the discussion at your earliest convenience
- Download a plugin that allows your readers to subscribe to your comment feed
Let me know if you use this approach and if it works for you! 
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I totally agree Reem. If I didn’t have to blog for work I don’t know when I would. My personal blog has not been touched in months. With my side project @100Interviews, I started using my flip. I find it so easy to get great content with minimal effort on my part. Plus everyone else provides the good stuff, not me. But some are not as comfortable in front of the camera but it is an option for the time crunched individual.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Thanks for this post. It doesn’t take much then all the sudden you realize that it has been a month since your last post. I subscribe to some video blog sites that provides video content that I can embed but still add my slant to it and add value.
What I have to remember is that post don’t have to be “War and Peace”…a shorter, quality post will do fine.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:12 am
For someone with great perspective, wide travels, interesting clients, a bright outlook, and discerning vision, you certainly should be sharing more… and more often! And your plan is a good one- - a little discipline goes a long way! Cant wait to read your WEEKLY posts….
You can DO BETTER!
April 29th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Good advice here - thanks!. Finding time for my blog is something I’ve been struggling with lately, usually resulting in staying up too late while tired & therefore not acheiving much depsite putting in the time
May 5th, 2009 at 3:11 am
I am agree with your thesis but there are some new updated things by search engines which are different from your tips.
It is OK that blogging is not only writing. For the better blogging a unique design is required things.
You have written about editing of a blogpost which is not good for any blog because it drops ranking as well as page rank also. Sometimes, I have seen that a blog which has been edited are not index also.
Thanks
June 12th, 2009 at 10:15 am
[...] trying my best to find a way to fit blogging into my crazy schedule, as you can tell from my whiny posts about this [...]
June 12th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I usually blog on Sunday… it really helps if I follow a process and space it out over the week.. spending an hour or so on it each day…
August 13th, 2009 at 10:44 am
I always found cutting into sleep time is the best way to get more time for bloggin’. Who needs to sleep anyway
November 16th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
To monitor comments and to answer to the readers is what keeps a blog up. It is not enough just to write something and than wait for things to happen. You have to interact with people that are posting comments in order to make the atmosphere more enjoyable because they know that you care about their opinions.