It happens to the best of us. You meant to skip just one week of blogging for one reason or another. Then another week goes by. And then another, until the only way you can remember when you blogged last is by looking at the time stamp on your last blog post.
I have a confession: It’s not easy for me to talk about my blog.
Even after years of blogging, I still have to muster the courage to continue the conversation when the topic of “so, you have a blog?” arises.
I’m certainly not ashamed of my blog. I enjoy blogging about writing, blogging, marketing and social media. I love connecting with my readers and geeking out over my readership analytics.
So why all the embarrassment?
With Labor Day meaning an extra day off for us nine-to-fivers, a tempting thought came across my mind: I should skip blogging this week.
But my conscience soon kicked in. “Don’t let your readers down. They’re counting on a post from you come Tuesday.”
Then I had an epiphany. Do my readers (that’s you!) count on a blog post from me around the holidays?
So I came up with a balanced compromise: I’ll write a blog post about this.
I discovered WordPress categories once I stopped being stubborn. I’ve always seen it housed snugly under Posts in the sidebar. I’ve always seen it prominently displayed in the blog post tool editor above Tags.
I just chose to ignore it. And do I regret it.
Thanks to my fans for your patience while I took a month-long hiatus! This blog post explains that I wasn’t being lazy during my time away from KLWightman.com.
In fact, I was conducting a digital data experiment—and here are the results.
After almost five years, I think it’s safe to say that I’m a blogger. Not a famous one and not a paid one—nevertheless, I’m still a blogger.
I’ve been asked over the years why I keep doing it. They ask, “If you’re not getting paid, then why waste your time?”
I recently chatted with Olga on LinkedIn about our professional experiences. She asked me a very good question: How do you balance the time between your personal and professional blog?
As my readers know, I manage a company blog by day and my personal writing blog by night (and weekends).
While I love to blog, I make sure I have a work-blog-life balance. After I replied to her question, she responded back, “that would make a good blog post!”
Whether you’re struggling to keep a regular blog schedule at your day job or for your personal blog, try out these tips that have helped me blog regularly for three years.
To manage my company’s blog, we purchased a program that allows me to create an editorial calendar. I don’t have this budget for my personal blog, so I’ve adjusted the calendar app on my desktop to work in a similar way.
I make a list of blog ideas that I want to cover and schedule them out on the calendar so that I can visually see my deadlines. Both methods allow me to use color coding to show different categories or themes the blog posts cover so that I know if my blog post topics are imbalanced.
I prefer to write and schedule my blog post at least one week in advance. This is attainable when managing my company’s blog since managing it is part of my role.
This isn’t always the case for my personal blog. Sometimes I struggle to have a blog post ready to publish for Monday’s deadline. In that case, I reevaluate my schedule and try to find time to make it happen after-work hours or on the weekends.
I plan to write blog posts that excite me. It’s much easier to commit to writing a blog post when you are passionate about the topic and want to write it. Often, those blog posts get down on “digital paper” pretty quickly.
If you’re managing a professionally blog, you can’t always choose what you write about. What I do in these situations is I put myself in the reader’s shoes. Why do they want to read this potential blog post? What difference can it make in their life? This gets me excited for the audience’s future experience and inspires me to blog about it.
How do you keep a regular blog schedule? Share your tips below.