Blogging can be a great experience, but it can also be incredibly overwhelming. Sure, posting sounds easy enough, but what about marketing? You’ve got to think about SEO, RSS subscribers, stats, newsletters, ebooks, Diggs, Stumbles, social networking… the list goes on and on. From one blogger to another, here’s a bit of blogging advice for you to remember: keep your eyes on the prize and your nose to the grindstone.
I like to do a little each day to market our blog, whether it’s through Twitter, posting on high-traffic blogs and in forums, or one of the hundred other ways you can spread the word. But I have to be honest: when I’m wired on caffeine, am navigating between multiple blog posts, have 20 tabs open on my web browser, am preparing a bid for a client, and answering phones all at the same time, I’m not doing myself any favors. In fact, I’m actually making blogging harder than it should be.
So this advice is for me as much it is for our readers. I think you’ll find that it can be applied outside of blogging, too.
Prioritize, focus, and declutter. Take some time and write out your long and short-term objectives and what you need to do to realize both. Are your short-term goals in line with the long-term? Do you have conflicting needs, and are you investing time now to get where you want to be in the future? Work on the pressing things first, and clean out your inbox/desk/head/life so you can make room for the important stuff.
Prepare for the unknown. Just like insurance, we bloggers need to be ready for future unknowns. Have backup or filler posts handy for vacation times, family emergencies, and other spontaneous events. You can save them as drafts, or select a future publish date for the post in the top right corner of your Post page in WordPress. The default option says “Publish immediately,” but click on Edit, and you’ll see that you can enter in a new date for publishing the post.
Keep a list of blog topics. Now I might be a little OCD, but I simply have to make lists. If something’s on my mind and I don’t write it down, I’ll forget it. And I’ll have anxiety if I don’t write it down for fear of forgetting it. At night, I can’t sleep if I have a thought in my head. So lists help.
Now, what was I saying? 
When blogging, you can never have too many blog topics. You want to avoid that feeling when you sit down to your computer and ask yourself, “What should I blog about today?” Save yourself the writer’s block, listen to what your gut is telling you (not “I’m hungry!”), and keep some post-its handy. You’ll be happier for it.
Just do it. And keep doin’ it. Great blogging is about consistency and quality content. People will come back if they like what they see. So get to know your target audience, hone your posts to their tastes, and write. Then write some more. Tune out the white noise and force those words to get out of your head and onto your computer. When you’re through, pour yourself a glass of wine, sit back, and toast yourself for a job well done.
This should be fun. If it’s not, you need to walk away (a phrase I coined during my stint as a toddler teacher when the little ones would get slap happy). We all know that when the words don’t want to come, they won’t. While there’s a lot to be said about disciplining yourself to write every day to keep the grove going, you also have to know when you’re defeated. Go for a walk, go out to eat, talk to a friend, read a blog… then come back refreshed and get to work.
Related Media
Comments
10.16.09
… I also find myself torn between the coffee shop and my dual monitor setup
11.04.09
May I suggest ABR Viewer as an alternative to loading and trying each brush in Photoshop? It’s free, and I use it regularly. You may find this a great time-saving alternative!
http://abrviewer.sourceforge.net/
Hope it helps!
11.04.09
Thanks for the referral, Cyndi! I’ll have to spend some time tonight trying it out.
02.11.10
I love you to pieces man!!
10.14.10
I wished and wished for a Mac, then was given one at work.
So I moved all my files over.
I HATE it. I’m a designer. I have about 50 folders for 50 different projects. I name the banner psd “banner.psd” for all of them. Try and search for them all, yeah the Mac finds them but then you have to do “get info” for each one (or change some such setting and still click on each to see where the dang thing is located. On windows. I glanced at the path to the folder and voila. Yeah changing permissions on Vista is a headache but it’s far better than the constant problems I have on the Mac. Photoshop is twitchy at best, the thing crashes, although my Roku, PS3, Wii, personal laptop all do fine with my wirless, the mac drops it all the time. I use multiple monitors. Oh my god what idiot thought of leaving the application menu on one screen when the application is on another? You can only choose one little sprout because Steve Jobs knows better than you how you should work.
can’t wait to ditch it.
sorry tirade over.
ps tons of free windows applications out there.
11.26.10
Um… how about not naming all of your files the same name? Sounds more like an organizational issue than an operating system issue, either way.
I might recommend using an identifier and THEN _banner.psd? I assume it’d be difficult to find photos as well if every picture on a drive had its own folder and was named “photo.jpg”.
Examples:
Projectname_size_banner.psd
Clientname_size_banner.psd
etc…
04.17.11
Ok, so… I’m a total newbie to photoshop. I have CS5 and a brickton of brushes. I have tried renaming them, but they do NOT show up in the list like I want them to. I’ve played around with it for like a half hour. Can anyone please help?