Archive for » October, 2008 «

Oct

Blogging To Do List – Do It, Delete It Or Delegate

Have I got a treat for you today. Although this isn’t the first guest post on Blogging Without A Blog (BWAB), it’s the first time I’m using a “substitute teacher”.

Two weeks ago when I was buried in work from my paying job and blogging was taking a back seat, Avani emailed me and offered her help. Although I am one who normally tries to do it all, I accepted Avani’s offer and she agreed to try her hand at teaching.

Let’s get started.

Take your seats, please.

Avani, the floor is yours.

Hello everyone. Thank you for the warm welcome. It’s a pleasure to be here.

As you can see by the picture I’ve put up on the board, my lesson will center around procrastination.

It starts with a short story.

I had an amazing time this week. We (me and my hubby) made a list of all one-time activities which we have been postponing for someday and decided to take at least one activity off the list everyday (like organizing cabinets, updating our expense file, making calls to family and friends, some documentation etc) .

As we found ourselves happily patting each others back at amount of work we finished after a week, I started wondering how can I use this experience in blogging.

Today’s Lesson

When I started to blog, I took a deep dive into reading blogging related sites like Darren Rowse’s Problogger and Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneurs Journey. I took notes and made multiple lists – a list for coding activities, a list for networking activities etc. For the first few weeks, I diligently attempted to check everything off the list.

And then, I got lost in the sea of posts, comments, reading other blogs, commenting on them and of course, how can I forget stats. The amount of work these five activities represent and the amount of time they took, became my reason to not to do any additional tasks (I guess this is the reason why sometimes I feel that my blog has reached a plateau. Same activities = same results.).

I made a list of activities other than these five on which I have been procrastinating. I plan to take one off every week depending upon how much time this would take. Adding meta-tags, setting correct categories and tagging top the list.

In order to ensure that this does not happen again, I plan to list out everything that I procrastinate on and add star to everything that is a repeat in a weekly review. This way, those activities which are most procrastinated, will stand out and become high priority.

Today’s Assignment

What are the blogging activities you procrastinate on all the time?

Do you plan to do these activities anytime soon? If not, could they be delegated to someone else or take them off the list?

What’s your plan to finish off these activities?

That ties up today’s assignment.

Let’s open this subject for discussion. Your answers, additional questions and comments are welcome.

Barbara, I see you raised your hand. What would you like to share?

This post is by Avani Mehta. She maintains a personal development blog at Avani-Mehta. You can subscribe to her blog by RSS or Email.

Photo Credit: Wanda G’s photostream

Category: Archives, Blog Maintenance, Blogging, Blogging Lessons 41 Comments

Oct

How To Survive A Bashing In Blogosphere

Barbara Swafford

Have you ever heard the saying, “When you point a finger at someone else, you have three (fingers) pointing back at you”?

It reminds me of negative publicity business owners are subjected to which is often generated by their competitors.

Look at Donald Trump. He’s the subject of tons of negativity. People pick on everything from his business practices to his hair. But what happens? He gains more notoriety, becomes wealthier, and even more powerful than before. In some respect I think it may “feed” him to be better, to be bigger, and to prove his naysayers wrong.

The same holds true in blogosphere. Anyone who has written a blog for any length of time can expect to get negative comments, hate mail, and/or to be bashed. It’s the nature of the game when we put our words on the world wide web for everyone to critique.

Today’s Lesson

Big name bloggers get slammed on a regular basis. Darren Rowse of Problogger, John Chow and Lorelle (of Lorelle on WordPress) have all had their share. Even smaller bloggers get “hit”. Catherine Lawson has, as have Hunter Nuttal Vered, of MomGrind and Natural of Thinking Out Loud

Last week I got slammed/bashed or as the person(s) said, “exposed for what I am”(?). Granted I could go on and write pages in my defense, however, I’ll let my readers decide if I’m authentic and if my blog is worthy of being read.

When, where and by whom I was bashed is not the issue or topic of this post. What has become my greatest concern is other bloggers. Knowing negative words could cut like a knife, what if a new, or older, more sensitive blogger gets slammed? How will they feel? Will the cruelty stop them from blogging? Will they be so crushed it affects their personal life? Their career? Or will they lash back, get caught up in the basher’s “game”, and make matters worse?

I believe we can all learn from each others experiences. Let’s open the floor for discussion and talk about how negativism in blogosphere can best be handled.

Today’s Lesson

Have you ever received hate mail, negative comments or been bashed?

How did you deal with it, and what did it teach you?

If you have not been the subject of negativity, how do you think it would affect you?

I hate to ask, but I will, have you ever bashed someone in blogosphere? If so, what did it accomplish?

In every cloud is a silver lining. To the person(s) who bashed me, I say “thank you” for the inspiration for this post. To those who came to my defense, I will be forever grateful.

Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine’s photostream

Category: Archives, Blogging Lessons 48 Comments

Oct

It’s All About Me – Part 3

Barbara Swafford

You, my readers, are awesome.

Remember last week when I was interviewed by Stephen Hopson of Adversity University? Based on how many comments “Part 1″ got, it broke his comment record. How cool is that?

The second part of the interview is now live.

As I mentioned earlier, the first question of part two was the most difficult for me to answer. When you read “my story” you’ll understand why. Hint: It’s about adversity in my life.

Another question I answer is: “What was your most embarrassing moment”
and “What is the biggest/boldest dream you have for yourself?”

Let’s see if we can top the comments from last week and create a new record for Adversity University

The name of the post is:Stephen Hopson Interview With Barbara Swafford, Part II of II.

I’ll see you there!