In the comment section of the “It’s About Time” post, Tom Volkar life coach and author of Delightful Work brought it up again.
I think it all comes down to purpose and perspective. First why are you blogging? For what purpose and are you meeting that objective?…
He’s right.
It seems many of us start blogs, but don’t know why we continue them? And if we do go on, it’s like walking through a maze. We make twists, turns, and sometimes go backwards. We don’t know what’s at the exit or how to get there.
And in the process we may either lose sight of our objective or realize we never had one.
Today’s Lesson
When I started blogging I had two objectives. One was to make money online and the second was to share knowledge with others.
I remember asking myself, “Why?”
To the money part, my answer was (in part) “to add additional income to our household”.
And to the second part, I answered, “With what I’ve learned through the years (and continue to learn), a blog would be a great medium to share with others and maybe make their life a little easier.”
I feel I continually meet the “sharing knowledge” part of my goal, however, making money online had became a non issue. After all, what I get from blogging is priceless.
But, after blogging for two and a half years, I’ve regrouped and am revisiting the make money online objective.
With the blogging knowledge I’ve accumulated plus the reputation I’ve built online, it’s now time for me to “go for the gold” with my blogging endeavors.
No. It does not mean I’ll be tacking flashing ads to this site, nor will I be begging anyone to buy something from me.
What I’m doing instead is setting up an additional site on which I will offer a fee based service (plus more).
Unfortunately I’m not ready to unveil my new project yet, but that’s not what’s important today.
What is important is that we all ask ourselves the questions Tom has suggested.
Today’s Assignment
Why are YOU blogging?
What is your agenda? What is the PURPOSE that drives you to sit in front of your computer screen and publish posts? To visit other blogs? To leave comments? To renew your blog subscription?
Is your blog fulfilling your objective?
If not, might it be time to take a hard look at where you are, where your blog is headed and possibly ________(fill in the blank)?
I’ve shared my story and I’d love to hear yours.
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Photo Credit: Tim Green aka atoach
Hi. I'm Barbara Swafford and I'd like to welcome you to Blogging Without A Blog. Grab a seat, share your thoughts and join in the conversation. 
I don’t know about you, but I have not met a blogger who has a lot of free time. In fact, as I travel through blogosphere, I’m beginning to believe bloggers are over achievers – trying to do it all, and do it good.
Needless to say, the issue of time is often written about in blog posts and/or comments as bloggers struggle to find more.
Today’s Lesson
Although we’ve discussed how to make more of our time in the past, I feel this is a topic worth discussing further.
So, what can we do to give us more time to blog? To visit other sites? To set up additional blogs? To work behind the scenes? Or to join and participate in social networks like Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon?
Here are five options I’ve come up with:
One thing we often read is we need to make the Google bots happy and publish fresh content daily.
Although daily posts will show those pesky Google bots our blog is alive and well, what we’re not taking into consideration is our readers. Will they have time to visit us daily and read our latest post? Chances are, they won’t. Soon our best work is buried in our archives and few have had a chance to read it.
Networking on sites like Twitter or Facebook is a great way to connect with other bloggers and possibly drive up our traffic numbers, however, if we’re not careful, a planned 15 minute visit can easily turn into an hour. If this is an issue for you, try setting a timer.
As discussed in the comments of the He Said, She Said, They Said post, many bloggers don’t go back to check for a response to their comment until they visit the blog the next time. By using this technique it will allow us more time for other blogging activities, or life.
I don’t know if other blog platforms have this feature, but WordPress does. When we’re feeling creative, we can write more than one post and schedule them to publish at a later date. Not only will this relieve the stress of “what to post next”, but in the event life calls and we don’t have time to construct a post, we’ll have one (or more) ready to go.
Many of us do try to do it all, but for each of us there is probably a part of blogging that keeps us beating our head against the wall. Instead of wasting precious time struggling with the parts of blogging that frustrate us, we can hire an expert. This will not only save us time, but we’ll know it is done right.
Okay class, now it’s your turn.
Today’s Assignment
Which part of blogging uses up most of your time?
What are your favorite time saving tips for blogging?
Raise you hand and share your thoughts.
Photo Credits: Clock by wan fauzan
Stress relief poster by: ©aius