Tuesday 13 October 2015

Making Time To Blog Is Hard - I Need Help!

When do you blog?  I was going great gangbusters when I started this blog (in the spring and early summer) but now that we're back to school and other life is happening I don't feel like I have time!

Currently I've spent a lot of time increasing my Twitter followers (and following) and trying to share my FB page with more folks.  I've been checking my affiliate sites, reading other blogs, and also trying to have a home life.  All that seems to have eaten into my blogging time.

Also we just had Thanksgiving, so that ate up an entire (long) weekend.  Don't get me wrong, it was a delicious, beautiful, family-type weekend, but it didn't leave me much quiet time.

I know scheduling is key when trying to build up a blog.  The problem I'm having is one part writers block and one part hoping to have time to me - and just to me, not blogging, gardening, cooking, laundry doing, working etc.  Those moments are hard to find.

My schedule currently involves working 4 eight-hour days, with one day off for me to get stuff done.  This week I have appointments on my day off, and I need to get stuff together for my daughter's Halloween party next weekend, as well as my foray into a live Rocky Horror Picture Show performance - think costumes, hair, props, the works!  And I'd like to get groceries and do laundry - regular mom stuff.

So then there's evenings after work.  I get home (at 5:30 or 6:30 depending on the shift) and either make, or just eat, dinner.  Try to get Emma to do homework before Rose has to go to bed (at 7:00) and then get Emma to bed by 8.  All that is often accomplished by 8:30 and then it's "my time."  So I clean up dinner, do dishwasher stuff, start or switch laundry, and sweep the dinner mess off the floor, if I didn't get that done before bedtime starts.  Some nights I also clean up toys and then, if I'm lucky, I sit down.  Hubby will have the tv on but I'm only good for maybe an hour before I fall asleep on the couch.

I try, often, to blog while the tv is on.  Some nights it works, some nights it really does not.  Depends on what's on, or how tired I am.  I'm one of those people that needs 8 hours of sleep almost every night to be functional the next day.  Yes, the newborn and baby years were hell-on-earth for me.  Luckily my sleeps are much less disturbed these days, so I can pull a few later nights if I have to.  But when I'm tired I can't form coherent thoughts, let alone interesting blog posts!

Tonight I've been crafting this post while the girls eat dinner - I've had an upset tummy all day, so no loss to me if I'm not eating with them - and now they're watching some tv and looking through the costume bin and Halloween decorations.  By the time I'm done here I figure I will have been "writing" for 45 minutes.  And really, what have I written about?  Mostly nothing.  No deep thoughts or well-researched articles.  Just fluff about how I don't have time to post anything!

So share with me your schedules, or routines.  How do you blog (and promote!), as well as do affiliate stuff and keep up with other blogs - and be moms or dads, husbands or wives, or any other functioning members of society?  Maybe with the cooler weather creeping in I may have less desire to be outside, or be doing anything else, frankly.

Really I'm just desperately curious to hear how fellow bloggers manage it all.  I really thought I'd just be writing stuff, I did not realize so much came with blogging (if you want people to actually read your stuff!)

10 comments:

  1. It's definitely a challenge! I don't work outside the home so my schedule is a lot different from yours. I'm up at 4:45 every morning (6-7 hours of sleep) to get coffee, work out, and shower by 6:00. At that point I'm just on emergency "DO EVERYTHING BEFORE THE CHILD WAKES UP" mode. I'll have about 30-60 minutes to either write, or do social media stuff. I also have between 1-2 hours during naptime to do blog stuff or housework or drink more coffee. It's a delicate process and something I'm still working on as well! Good luck to you!

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    1. I love the "do-as-much-as-you-can-while-kids-are-sleeping" mode. I used to use that a lot! Now my kids are a bit older so I can occupy them (sometimes) with toys or games or outside time and still have a few minutes to write. Thanks for sharing your schedule!

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  2. Creating recurring features/topics that you write about on specific days might help you. Because you know what your topics will be, you can always be collecting information for them. Some people blog marketing tips on Mondays. (Marketing Mondays.) A group of children's lit bloggers will all do nonfiction posts on the same day of the week. I think they do poetry on Fridays. I do a time management for writers post every Tuesday. It's helpful in terms of getting the info collected.

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    1. Great suggestions - I will think on all of your ideas and figure out what will work for me. Thank you for sharing your tips and experience. Once I get a better handle on my blogging schedule I'll write a follow-up post so others can benefit from my trial and error!

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  3. There is no correct way to build your platform. I have always felt like that is almost a full time job in itself. As a working mother, writer, blogger, and crazy platform builder I completely understand that there are only so many hours in the day. My personal experience is: if I write a humorous motherhood/family blog but have to ignore my family in order to write it then what's the point? My solution was that everything doesn't have to be done in one day. I am ok with blogging once a week, doing a few tweets a day, and adding a few fb friends. My novel could be moving faster but I'm still trying to get representation for my first book which still needs attention.

    Everything takes time and building in this business is slow. I learned to accept my own pace and feel good about it. Hope this helps.

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    1. I know there's no right or wrong way to work on blogging. I definitely agree that if it takes away from your family time it's not worth doing then. That's why I try to fit it in after bedtimes or in any quiet moments I can find. Thanks for the words of wisdom! :D

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  4. With very little sleep, usually 4-5 hours! I hope you find a balance soon x

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    1. Ya, that's so not for me - I'd rather sleep than blog! Balance is coming, I'm sure. Thanks for your comment!

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  5. I definitely can't do it all! I work 2 days a week and my days off are spent trying to occupy a one year old. He naps for 2 hours in the day and goes to sleep about 8pm so that gives me a few hours each day for blogging. I do the bare minimum of housework and have no 'me-time' other than blogging time! I was staying up late most nights blogging, but I've stopped now as I felt my marriage was suffering. I *may* be a little addicted. I also had no idea how much went into getting people to read your blog I feel like most of my time is spent promoting my blog rather than writing it! Sorry, no advice really, but good luck with sorting out a schedule that works for you!

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    1. Thanks for the comment. It's actually reassuring to know I'm not alone. At first I thought I didn't care if anyone read my blog, but I totally do! I'm finding hard to not get sucked into the *obsession* as well. I'm trying to scale back (and it's working somewhat) but I still have the desire to promote as much as possible! Any coming up with a really stellar blog post is harder than I thought too!

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