I first started blogging back in 2006, well if you don’t count that LiveJournal account I had back in high school. Since then, I have had my ups and downs with blogging. I have had times where I dedicated a lot of my time and focus on my blog and other times where it kind of fell to the wayside. We have gone through name changes and content changes and here we are back at this place where I don’t know what to do.
I love blogging.
I have a book full of post ideas, photos I dream of taking, and things I want to share, but finding the time to do all this has become my struggle. This isn’t meant to be a woe is me kind of post more of a post to share what I’m thinking and hopefully to get some input.
With a one year old and three year old life is pretty chaotic these days. In addition to the standard demands of parenting, we have decided to unschool/homeschool so of course there is a lot of time and focus on this part of our lives.
Speaking of time we recently moved to a new house and my husband now commutes 1.5-2 hours per day via public transit (one car family). That means he is usually gone from around 6/7am to 5:30/6pm everyday. By the time he is home it’s dinner, cleaning/playtime and then bedtime for the kids. This should be when I workout (haha) or make time to do blogging projects but instead I feel exhausted and sit on the couch or head to bed early. Weekends come and we are catching up on errands and chores or heading out on family adventures. This is our favorite time of the week (well maybe not the chores!) and a chance for us to catch up and enjoy family time together.
Basically I have been feeling like I don’t know where to go from here. You see blogging is kind of my thing that isn’t taking care of the kids or the house but it’s something I don’t find I get to put much creativity into lately. I guess a part of me is wondering for those of you who also have other demands (work, kids, house, partner, working out social life, etc) how do you balance things?
Ultimately I don’t want to quit blogging because I love it I am just in a situation right now where I don’t know how to find the balance and the time. I’m hoping that maybe I’ll leave The Hello Sessions (blog conference I am attending Friday) with a better perspective, some inspiration and hopefully come out of it feeling refreshed.
So no I am not quitting. I enjoy it too much. Rather I am in need of a bit of time management and focused blogging time because I have a lot of ideas. Tell me how do you find the balance?
I totally understand (and I don’t even have kids!) that finding the balance between blogging and life is difficult. I’ve only got two suggestions that have worked for myself: 1) Come up with a blog schedule that sounds attainable even if it is just 1-2x a month. And 2) Prioritize. I am terrible at this but this is what my husband says to me all the time whenever I complain that I don’t have enough time. Good luck! Can’t wait to hear how The Hello Sessions is!
I am so terrible with my blogging schedule! I agree I need to come up with one so bad. I also know I need to prioritize and it’s always so much easier said than done but it has to be done!
I have felt similar waves of emotions when it comes to blogging. It’s such a great creative, positive, supportive and fun outlet for me. I used to post 2-3 times a week (WHAT!) and then I throttled back to 1 post every two weeks and was able to catch up on life a little. Now I’m back to 1 a week, because I found my passion again. Other tip is when you do have time, do 2-3 blog posts- that way you have a little storage cache of posts when time is limited. Don’t give up!
Thank you so much! It’s always helpful to hear what has worked for others. I agree I might need to step back a bit and get things sorted out because I feel like I have a million ideas but with life they seem to never actually get done and not for lack of creativity! I also need to try and do as much as I can when the moment allows. A little more focus might be necessary.
I’m ill-equipped to really give any advice because I don’t have children. My one suggestion is to become an early riser… like real early! It’s amazing what you can get done if you wake up early (before your kids are up) and hit the pavement. Invest in coffee as well. lol.
Oh how I wish the earlier riser thing worked! I am a morning person and while I set my alarm to be up at 5am right now that is the time my son seems to nurse. I think until he grows out of this phase my mornings are going to be hit or miss. That being said this morning I was able to sneak out of bed without him noticing and have been up since 5am getting in a blog post, doing some dishes and now replying to comments! Oh and there is definitely coffee, always coffee.
We’ve all been there, bro-sis. I somehow had the lapse of sanity to think I could manage two blogs (one for tea, one not for tea). And one definitely goes more neglected than the other. The secret (if it can even be called that) is to not view it as a chore. Unless you’re being paid to do it, it shouldn’t be considered “work”. The moment it stops being fun, ditch it.
Realistic goals help, too. I consider myself a happy camper if I even get ONE blog out a week.
I agree – luckily I love blogging on both of my blogs and it doesn’t feel like a chore. I agree I need to maybe re-evaluate my goals. Thanks for sharing!
I use to post daily and I found that it was overwhelming and generally half-assed. With a busy work/travel schedule, training for races, being social and blogging, I found the best way is to cut back. I post once a week and spend most of my spare time thinking creatively, promoting, interacting or being social in a way that contributes back to the blog.
Balance is tough and there will always be times where it seems nearly impossible, but we all overcome it somehow. Good luck!
Hmm, I don’t know that I have answers. But I’m thinking a lot of the same things as I plan on welcoming our first kid to the family next year. Ultimately I feel that blogging falls under “What I do for ME” and I only hope that, even after I add “mom” to my list of titles, I never feel guilty about taking time to do things for me or pressured to give up “me time” all together. I just don’t think I can thrive as a person otherwise, let alone as a wife, mom, coach, etc.
I do think that “balance” is such a trap of a mentality sometimes because it seems our human tendency is to micro balance life on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. Why? Not because it’s natural but because it’s convenient and it fits into our calendar. So within each 7 day period we try to have balance – a bit of “me time” scheduled in regularly to stay sane. But sometimes that’s not enough and you suffocate. Other times there may be a crisis and zero “me time” is required or even desired as you fight for your families survival through a tough spot. Is life ever really able to be “balanced” in a way that satisfies our souls, our families, AND our color-coded, block schedule? I don’t think so. But we do try SO hard to MAKE it fit.
I think we do better when we think of our life in seasons. Seasons are known for their extremes – Summer Heat Waves vs Winter Snow Storms. They cycle over many months. One day you notice the leaves turning colors and then weeks later, the streets are blanketed in them. The balance of that doesn’t happen until the following spring when new leaves grow and fill the empty branches. Excuse the wordy, poetry-esque illustration, but maybe a good way to look at life and what you and I are going through is not trying to find balance, but trying to understand the season you are in and what it’s purpose is.
You love blogging and have a boat load of great ideas ready to spring onto your site. Yay! But maybe you’re not in spring right now. Maybe you’re in fall and it’s time to lay down some of those ideas in favor of rest, reflection, and reserving your resources for when spring comes and its time to grow again. And no, that doesn’t fit into a weekly blog posting schedule, but who cares? Cue up some guest bloggers. Refresh and repost some old content. Make it work for YOU because ultimately, it is YOUR thing. You are not a slave to the blog. You are the author and the blog must serve your purpose. Maybe, for a season, you have to be okay with doing less on the blog.
My kids are school age now (8 & 6), so blogging has gotten easier, but now I’m working part time, so sometimes it’s not so easy.
But if you love it, then you make time for it.
I’m not one of those bloggers that blogs everyday. I don’t have the time, want or need for that. Unless of course I do a blogging challenge and blog every day in a month (which I have done in May 2014, and Jan 2015).
How I got through those was scheduling posts. I would print out a calendar write down what I wanted to do when, and then take one day a week, and write all my blogs for the week.
But one thing I have learnt about from blogging is write what you know and love, because the people that love it too, will appreciate it and will know that you are passionate about it.