How I Actually Blog
So it turns out there’s more to my blogging process than just drinking tea, reading Hunter S Thompson, and burying any occasional useful content under a layer of irrelevant chatter so thick only the most dedicated human reader (and almost no search engines) will find it.
The fact I see this less as a personal failing than a challenge to google to get its algorithms sorted should be a warning to anyone looking here for advice about how to get famous on the internet.
I am not famous on the internet. Being famous isn’t something I’m prepared to prioritise over burying my useful content under a layer of irrelevant chatter. I would be ok with having it both ways, but I won’t start following those pro-blogger checklists of Stuff You Need To Do To Go Pro because that would involve spending extra time on things I find more like work and less like fun than what I actually get paid for, plus I wouldn’t be getting paid as much, and that just wouldn’t make sense.
Nevertheless, I have recently begun to use checklists to help me define my blogging goals, measure my success according to those goals, and spend my time in a way which reflects why I do what I do here.
On the assumption that people exist who are just as curious about how other bloggers spend their time as I am, I’ll reveal my blogging checklists, and you can judge the result for yourself.
How I Use These Checklists
Loosely. I don’t do all the things on my daily checklist every day, and some of the “monthly” tasks haven’t been done for some months. Quite often, I forgo twitter entirely in order to train my six-year-old to bring me tea in bed each morning, or applaud my three-year-old for doing anything at all that isn’t connected to the movie Frozen.
They’re more “priorities lists” than to-do lists. Because of them, I spend less time sitting blankly at the computer deciding what to do next and for how long, or getting lost down the rabbit hole of social media when I should be eating a more balanced diet of online content.
Daily Tasks
These are the things I feel are are worth doing up to once a day, to the extent I find time:
- Review my to-do list
- Work on a post/edit images for a post
- Five or ten minutes on pinterest, browsing for good content – re-pin/comment/etc
- Five minutes own tweeting on twitter
- Ten minutes catching up with others on twitter
- Ten minutes Google+ – share/comment, browse one community
- Ten minutes on Facebook – share/comment, one Facebook group
- Respond to/triage email inbox
- Read favourite bloggers, leave comments where applicable
- Up to two tasks from the “weekly” list
- Set to-do list for next day
Weekly Tasks
I allow myself to do these things up to once a week, except when it comes to checking my stats because that graph is right there at the header and I get curious about interesting changes in patterns and I’m weak:
- Publish one or two posts
- #randomlimerick on Google+
- Clear out email
- Check to see what I’ve promised/bookmarked in terms of collaborations/guest posts/blog tours
- Join one link party
- Write a review on TripAdvisor, Goodreads (or similar)
- Update contents pages (Travelling with Kids/Life in Singapore) with any new posts
- Pin this week’s post(s)
- Update Blogher with any cross-postable posts
- Check stats
- Free-range blog/article reading
- One or two items from the “monthly” list
- Figure out loose posting plan for next week
- Mel adds that I (we all) should be backing up our blogs on a regular basis, too – posts and comments as well.
Monthly Tasks
This category should really be called Things To Do When I Need A Break Badly Enough That Watching An Online Robot Search My Blog For Dead Links In Real Time Sounds Perfectly Wonderful And Maybe Even A Little Bit Aspirational:
- Check blog for links that no longer work
- Look ahead and start organising/thinking about any guest posts/collaborations/etc
- Check old posts to see if they need to link to newer posts
- Clean blog of posts that just plain suck, in hindsight
- Review popular posts to see if they’re worth a followup post
Once Or Twice A Year
When I need a change but can’t quite justify a whole haircut:
- Tweak layout/change theme
- Set a non-ratings period. Blog/read minimally and without any guidelines.
The Real Reason I’m Telling You All This
Like many bloggers before me, I have this fear that other bloggers are not only more famous and even better at burying their useful content under layers of irrelevant chatter than I am, but manage to do it all in under two hours a week, mostly while cooking dinner, supervising homeschool projects, commuting to work, or participating in long phone calls with people they don’t want to phone but have to anyway.
Do you have a magic protocol? Tell me how you spend your time online. I’ll pay you*.
*No I won’t. But I will tell you all about my secret blog**.
**Unless that’s a disincentive, in which case I’ll promise not to tell you about my secret blog***.
***There is a crossover between secret and interesting, but they are not actually the same thing.
Related:
I tagged Emily-Jane on that writing process blog tour I mentioned at the top and here’s what she told us about How To Work From Home When You Have Babies Who Won’t Leave You The Hell Alone.
Thanks for sharing. I’m not a very organised blogger and most of the time would spend hours in front of my laptop doing nothing….
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I read another great one today for mum bloggers. Pinned it!
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Thank you so much! Very helpful. I really need to organise my time, not just about blogging, but in general. Thanks again 🙂
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I know the feeling! Organising is hard with young kids because they don’t organise themselves at all – so you have to do all the work for everyone.
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Phew! Being supermom is hard work! 🙂 Jokes apart, that is an impressive list. Mine is more or less similar except that I don’t have a Pintrest account and I spend more time on Twitter per week as compared to Facebook, but probably not enough. Sticking to the list is my challenge….veering off schedule causes a pile up that becomes overwhelming. Like now. How on earth do you manage to keep on top of it with two small kids???
PS: I think too that playing around with a published slug might mess up the feed links.
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I have been wanting to know how you do it to keep up with others’ blogs and across all social media platforms! Thanks for revealing your secret haha. I am totally impressed at the organized way of doing it. How did you have so much time to do that? Joining linky is a weekly thing? You probably are joining a regular. Most of your posts have many good links and I can tell you read widely on the net. I do click on those links 🙂 Good discipline you have to juggle work, kids and blog! Amazing! 🙂
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Well you have to remember that these are maximums. So for example on the weekend I barely got on the computer at all. No twitter. No Facebook. Not even replying to comments on my own blog. And I would say on average I join a link party a month, not a week.
But the idea is that if I’ve spent ten minutes on twitter today then I shouldn’t open twitter again til tomorrow, at the earliest. Because you know what happens otherwise – you look up and wonder where the time went! and I don’t think it adds much to twitter (or Facebook, etc) by binging – it’s best to cherry-pick over a short period then move on til next time.
Same for things like link parties – if I see one I want to join but I’ve already done another one this week I’ll leave it, because one is about all I can really participate in over a week. But often there’s no link party at all.
My secret to having so many good links is that I draw my inspiration from reading around – at one point I was writing what I wanted then afterwards trying to find information or other perspectives. Now that’s time-consuming. These days I have my blogs I read and I can pick up thoughts along the way, and then I just try to give credit where it’s due. 🙂
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Limiting 10 min for some social media a say sounds good and disciplined. I have to think about mine. I would say I check a tad too often on fb notifications that xcome up as and when. Same for WP. These probably take too much time and is inefficient anyway. No wonder I couldn’t keep up with my favorite blogs!
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It’s easy to check too often when they send notifications all the time. In fact the orange comment thing up the top of wordpress gets me like that! I don’t think I can turn off that toolbar, either… it would be good to make it disappear til I wanted it!
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I had to comment again to admit that if you do spend more time on Facebook (etc) you no doubt do get more returns (engagement/page followers/and so on) but I think it’s a case of diminishing returns and you have to figure out a cutoff.
For pro-bloggers I expect there is extra effort in there. Also from a more personal view if your friends like to keep up via Facebook then some extra time might be warranted, but these things are all designed to be so addictive so it’s too easy to cross the line where it’s not really doing anything for anyone any more.
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Good word! you check so many social media platforms. I’m mainly on blogging. All the rests are just when I’m bored thing to do. Right now, my frequency is only 2 posts a week, probably 7 – 9 a month.
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I don’t know how people post more than twice a week! They obviously write a lot faster than me 🙂
I had an exchange with Mel in the comments here where she said much the same thing (i.e. that she mainly sticks to blogging). She’s an old hand at blogging now – I suspect over time I’ll pair things down a bit too – I’m still sort of experimenting around. Also perhaps as the kids get older and I can spend longer stretches of time, the ultra-short-form will lose its pull.
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Whoa! Your lists exhaust me! Boy, am I impressed. I am not a person who even makes to-do lists and I think this is why. They overwhelm me.
I love the behind-the-scenes peek at how you think/process and write your blog posts. Whatever you’re doing, it works!
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Thanks! You seem to do alright with your not-to-do list anyway. I always envy people who don’t need a to-do list.
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Wow, that’s a long list! I do the same things… but not on a regular basis.. thanks for putting them together in one place. I think I should be more intentional in blogging too. =)
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Well I haven’t been that regular with it over the last week, that’s for sure! It really is a maximum limit. Being intentional in blogging is great for blogging – you just then have to prioritise these lists against everything else in life 🙂
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Awesome! I always need blogging advice and schedules. I’m always amazed at the people who have everything under control… and then I remember that if they have this under control they probably don’t have other things under control. 🙂
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Yeah, you shouldn’t get the impression from this that I have anything at all under control. 🙂 I’ve just spent two days basically not being able to get to the computer and now I’m going to have to just shrug off everything I missed and start anew.
On the other hand, I have two bags of stuff ready for the charity shop from the kids’ room, and we’re ready to start the soccer season next week, so sometimes you just have to spin one of your other plates and accept that there are only so many things you can keep in the air at one time.
What’s that saying? You need to know which of the balls you’re juggling are rubber, and which are glass.
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As always, impressed. This is such a clear, concise list. It is very close to what I had set out to do as well, but I can’t say that I ever wrote it down. I need to do more TripAdvisor reviews. I think they’re helpful for the traveling community, even if I don’t get traffic from them, because we often stay at places with no reviews (and many turn out to be great!). I am not big into social media – I don’t get twitter, I don’t want to have my phone attached to me at all times for Instagram, and keeping up with my modest list of IRL friends on FB is about all I can handle. I love Pinterest, though. Unfortunately, I can’t justify spending much time on there when I haven’t even read my blogger friend’s latest posts.. If there was one thing I could do that would make blogging more enjoyable and the to do list more manageable, it would be to make social media disappear forever! 🙂
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I do agree with you about trip advisor – I always appreciate comments on places written by others with kids of the same age. Often the guide books aren’t specific enough for me to figure out what would happen if I fronted up with a three year old. I remember I was about to book one place in Japan which sounded perfect – until I read a Trip Advisor review describing the stairs and safety rails. And much as I love my blog it doesn’t get quite so many page views as trip advisor. 😉
I don’t even begin to understand instagram. On the other hand, if you have any tips on pinterest, that would be great. You seem to have that angle covered so well you probably don’t need any other social media.
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You put me to shame. I have an idea for a post usually the day before I write it, rummage around for some photos and hope for the best. I was more diligent about introducing myself to new people and exploring other blogs some months ago but recently things have been just piling up and I feel I’m one step ahead of being buried in To Do lists! 🙂
Well done on your time management!
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(She says, replying two days after the original comment.) We’ve definitely had a “buried in to-do lists” weekend around here so I can very much get that.
Seriously, all your posts take twenty-four hours from start to finish? I’m not sure why you think you’re the one who’s been shamed here.. Throwing a wistful sigh out for the ability to do that…
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A few years ago I made a ‘priorities checklist’ for my real life, it went like this “If everyone gets fed and there’s no trip to the hospital it’s a good day.” Still something I live by. Thanks for sharing, because I’m a total nosey parker and in awe of anyone who can think in such an orderly manner, let alone run a blog that way. – Summer
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Sounds like a very solid checklist. 🙂
I’m not sure it’s fair to say I think in this orderly manner. If I did, I wouldn’t have to write it out – I’d just go ahead and do it. I was the one who had to organise it back into its proper place.
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Wowzza! You are amazing. I fit my blog in around everything else I do like an after thought. There’s no planning, no staging…..just my ramblings about our travels when I get to it. I was trying to post daily but after 2 months and a house full of sick kids I’ve transitioned to whenever I can fit it in 😦
I live your way of actually organising your time into segments. I might try that in the coming weeks and see if it works for me.
Righteo – I’m off to investigate slugs. 😉
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Daily is a punishing schedule. I don’t think there are too many people who can write a good post every day, never mind finding the time – you also have to have the inspiration.
I’m pretty impressed you manage to get your stuff done by just letting it tumble out. It’s true that when the pressure builds you have to get more organised, though. If you end up with a list of your own, please share so I can see!
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Looks good to me! I have checklist envy.
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I didn’t even know checklist envy was a thing. I think I may have checklist envy envy.
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Wow, I need to start writing a checklist. This has actually been extremely helpful. You sound like an expert blogger and I can’t wait to continue to read your articles.
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Not sure I’d claim expert status – like I said, it’s not as if I’m getting huge quantities of page-views or anything!
I think it’s more about taking the time to figure out what you’re blogging for and then asking how your online activities support that. It’s very easy to get sucked into doing things by either just letting your attention get grabbed by whatever’s most attention-grabbing or by getting sucked into page views when you’re not really blogging for the page views, or by thinking you should be doing this, that or the other because “that’s what everyone else is doing”. So I guess what I’m really getting more expert at with this exercise is being me (though I hope to improve further on that in future 😉 )
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Your quite a social media lady! My sad little process is that I write a blog post once per week, share it on Twitter and Facebook, then sit back and watch the accolades from you and The Lady of the Cakes roll in. 😉
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So what you’re saying is the other way to do it is to just be awesome.
Sometimes I hate that exception. 🙂
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Don’t you remember the whole message about The Special? All you’ve got to do is believe that you’re awesome and you’re awesome.
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I would quickly go google that right now to make myself sound hip and clever and in the loop but I’ve forgotten to buy milk and cereal for breakfast and the late-night service station is closing soon so clearly it’s not an impression I can properly uphold, and especially if I still want to feed my children breakfast in the morning.
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(Hint: The Lego Movie. Can you tell I’ve lost my mind?) Sleep well Bronwyn!
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Right! Things make so much more sense when you’ve slept, eaten an actual breakfast, and had someone give you very heavy hints.
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Your humor is a lovely touch to your daily task report. Seriously, you said here, there are so many things we have to keep up with once we enter ourselves into the cyber realm. I applaud you as a mother and someone who blogs regularly, for keeping up. And you are so right in saying that we have to make a managing schedule to get to everything. ::)
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Yes, you could just be here all day – there is a need to prioritise.
I like the fact that Mel in the comments below, who’s done a lot more blogging, has really pared her list down to the essentials. I should point out that I’ve already pared the list a bit from when I was first writing down the stuff I actually did, so I expect more paring-down will come.
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Okay first of all, you are hilarious! I love that your posts make me laugh every single time, even when you think they’re serious (I mean that in the best possible way!).
And second, it’s funny you posted this now. Yesterday I commented on one of your posts and ticked off the “notify me of everything everyone says” box, and I woke up this morning with over a hundred unread emails in my inbox. When I noticed many of them were “the stuff people were saying” on your blog, I wondered if I should maybe ask you how in the world you do it.
So whatever it is you’re doing, it’s working. Yours is one of my favorite blogs because it’s funny, useful (I promise), and so very well-written. I learn a lot from bloggers like you and I hope I manage to do half as much as you are in the not-so-distant future. Thank you for the wonderful list.
(I took my 16-month-old to school today to pick up my 4yo, hoping he’ll get excited about this magical world filled with little people playing and running around… and then maybe he’ll actually want me to drop him off at daycare so that I could get stuff done and focus on something that is not on the stove or in a diaper? Maybe? When that day comes, I will be printing out your list.)
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Sorry for bombing your inbox… I had the honour of being Freshly Pressed yesterday, so rest assured it was probably unusual activity.
Still, it’s true that some great people do take the time to come chat with me on the internet (even on just ordinary days). The comments section is one of my favourite parts of the blog.
Not sure when your 16mo will start getting into day care (I recall my daughter started begging for school at about two? but my son is still not that into it, so… good luck…) but in the meantime I think the short summary of all this is: “Try to be a normal, friendly person, but, like, on the internet.” It’s typed and there are character limits and various formats or whatever, but my view is it’s basically still conversation.
Luckily a bit slower than in real life, though. I can’t think at talking speed.
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Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed! That’s really impressive!
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I was pretty chuffed if I do say so myself 🙂 Thanks!
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Great post and again, I have to echo the opinion that you are incredibly organised! I love the idea of triage for the e mail inbox 😀
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A good triage system can make many situations easier. It has taken me pretty much my whole life to date to work this out and start to make use of it.
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Great post and great discipline! I need to adopt some of this, I avoid Facebook, twitter etc. but am totally addicted to reading blogs – to the point where my 10 year old is now telling me off about my “addiction.” The tables have definitely turned on that one, I’m going to sort myself out!
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Yes! I know the feeling. And then you have to decide which to read, which is even harder, especially with so many great blogs around.
One of the things I did which I didn’t mention above was I went out looking for a whole stack of fantastic new blogs to read at about the same time I drew up this list. Sounds counter-intuitive, but now my reader’s so overwhelmingly full I don’t have that “if I just read three more I’ll be finished!” feeling, which somehow makes it easier to just pick what I have time for and draw the line.
I also like Sue’s method where she prioritises based on interaction. So she follows regulars, returns visits to commenters, and tries to get around to likers. Although again, it’s not as neat and tidy as it sounds there with me (I suspect also with Sue) – but I think we tend to notice people we have more interaction with quite naturally, so it’s really just pointing out what tends to happen anyway.
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That is a good system for sure. I just seem to get constantly distracted and could spend the whole day lost in blogworld, the scarey thing is I don’t mind either!!
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If only we had no other responsibilities or physical needs. One day computing will evolve to the point where we can upload our minds and exist as software in the cloud. Then we will both be set.
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This is great, I’m really not one for lists and tasks and I was once a Project Manager (whaaaat!?). However, this post gets me thinking I should get organised, at least partially. Thanks for the tips!
PS: I love the chatter… AND you are famous. I just googled “layer of irrelevant chatter” and you came up top of the list. Position one baby!
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Really, for that highly competitive search term? I’m bigger than I thought! 🙂
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Whew. I’m definitely not that organized. I wonder if I should be. Overall though, I think I’m good about self-regulating. Maybe that is why I’m not so organized. Then again, I think goals are very useful and I’ve been trying to set more goals lately. Thanks 🙂
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If you’re happy with how you’re spending your time and how the whole blog is going then you probably don’t need to go through this. Some people just seem to have a natural instinct for knowing where and how much to do what. Now if you have a magic formula for that…
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Some of us just feast and famine 🙂
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Wow, you’re so organized. That’s my goal, right now, trying to write out when I should fit in all aspects of blogging in my day so that it doesn’t interfere with so many other things.
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That was exactly it – it was starting to interfere with other things so I had to take a step back and prioritise. So I guess it’s a sort of “priorities” list rather than a to-do list.
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It sounds like you are balancing it well.
I am very frustrated by how much time I spend blogging (barely any of which is actually blogging) which takes me away from projects that I think have far more potential to earn money. I can’t imagine being able to get it done in two hours a week. I’m really looking forward to taking a non ratings period very soon – just need to get through all the things I’m obligated to post and stop growing that list!
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It’s comforting to hear you face the same frustrations! We’ll miss you during your non-ratings period 🙂 There’s definitely a balance between saying yes and saying no – you don’t want to do too much or too little of either, and there aren’t always clear guidelines.
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I feel sometimes like my blog to-do list is taking over my life. With c and z being home with me all the time I pulled between the two of them and the duties that making a readable blog takes. I haven’t found a perfect way to get around to everything (my list is almost the same as yours!). I am going to read through all the comments now for a secret weapon (I hope!).
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You can have a look at what Mel has to say – she’s been around the blogosphere a while. You can see a very cherry-picked version where over time other activities have fallen by the wayside.
I’ll probably end up doing the same by default – at the moment I’m trying a lot of things out, but I can imagine spending more time on the ones that fit and less on the ones that don’t.
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This is such a good idea to have a checklist! Most days I just go with the flow so my online presence really depends on whatever is going on in my life. Sadly to say, most of the time, it’s work. Most days, I come home and I just want to go sleep but I enjoy reading new posts and interacting online so I just try to do it throughout the day whenever I can instead.
I often wonder how others manage their time though, there doesn’t seem enough time for me to do all the things that I want to like other bloggers do and I end up sleep deprived each day instead…hehe..
And I suck at social media…I had to learn twitter and instagram from other friends and am not even that active nowadays…lol..
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Yeah I can’t help you out with social media tricks. I think for me, I use social media as a forms of feed reader. I tend to see different people more/less on different mediums so I get a different angle on things using each one, that’s all.
But the sleep deprivation was happening to me as well! This list has helped me stay more focussed and spend less sleep time on blogging.
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I will think about using such a list, thanks for the idea!! 🙂
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You’re famous and interesting and if your check lists are the way to entertain us all bring it on! Having been trained as a nit picking MBA I love lists. At least I did until I retired. Now I like lists sometimes! 🙂 Most of the time I wait for a Thursday inspiration on WordPress and do daily checks on my interesting friends blogs during the week. FB is a once a week thing as it’s time wasting and I leave twitter to the birds.
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You can definitely waste a lot of time on Facebook etc. It has its uses, but it’s nice to keep a lid on it for what it actually gives back.
Nice to hear all these relaxed responses. The internet is full of articles which make me feel like I’m the only one not dedicating time each day to every social media channel and online activity ever invented.
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How organised you are, even if only ‘loosely’, I on the other hand just stare at my screen and go now what… time to review my strategy on blogging – I am just trying with ‘consistent’ at the moment – Lucky you getting a cup of tea! my then 11 year old did make me a coffee once he was so proud of himself but he had forgotten to put hot milk into the coffee but other than that it was delicious – must remind him that I would love one… on a sunday!
Ps I’ve heard not good to delete old posts too – good measure though to see how far one has come over time…
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I don’t see myself doing that a lot and I think it’s as Karolyn pointed out – the comments. I also have to admit I didn’t delete them outright, either – I just put them back into draft form. They were early posts from before anyone much was really reading and they didn’t really “fit in” with the rest of the blog.
Consistency is a good thing – I’ve noticed you posting more regularly.
You should definitely drop that coffee suggestion 🙂
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Also quick question, do you do reviews on Tripadvisor using your blog name? does this return any traffic to your blog?
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I do use my blog name. It doesn’t seem to return traffic (I think if you use the forums and link a specific post that’s different – someone linked one of my posts once and I got some clicking through – but when would I get time to add “use Trip Advisor forum” to this list? Maybe if I had a long-running blog with a bigger selection of travel-related content to choose from I could pop in and be sure to find a question to which I’d already blogged the answer, but it would be very hit and miss for me at this stage).
I do it because I think it’s useful to write reviews but I a) didn’t want to fill my whole blog up with reviews because that can get boring to read and b) knew they’d get read there (or at least contribute to a star rating). If I wrote a blog it’d take me an awful lot longer, too – this is just quick notes.
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Trip advisor doesn’t let you put links in reviews. You can post the whole URL but they have to copy and put it in the browser so you don’t know they come from trip advisor…..
I have done a couple on there but have no idea about the hit rate
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I didn’t think anyone got famous for blogs anymore. I was going to suggest vlogs, but that seems so 5 years ago now.
I don’t know. I’m too old for this shit.
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I think you’re probably right about the fame, although not everybody’s aspirations seen to have been tempered yet.
But I have seen recent vlogs! It’s not flavour-of-the-month any more, though. It’s always a relief to me when things stop being ubiquitous and start being used only where suitable.
Actually I think I’m still going through that process.
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Good inspiration and fodder. Also can’t wait to read … “when your kids won’t leave you the hell alone.” Will do that when mine do. Thank you for posting this!
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Ha! 🙂 Well spoiler alert: throwing biscuits at them as they advance across the room doesn’t work so well 🙂 . But have fun reading!
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You only spend 10 min a day on Pinterest? And you actually use it for blog content? Man… I sit down to spend 10 min on Pinterest and the next thing I know 3 days have gone by and I realize that funny smell is actually me!
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🙂
I spend a lot less than ten minutes on average. Ten minutes is the maximum per 24hr period I’ve set myself, but days go by where I just don’t get time to pinterest at all. I was having the exact same problem and I just thought I am wasting my time. It’s so easy to get sucked in!
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I’m impressed. It may seem as if I’m doing more than you, but you are actually doing much more than I am. I feel as if I have a good grip on things if I (1) have a decently cleaned out feed reader, (2) have written a handful of posts, (3) have bookmarked posts for the Roundup, (4) backed up my blog. All other things rarely get done. My blog has looked the same for how many years?
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Love hearing your pared-down list, as I guess by now you’ve really cherry-picked the things that are most important to you. I think this list is a kind of mid-way point really, where I’m putting a lid on some of the time-wasters, but I haven’t reached the point of dropping them entirely. I figure it’s ok if it still seems fun and useful.
In many ways some of these social media platforms are alternative feed-readers to me as well, giving me a different angle on people I follow or in some cases… well can you believe there are sites with no RSS feed out there these days?
Cannot believe I forgot to put “backup blog” on that list! Ok, editing now…
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Nice little algorithm! We haven’t quite worked out a rhythm per se… It is rather ad hoc! But you have got us thinking that we probably do need to get something like that for us going 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
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Ad hoc is great for a casual/hobby blog – I just found it was getting away from me and eating into my time. If that’s happening I think it’s good to step back and rethink.
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Is it wrong that I enjoy your irrelevant chatter as much as the useful content? I should so do check lists. Oh and try to teach my kids to bring me tea in the morning..
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That was a breakthrough this week. Seriously, this morning I was awoken by a hot cup of tea. P then climbed into bed beside me and read a Greek Mythology book quietly for some time, pausing every now and again to ask if I’d properly woken up yet.
Mind you, that’s probably my one behavioural miracle for the year gone, now.
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That is so cute. I sometimes get given a cup of tea by my three year old. Only it is not tea, just an empty plastic toy cup. I think we have a way to go.
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You are doing so much better than we were at three.
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We must be posh, I get my empty coffee in a china cup 🙂
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Ha…get you! I bet you get plastic food on a china plate too..
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Well yes, we should have been all ecological and got them wooden food really
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We are sometimes very ecological and even eat invisible food…
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Just had imaginary cat cake this morning! At least they are getting into the bake sale today
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“Clean blog of posts that just plain suck, in hindsight”:…..Are you allowed to do that? I feel liberated. If you really want to see boring photos of Christmas lights in St Christopher’s Place in December 2012, read my blog in the next 5 minutes, because that post is doomed to oblivion now.
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This is a debate. Æ says no you can’t, it’s against some unwritten blogger’s code or some such. Where I got the idea was from reading one of those pro-blogger checklists so I guess either they’re above the code or maybe I’m using the wrong code or I’m not sure – all I know is that I also found it liberating and although I probably don’t make as much use of the idea as maybe I should (they’re my babies, you know?) there’s always that one post from the second week of blogging you just cringe at, you know?
You’re not going to link that post for one last hurrah? 🙂
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I’m reprieving the post from 2012. Not because I’m browbeaten by the code. (As Pirate Captain Barbossa would say “the code is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules”.) But because that cringe-worthy post has laugh-worthy comments. Here’s the link: http://distantdrumlin.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/st-christophers-place/
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Wow. Gulp. Should I ever be this organized and methodical the moon will turn blue and I shall become Tinkerbell.
I certainly don’t have any magic. My current work is in that I am now on Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and have a Facebook page for the blog. At that point my head exploded from the old girl learning new tricks. I’m trying to figure out what slugs are…and not the kind you find in the swamp. You go girl.
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What are slugs?
Watch me spend more time trying to figure out which list “google slugs” should go on that I’d otherwise spend googling “slugs”.
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Oh, also, I emphasise the word “loosely” once again. I did up these lists and I find them useful reminders when I know I’m starting to waste too much time, but it’s not like I actually tick them off checkbox-style or anything.
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Here you go re :slugs. Its around shortening the URL as I understand so your topic is found more easily. Really don’t get it myself. http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/new-post-screen/
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Oooooooh. Ok. I do know that part, I just haven’t called it anything before. I feel enlightened! I’ve even shortened it once or twice but I usually forget and then it’s published and I don’t feel good about changing it. Better habits I suppose.
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Why don’t you want to change it after it’s published?
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Given that I didn’t know what a slug was in the first place probably for no good reason at all. 🙂
But once it’s published… won’t it muck up any subscribers if I change it? I know it’ll muck up my feedly subscribers because I use feedly and sometimes people do that to me. (That might not affect a huge group of people but I am married to one of them so the scales get tilted a bit…)
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No idea Bronwyn. You will recall my head exploded so I have little to go on currently. 🙂
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General call for answers on that one, then.
And if anyone can get Sue a mop…
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