The Art of Stress-free Blogging : This post on Web Worker Daily reminds me of why I should be reading that blog more often. If you have heard of or read the ever-popular productivity book Getting Things Done, by David Allen, you will enjoy this post by Leo Babuata. He goes through the steps to perform and outlines the common gotchas and missteps to avoid.
- I use the “email bookmarks, thoughts and lists” bit all the time but I use the draft feature in GMail instead of crowding my inbox. I also tend to have spurts of “processing times” when I do stuff related to blogging but since I am so pressed for time, their start and end times tend to vary wildly depending on the day.
- I “process to empty” twice a day and have schooled myself to do a brain dump every couple of hours either into my PDA (now my Treo) or into another email draft with a descriptive subject. My Treo’s Mobile email lets me do drafts much like GMail, which has been quite a boon. Then at process to empty time I clean things out.
- Instead of reviewing once a week, I review once a day right before I turn in, and make notes on needs for the recent future. I find that this works best for me.
- I find that my blogging habits also work well in my work life and since I have some serious attention problems, I try to focus as intensely as possible for short periods of time to get the most out of whatever I can get done. Of course, all of this results in me needing a few extra hours in the day but I am used to sleeping as little as possible. I also reward myself very often to keep the enthusiasm going. If I do not have something to look forward to, I tend to get bogged down with the task at hand and my productivity sinks completely. I have found that these rewards rarely ever need to be extravagant. That latte sounds good right about now.
I could go on forever, but I fear I am moving away from the actual context of blogging. What do you do to foster the Art of Stress Free Blogging?
Wow, amazing that my blog post is right on target along with this one. What do I do? This http://www.jeffro2pt0.com/relax-for-50-seconds/
When I blog, sometime I get “blogged-down” with topics that I’m trying to cover and it feels like I’m forcing myself to write something that i’m not totally stoked about and don’t realize it. The sooner I realize that I’m not totally stoked about what i’m doing, i stop and just let go of my topic. i sometimes get more into wanting to post something and get too much into the “quantity” aspect rather than the “quality”….once I’m able to shift and realize what I’m doing, I seem to just start writing and posting freely again. But, that’s just me. Hope that helps.
I have to agree with Matt. The single biggest thing I did to reduce my “blog stress” was to take myself off a schedule. For a while I was working under the notion that I had to post something at least every other day. I would struggle for a topic then rush through it, ending up with results I was rarely happy with.
I’ve been much happier since I decided to write only when I’m inspired and have the time to do a thorough job of it, even if it means going for a week without posting anything new.
Running multiple blog sites (who doesn’t these days?) means a wide variety of subjects for those ‘brain dumps.’ So, I finally started running a WordPress installation on my laptop specifically for “journaling.” In it, I have a category devoted to brain dumps for blogging topics and other writing projects I have going. This gives me tremendous flexibility and, thanks to my favorite tagging plugin, the ability to keep a long-term running set of inter-linked entries to serve as springboards for posts on my public sites.
I started doing this about 4 months ago and it has changed my life!
An added bonus, of course, is that I’ve stopped amassing all those crazy hard-to-index Word documents (or worse: yellow legal pads!) with scattered ideas. And my personal journals are not only getting written with more consistency, but they’re getting indexed and backed up. How great is that?
@Mark
> the recent future
Excuse me? Can someone please clarify this? 🙂
@David G.
> Running multiple blog sites (who doesn’t these days?)
Me, for starters. And I know I’m not the only one.
I have found the the Google Tools (like Google Notebook & Google Documents) help me to clear my mind and build new posts. I use Google Notebook to storing links and text for new post. Then I export to Google Documents for final formating. It helps me to keep multiple blogs and multiple posting building over time.
Also, I can access them anywhere. I was making update when I was in Europe 2 weeks ago. Same interface and all the data is there from any Internet Cafe.
Here are some post on this: Writing Ebooks with Free Google Applications
Google My Blog: Publishing to WordPress with Google Docs
I’d say the most important thing is to blog mainly about things one is ferociously passionate about… Enthusiasm and involvement cure writers block incredibly well..
and really, that is what we are talking about
I write about an amazingly limited sport, athletes who do what I do skate 400m in a circle (long track speedskatng), but the more I write about it, the more subtley, history, and human stories appear…
yes, this is my passion, but if one writes without passion, why write about it??
this is not just a problem with “blogging” it’s a problem with writers of all types.. to be a great writer, even if a novel is your project, writing demands daily investments of passion..
blogs are no different… at least to create a really good one…
Excellent post Mark. Even on days when the “creativity well” seems to be dry, I just tune in, breathe and write…
Something good always comes…
Keep up the great work!
Paul
I find that having a good photo helps focus a blog, reduces the stress of having to find a photo, and provides inspiration. In fact, I can’t look at photos without imagining, hmmm, what blog article would go with that picture?