I am not interested in hearing that you don’t have time to blog. Life is about priorities and determining how to spend your time.
Ask me why my abs don’t look like they did when I was 19 and I’ll tell you it is because of my diet. I could tell you it is because I have too many responsibilities and I simply don’t have time to eat right, but that is not true.
Most of the weight and responsibility falls on my personal choices not to adjust my eating to fit certain changes that have taken place. I own it, just as I own what happens here.
One of the reasons you haven’t seen as many comments from other bloggers is because I haven’t spent as much time commenting on other blogs. When you don’t make the rounds that is part of the impact.
It is part of why it is important to build community.
Priorities
I have shifted my time. I have increased the amount of time I am spending working out and I am doing my best to go to bed earlier.
Why?
Because if you want to be a great writer you have to read a lot, write a lot and take care of your body and brain. Sure there is the whole mystique thing of living large and hard and producing amazing content, but I can’t do that for very long without paying a severe price.
So I shifted and adjusted things.
I took initiative to remove the excuses…mostly.
Useful Information Used Usefully
Useful Information Used Usefully is the headline to an older post I wrote in about 15 minutes and so is the The Secret To Better Sex Is…
Why I am including those two posts here?
In large part it is because they are worth sharing again. There are readers who haven’t seen them and might enjoy the content. It is also because I have myself seven minutes to write this post.
When the bell goes off I will hit publish, put on my shoes and go to work.
I will leave feeling good about this post and confident that it is chock full of useful information. I’ll leave knowing that I didn’t let the desire to be perfect prevent me from publishing.
Perfection Is Paralyzing
Vince Lombardi was right about the need to chase perfection. We should always do so and strive to come as close to the mark as possible but don’t let the pursuit prevent progress.
There is always a better way to say or write things. I could come up with a better headline. I could come up with a better picture. I could do more to optimize this for SEO and that would be great.
But it would prevent me from hitting the other mark I have set and my priority is to publish.
My goal is to become a better writer and sometimes that involves practicing how to publish in less time.
You can do all of these things too. It is a matter of choice, desire and practice.
What do you think?
Blogging is easy to learn and if we can speak, then we can blog. I blog about my vet practice so that people will know where to search for their local vet online.
I find myself being more social, making the rounds to the blogs/writers I love and neglecting my own writing. Why? It’s easier. It’s easier to say I have to do that than it is to sit here and write something for myself. It’s easier to not write something than it is to write something that misses the mark or isn’t funny or thought provoking or causing folks to share it with the note SHE’S FUCKING AMAZING. I am so there w/you about priorities. Right now, my priority is snacking and watching Danny Phantom w/my three year old. When the kids are in bed and I usually open the laptop, I’m finding myself not doing it because, well it’s easier to beat myself up about it and moan to whoever’s listening about how hard it is to find the time to write.
I don’t know about you but I go through cycles where I find it easier to write and other moments where it is easier to comment.
I figure since most of us are doing this for fun the important thing is to figure out if we are still enjoying it. No sense doing this unless we are getting something out of it.
Now if I could just internalize your advice.
Would it help if you received an order from a superior officer. 😉
Love your accountability. I am dealing with a bit of weight gain since my knee surgery, but I have to own it. I was eating like I was still running and biking six days a week. Nope. That’s my fault. Pizza doesn’t work when you are sitting all the time. Well written.
Hi Geoff,
I love pizza and I hate it. Tastes far too good for something that comes with so many “complications.” I could eat it every day and never get tired of it. Maybe those complications are a gift, a ‘push” from above to keep working or suffer the consequences. 😉
I had a hell of a time getting something out this week. You always say to just write, and sure there are always plenty of ideas and even half written posts if you’re short on time and want to carry on with it, but here’s what was between my ears the last few days,”Laaaaaaaaa…” Too much life to write, I guess!
I would blame the goat but that sucker provides so much material I just can’t do it.
But life does have a knack for getting in the way.
What I think is that if I waited until I had time to write, I would never write anything. Confession: many of my posts are written one sentence at a time, between doing other things at work or at home. I have to squeeze it in in the cracks available. I also wish I had more time to comment on other blogs – I’m terrible at the “social” part of social networking – but I just do what I can.
So I really appreciate this post. 🙂
Hi Natalie,
Exactly. It is one of those things you have to make time for or it doesn’t happen. For most of us blogging is something we do for fun, it is “extracurricular” so the best we can do sometimes is fit it in between those cracks you mention.
As long as you are having fun it is a good thing.