Am I spending too much time blogging?
I see myself spending more and more time blogging and reading blogs. Since I started blogging in earnest and wanting to improve my blog, I have also started to spend a lot more time on my laptop. I read blogs instead of books and magazines. I got five books for Christmas and have only read two.
I love the way one topic will link others as being of interest. I’ve spent hours browsing and surfing. This is totally new behavior for me. I was answering email once a week just six months ago. I’ve even stopped knitting.
My whole focus for the day has changed. Now I wake eager to read the blogs I subscribe to and see if there are any new comments on my latest blog post. I wake up with new ideas for my blog and happy if I can improve it somehow. Note that I finally figured out how to put my photo in the sidebar and that I have a blogroll now.
I feel I have found a new community, new friends through the blogging world and through the comments. Friends I’ve never met face to face help me find my way. They teach, they entertain and they give snippets of ‘life lived’. They help me see life from a different, fresh perspective. I love the honesty found in the blogging world. I know that I’m now compelled to read and write blogs.
I worry that this is taking up too much of my time.
After I wrote this post I found links like these:
www.virtualbusinesslifestyle.com/2011/01/how-to-kill-yourself-blogging/
www.souldipper.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/managing-the-bloghood/
www.uphillwriting.org/2010/06/11/why-bother-to-blog/
What do you think? How much time is too much? How do you control it?
Clarbojahn's Blog 
Hi, Clar. Nice to meet you.
Thanks for the backlink to Uphill Writing.
Now, is blogging too much fun? Hmm. I guess it might be. Right up until the time it gets to be an obsession. For a time I was posting seven times a day, as I wanted to follow the rules which get a blog up and noticed as fast as possible. That was 7 per day, 7 days a week, and it went on for about 9 months. Now I’m doing a much more reasonable 4 posts a day with Sunday off save for a review of the weeks vocabulary words.
What I’m getting at is this; Blogging is fun. It opens you up–as you pointed out in your post–to a lot of new people, new ideas, and new ways of dealing with the world. Valuable? Absolutely. An important part of your Author’s Platform? Without question. And keep in mind that for any writer, whether it be for journals, children’s books, YA novels, short stories, essays… anything, agents now insist that you demonstrate that you can reach an audience. Your blogs, websites, visits and comments to other blogs and sites, all are a part of your platform.
Hmm… is this too much information? Sorry. I do get carried away.
Again, nice to meet you and thanks for the link!
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You’re welcome, Scott.
No it wasn’t too much information. You just summarized what I’m just starting to realize. What I wonder though is if blogging is your life. I would think even four blogs a day and commenting on others a job. Do you get paid for what you do?
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Paid? No, not directly, although I do pick up some business as a blogging consultant, or Author’s Platform consultant, and that’s nice. Mostly what I get out of it is “authority” on the net, and that helps build both business and reputation. ))
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Thank you so much for linking my post, Clar. While reading your post, I knew it could have been me writing those words describing the same scenarios.
I very much identify with the philosophy of VBL. Thanks for bringing that site to our attention. I’m veering away from the concept of post, post, post. I love posts that are less frequent and full of quality. I realize that is a personal judgment, but sobeit. There are so many posts – there is something for every taste.
Good luck with sorting out your time and being able to prevent blogging from being an obsession. I had to “go through it” to get through it.
I read your post about your struggles with God. Again, I share a key point with you – I’ve been a seeker my whole life. I even studied some Theology at University (raised Anglican). If you are interested in knowing where I’ve ended up, here’s a video of a Medical Lawyer, Nanci Danison, who died and came back from the other side with the gift of remembering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFDI-jgFVqs&feature=related. Her experience is what I came to believe after all the various religious and spiritual studies I’ve undertaken.
Glad to me you, Clar.
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Thank you for stopping by and for your comment. That is some video. Does make you stop and think. Some I relate to from my Course in Miracles text book. I will definitely pass it on for further discussion in my group of fellow students.
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I totally understand this issue. How much time you spend blogging is a personal assessment. I had to cut back, cause I found myself blogging instead of working on my fiction writing. If it’s interfering with something else just give yourself a set time that you can blog and stick to it. If it’s not interfering, just enjoy yourself, lol.
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Hi Cher,
Thanks for stopping by. I guess I can keep to my writing schedule and enjoy blogging. I enjoy writing so much that so far it hasn’t been pre-empted (is that a word?) by blogging and since my kids are grown and writings my life, I guess I can do as I want. I do tend to get lost into my laptop and don’t know where the time goes. Think I’ll set the timer.
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I give myself about an hour each day to read and respond to my emails and favourite blogs… sometimes more if I want to comment or reply in depth…. and sometimes less if I’m into a writerly roll on my MS
… some blogs I visit once or twice because of an interesting post or a recommendation from one of my regulars, but if they’re not moving me forward with words that mean something, or resonate with me then I don’t continue with them. That works well as a measuring stick I find… otherwise it’s so easy to get lost within them.
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Hi Widdershins,
An hour sounds like good advice. Like I told Cher, think I’ll start setting the timer for my blog time.
Do you count the time the actual writing of your personal blog takes up as blog time? It is easy to get lost in them as you say.
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My husband would say that I spend too much time on blogging, and he may be right 🙂 I have actually cut back some in order to leave more time for writing. I’d say as long as you’re still writing and the other parts of your life aren’t being sucked away, then you’re doing okay. Good luck with the balance 🙂
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Thank you for your support, Janna, sometimes it does interfere with things but I’ve also given up TV time to blogging and the blogosphere. The last two days I read a book while the snow came down so today I had over 76 emails in my in box, some which were replies to comments.I also wanted to put out a new post with feature images.(check it out) which meant new tech to learn both from wordpress and from my camera. It took all morning. I guess that as I get better I’ll be able to cut back on the time it takes for everything. How do you make those wonderful smiley faces on your comments?
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I use the emoticons WAY too much. The two I use the most are:
a colon followed by a right parenthesis – 🙂
a semi-colon followed by a right parenthesis – 😉
I’ve seen others but haven’t taken the time to figure out how they are made 🙂
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It’s fun to know that wordpress changes the text of the emoticons once they’re written into the smiley face pictures. Who judges that they are used too much? 😀
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Howdy! When anything stops us from doing what we should be doing, its too much. But we are the only ones who should make that decision – informed by comments those who care for us, of course. Like right now I’m busy not doing what I stayed home from work To do, which is write a paper. But when the blog just “popped up” on my screen I was intrigued. I guess I’ll let the tension of “have to” build up a little more to power my work! The smiley face question -was that rhetorical?
When something is deeply pressing – like an unspoken thought – it can stop the flow of creative thinking directed elsewhere. This is laid out nicely in the following article in the Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/neuroscientists
-try-to-unlock-the-origins-of-creativity/article1887117/page2/
While I have read the occasional blog that others have written, this is the first time I’ve responded to one. Its much nicer than emails! Its similar to discussion threads on facebook and on-line learning. When its well organized its a treat! Yes – I should be working a paper. But relationships are much more important to me, and when I need company, the lack can stop me from doing what needs to be done as well. (you can control the email notices by un-clicking the notification option on the bottom of your blog. When you plan on signing on anyway, there’s no need to be cleaning up your email inbox as well!)
Thank you for introducing me to this – I guess the moral is, Blog when it works for you!
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Hi Mieke, I was unsuccessful in finding your article. My search engine couldn’t find it. Yes, as I noted in the post, the blogosphere is a new community to me. I too am seduced by new relationships and threads as you so aptly put it. I have to watch and schedule my writing as being first thing in the morning and put a time limit on my blogging. Otherwise I have a hard time setting priorities. Seems like you are tasting some of that yourself. Good luck with the paper.
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