Friend Friday: Blogger Burnout

1. How many hours a week do you spend blogging? Has that number changed since you started blogging? 8-15 I started blogging in college and it was more a quick few sentences here and then and I only read blogs (then journals) of people I knew, so it was much less time. It slowly evolved. It even evolved before anyone was reading it. I did it/do a lot of it for the archive. I count blogging as cropping and editing photos and sometimes if I take 40 photos, I edit all 40 even though I only put 4 on my blog. That's where the bulk of my time is spent. If I wrote less about my day, I'd be done a lot quicker but then I'd miss out on the archive of everything. I skip around sometimes.  I still have to write about November 6 and it was a fun day so I'm not skipping it.

The more I do, the more time I have to spend blogging.  So if I'm busy, I just get busier. This weekend I made cookies and was really busy. Now I have to catch up and write the long blog post about that. (I didn't like the cookies above so I made another kind after.)

2. There is always more you can do, write, read, comment on... how do you limit your time spent on these tasks? I limit myself by making myself go to sleep or maybe make myself cook dinner. I probably don't do a good job balancing blogging and everything else. But before blogging, I just spent a lot more time watching TV and did a bad job balancing everything.

3. Have you experienced Blogger burnout yet? How have you dealt with that? No... so I haven't had to deal with it.  I think I haven't because I write about my day and something had to have gone on during the day. Even if I was in bed all day, watched TV all day, or wasn't home all day, I still have that to say.  I also write about what foods I eat sometimes and a girl's gotta eat. Or a girl has to do the dishes. When I'm not super behind on posting I'll write about all those dishes I had to do because I agreed to do them instead of my husband so he would help out a coworker.

4. This time of the year is always a lot busier than any other time. Will your blogging change as a result? I'll probably do more things and thus I'll write more things.  I'll probably email friends less, but I don't think my blogging will decline. Things may be a bit delayed but hey they have been for the past 2 months so what's the difference.

5. Could you forsee a moment in which you are not blogging anymore? How would you you identify that it's time to walk away?  I always picture myself blogging. Each day is like a scrapbook page or two. I can't get rid of that. Just like I can't see myself stopping documenting my running and exercising.  If it's not documented or photographed it didn't happen. It'll never be time to walk away.  The things I blog about my change but they will always be my life.

Independent Fashion Blogger just did a post on Blogger Burnout.  I like that it states scheduled posts are your friend. But for me it's not because I like to have one lined up but usually I write 4 right in a row and I can't post them at once. I need to space them out so I schedule them.  I tend to do most of my writing on the weekends and I can't have all posts on the weekends so I schedule posts. Sometimes 3 days in advance I have 2 lined up.  But sometimes the weekend ends and I have 0 scheduled posts.  I'm still OK with it.

Stop looking at your blog stats. This is one of many fantastic tips included in  The Blog Herald article, Reenergizing Your Blogging Spirit. Think you can’t stand the thought of not monitoring your numbers? Let me put this into perspective for you using a worn-out but effective hypothetical: if it were your last day on earth, would you be worried about your blog stats, or out there living life?

It says to stop looking at your blogging stats. hah. Never. Also my last day on earth I'd be worried about my backlog of data I still have to analyze. I'm weird like that.   Lately I check my blog stats every single time I am about to check google reader.  Any little break at work or while I'm posting. I always hope it'll have a huge spike and people will love me. It hasn't happened yet though.

Go to Modly Chic and check out everyone else's answers.