Duncan has posted on the topic of How to avoid blog burnout in one easy lesson where he suggest taking a break is a good way to sustain your blogging over a longer period of time. In particular he writes that taking a weekend off (or at least having a lighter weekend) might be a way to keep your blogging fire burning.
I agree with Duncan in this – I am a big believer in a day off – in theory anyway.
I remember reading a study into productivity a few years ago in which researchers looked at a variety of different cultures work patterns in order to discover what the most productive people’s work practices were. A number of factors emerged from the study – but the one that rings in my mind years later is that they found the most productive cultural groups were those that worked hard for 6 days per week and rested for one. The day off was devoted to rest, family, relaxation and rejuvination of body, mind and spirit.
I think this is an important approach for any worker – bloggers are no exception. Without taking a break blog boredom and writers block can easily set in.
The challenge for those of us making a living from blogs is that the medium is a 7 day per week, 365 day per year venture. Whilst traffic does tend to go down on weekends (as less people are at work surfing the net when they should be working) the weekend is actually an opportunity for traffic and earnings like any other day and regular posting on the weekends is one way to ensure the traffic keeps coming in.
So what is a Pro Blogger to do?
- Take a break each weekend, get a life and forget about the money?
- Work through the weekend and run the risk of burning out in the hope of good earnings?
Either of these approaches would be a valid option but neither meet both objectives of rest and maximizing profits.
What other options might there be?
Advanced Posting – As Duncan points out in his post – one of the strategies that I use is ‘Advanced Posting’ whereby I write a number of posts in advance of when I want them to appear and using Word Press’s ‘Edit timestamp’ option I set the time for when I wish the post to appear and Word Press handles the rest and posts them at the appointed time. In this way I simply do a few extra posts on Friday so that the following days I’m not under any pressure to have to write.
Unfortunately Advanced Postings is only really an option on certain types of blogs. I can get away with it here on ProBlogger because many of the posts I write here are of a ‘tips’ or ‘advice’ nature – but on blogs like my Pope Blog which relies on the latest breaking news there is no way of knowing what the news will be in advance.
Group Blogging – Perhaps the other way around this is to add more authors to your blog/s. Adding another blogger is a pretty obvious way to not only keep up with the latest news and keep fresh content appearing 7 days a week. A simple roster would ensure a blogger is ‘on duty’ and watching the news on any given day. Of course having additional authors brings its own challenges – but perhaps its a work around for the problem.
What’s your approach to weekends, holidays and finding the balance between work and rest?
