Wendy Boswell has written a great piece over at Lifehacker on How to get things done working inside and outside the home where she talks a little about her approach to work life balance as a home based worker.
I think that what she has to say is great and would be well worth reading for most aspiring full time bloggers (and seriously addicted part time ones). It’s very easy to allow blogging to overtake one’s life – the computer just sits there in the corner of your home tempting you to come have a look at what’s happening on your blog:
- calling to you to come see who has been commenting…
- dangling the carrot of checking your latest stats…
- making you wonder how much your earnings are up to for the day…
- drawing you to it to write just one more post…
- making you nervous about whether the server is holding up after that link on digg…
There’s something quite addictive about blogging that most full time bloggers have to face at one time or another. It’s probably some mix of the allure of being the center of attention, mixed with the excitement of the chase of the story and readership, mixed with way it can open up doors to new friendship and opportunities.
But there comes a point where many bloggers need to think about creating healthy boundaries around it in order to maintain other relationships, work on our physical well being and to just have a life.
I know many bloggers don’t struggle with the work life balance in the way I’m describing (in fact some are quite the opposite to the point that life crowds out blogging) but over the last 12 months I’ve met a number of bloggers who have seriously worried me in terms of their blog obsession (“blogsession”).
Creating a healthy blog/life balance is important and for me includes:
- having days off
- taking longer vacations
- having times during the day that are set aside for family
- setting time aside for exercise
- prioritizing time for face to face interactions with people
- developing other hobbies
- setting limits on how late you’ll stay up and when you’ll go to bed
This all sounds basic common sense stuff – but as a blogger whose been close to burning himself out (and having seen a few bloggers who have) I think it’s worth saying. In addition to these things saving your sanity, relationships and health they’ll also help you to sustain your blogging.
Have you ever struggled with maintaining blog/life balance? What strategies do you have in place to keep things balanced?
