I received this email on Monday from a reader (who has given me permission to share this but who wishes to remain anonymous):
“Darren on Thursday I downloaded your 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook. I know it’s been only a few days but I’ve half done it already and wanted to share how I’ve tackled it.
When I bought it late on Thursday I decided to get straight into it and set aside the weekend to do as much of it as I could.
I know you didn’t design it to be done as an intensive but I know I work a lot better by setting aside extended blocks of time and doing things all in one go.
I completed about half of the tasks in the workbook over the two days. I’ve done all the ‘writing tasks’ (although have saved most as drafts to publish over the next week) and a lot of the more strategic ones too.
I’ll do a few more this week and have set aside next Saturday to work through the rest of the workbook.
I wanted to let you know that while most people will probably do the process over a month, I personally found it to be just as helpful (more so for me) setting aside a weekend to do it as an intensive training session. I’ve learned so much and came away from the process with so many creative ideas and fresh inspiration – thanks!”
I wanted to share the story of this reader because she reminds me a lot of myself in that she works best when she sets aside specific blocks of time to work on specific tasks. I know whenever my university offered intensive subjects that could be done with full time study over vacation breaks – I always took them.
One blog building strategy I’ve used many times over the years (particularly in the early days when I was working other jobs during the week and mainly blogging in the evenings) is to set aside whole weekends just to work on my blog. Granted, this worked a lot better when I didn’t have kids, but if you can get any day long break from the normal routine of life it can be a useful thing to set aside specific time to improve your blog.
Previously when I’ve done these ‘intensive’ times of blog improvement my focus has been upon a variety of tasks. I remember one recent weekend when I spent most of the weekend writing. Other weekends have been more about promotion, others have been more about design, others have been more about networking.
Whether you use the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook or not to give you some inspiration in these sorts of activities – these sorts of intentional efforts can be significant.
Blogs respond well to work, effort and focus.
Have you ever put aside an weekend or some other period of time just to focus upon your blog?
