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6 Things I Learned by Blogging Every Day

Achievement Unlocked!

via says-it.com/achievement
I have now posted to this blog every day in a month! I'm feeling happy about that. I posted more times in any month than I have before, and I posted more days in a row than I have ever posted before. And I'm proud of the things I posted and the things I learned along the way. Yeah!!!

I think we need a picture of me showing off my muscles, to celebrate this occasion.

I did it!
There were both pros and cons to blogging every day. Here are some of the things I learned from blogging every day this month:

1. I can do hard things - I already knew that setting and completing goals makes me feel great. Now I know that setting and completing blogging goals makes me feel great, too!

Some days it was really, really hard to get something written. Some days it was easy and I was overflowing with enthusiasm. I think it's interesting to note that it didn't really matter where I was in the month, it just depended on my mood when I sat down. I mean, I wasn't all gung-ho at the beginning, and then by the end just slogging through. My motivation was interspersed throughout and I think that's a sign that I set a goal at the right level for me.

It was good to figure out that even if I didn't feel like blogging when I first sat down, I could always get going and eventually post something worth posting.

2. I can blog about whatever I want to - I guess because I knew I was going to be posting more often than I ever have before, I felt more free to post on any kind of topic. I did some types of posts I haven't done before (or haven't done in a while), and introduced Sunday posts with a new tag: spirituality.

It's not that I previously felt my spiritual walk had no place on this blog, but I think knowing I had to post on Sundays made me willing to expand the scope of the blog to include more spiritual and religious content.

3. People love to see someone chasing a dream - When I told people offline that I was blogging every day this month, they were interested. They wanted to hear more about it, and about my blog. It gave me something good to talk about, and people seemed happy to hear about what I was working on. I think people love to see others chasing their dreams.

I'd love to know what dreams you're chasing, if you're reading this. Will you leave me a comment? I'll respond to each one.

4. I didn't have time to do back-end stuff - Put this one down under "reasons NOT to post every day." Because I was creating a whole new post every day, I didn't have time to do some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that I usually do. For instance, I said I was going to update my Cybils posts after the big announcement on the 14th, and I still haven't done that! (Hope to do it after this post goes up tonight.) EDIT: They're now up to date! Here and here. :)

I think there's a sweet spot though, for sure. If I post too infrequently, I forget to do post improvements and promise-keeping type stuff. If I post too often, I don't have time to do it.

5. Repetition increases speed - Boy howdy I have gotten a LOT faster at writing copy and creating fancy-pants images! Doing these things every day has helped me tremendously to improve my speed, and honestly I don't think the quality has suffered much, if at all. I think mostly what was making me take longer was overthinking and too much tweaking.

My friend Meghan and I have been giving each other online assignments lately, and she said something that has really helped me out: "We're shooting for, like, 80%. B+ work, ok?" Haha! Every time I catch myself spending way too long on one aspect of a post, I remember that I'm not supposed to be trying for an A+, just a B. What a relief.

6. Consistency helps with strategy. I've known about the blogging strategy of breaking big topics down in to small posts for a long time. I've wanted to do some different series, in the past. But I guess I just didn't trust myself to finish a series? Now I do. I knew I wanted to tell a few examples of times that storytelling had helped me wrangle the kids. So one night I began to outline that post. I could see from my outline that it was going to take me far too long to write this post and that it was probably going to be an overwhelmingly long piece, if I did. So I was like, "Hey! I'm going to break it up!" I did, and when I posted the next parts, I linked each of them to the others with a quick "more/previous" link at the bottom of the post. Bam!

Going forward...

I can tell you now that I do not plan on posting every day in March. I'll commit to a Monday Wednesday Friday schedule for the time being, ok? That ought to give me time to work on some of the updating I want to do, and write a couple of guest posts I've promised and still have lots of great, new content going up here on Everead.

Please tell me what you thought of this month! Did you not even notice I was posting daily? Did you notice and love it? Did you notice and thought it had some pros and cons? I want to hear it. And if you've got dreams and big goals you're working on, please share those, too.

Talk to you soon!

Alysa

7 comments:

  1. I loved reading your posts everyday. I felt connected. I am dreaming of getting back to work at bathe law office-things have gone way downhill there since I have been teaching. I plan to sell and buy properties.

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    1. Thanks, mom! I've loved getting your comments on the posts. And it won't be long until you can start working on that dream! :D

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  2. PS. I think blogging everyday was HEROIC! Well done.

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  3. I look through my blog roll for posts about books, and usually only read those. Or skim them, since I just want to know if I need to read the book. I post every day, but try to have things scheduled two months in advance. I occasionally post some personality leakage, and it's a little disappointing that people like that best. I did notice that you popped up in my feed more, and I did read about your struggles with your daughter, but only because my daughters are older and I just told them to get in the damn car or they would regret it. And they turned out okay!

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    1. So THAT's your secret! Oh man, scheduling two months in advance sounds like a dream. <3 I love it when I have a few posts scheduled. Unfortunately, I love it to the tune of slacking off because I know I have posts scheduled. Haha.

      Also, please note that I *do* use the "just do it >:-(" tactic with the kids as well. It's just I think that one comes pretty naturally to parents, so it probably doesn't need highlighting on my blog! :D

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  4. Congratulations on reaching your goal, Alysa! I was pulling for you, and I thought it was nice seeing you expand the focus of what you're writing about. The "I can blog about whatever I want to" concept has changed my blogging over the past couple of months, too :-)

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    1. Thanks Jen! And thanks for tweeting about my posts. I always love it when you do that. <3 It's so empowering to release a self-imposed limit isn't it?

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