Since I started editing and publishing content produced by others in our company, I’ve found it harder to create my own content here on my blog. Spending a lot of time doing content-related tasks like editing, tagging, and the like, uses a lot of the available ‘content energy’.
Blogging is… work?
Flowers: one in a pot, the other in the garden. Pictures taken on the same day in July.
At the end of the day sitting down to blog may start to feel like… more of the same. Like work. If that’s the case for you, there are a couple of things you can do.
- Stop blogging. Maybe just temporarily. And hope the muse of desperate bloggers will come to your aid.
- Keep blogging so you won’t end up watching your traffic stats plummet.
- Keep blogging, but publish less often so you’ll have quality posts rather than dozens of posts that fail to inspire your readers, or even you.
- Find new topics to blog about.
Blog more, blog less, blog differently?
Every option has its drawbacks.
If you blog because you love to write, stopping will only mean that in a while you’ll wish you hadn’t. Possibly just after you hit the ‘delete this blog’ button. Or, if you don’t delete your blog, when you return after a while and find that your traffic stats hit zero a month ago.
Blogging for your stats is hardly the inspirational boost you need.
Publishing less often may work, but I’ve noticed that posting once a week is not enough to keep my interest. Breaking the blogging habit may mean you’ll end up having to start building your routine all over, or you’ll stop blogging because the remaining motivation flowed out through the nearest exit when you weren’t watching.
The most viable option would be to find new topics to blog about.
Where do you find new blogging topics?
If your blog’s name is based on professional topics, you may find additional blog topics in:
- Your next job (dream job?).
- Tasks you don’t do right now, but you’d like to add them to your day job.
- Tasks you know you might need to do in the future, but you really haven’t got a clue how you’ll manage.
- Stuff that nobody except you seems to notice.
Of course, a professional perspective may be too narrow and again it may feel too much like you’re working outside working hours.
Blog rambling off-topic?
For my own blog, I’m wondering if I should allow myself to ramble off the content track occasionally to write about topics that are unlikely to ever become my job because they are in fact hobbies.
Like gardening. Well, it’s gardening, but not as the lawn-mowing weed-pulling inhabitants of suburbia know it.
- It’s the kind that stuffs garden clippings behind the hedge because I don’t have room for a compost heap and anyway, isn’t it where the nutrients are supposed to end up anyway?
- It’s the kind that watches beetles and spiders and caterpillars and ants.
- It’s the kind that wonders why I didn’t plant the strawberry plants into the soil earlier, because they look a lot happier now than when they were sweating in their pots. (I still think the heat did more harm than the light green caterpillars.)
What would, do, or did you do when faced with a lack of blogging inspiration?
Content Rambler 
Excellent article, & I’m feeling it a lot lately. I have literally had days I was on the verge of ending the blog – and then I thought ‘why?’ and it was because I felt pressure to produce a post or pressure to visit other blogs.
There was a week I got likes from about 20 different people who had never visited before & I couldn’t help feeling they had swung by, not read a word, & hit like so I’d visit them. True, I do visit new people – see their story, where they’re at, why were they interested in visiting me? But I ended up with the distinct impression they’d only hit like so that I would return.
Of course, I don’t know!! But needing to visit that 20 blogs, or feeling I needed to… actually was curious to… yes, that was work. And I thought if I ended it, that could be quite a relief.
Blogging is interesting. It can be wonderful – actually, mostly it is, but other times it does feel like work. When it feels like that, I do stop for a few days. You simply need to, as there’s too much other work in this life.
I really enjoyed your article. Very valid & relatable. Cheers! 🙂
Wow – thanks for such a lengthy reply. It’s a blog post all by itself 🙂
I think you’re right though. Some people seem to have started blogs to ‘get rich today’ and to approach the ‘social’ side of WP as though it’s Twitter or Facebook. Follow/like in order to be followed/liked back. Yuk. It can be a bit disheartening when they’re the only ones to show up. Oh well. Ignore, ignore.
Do let me know if you decide to pack up and leave WP. Keep in touch the old-fashioned way 🙂
Thanks. I would keep in touch yes.
Whenever I contemplate ceasing, I give it another 24 hours. It’s kept me here! I just rethink it all, you know.
You need to do it “for you”, for your reasons, not out of stress or obligation. Glad I’m not the only one who gets a run of “likes” out of nowhere zero comment!
You’re right, it depends on why you started blogging. If those reasons no longer apply you can stop. Otherwise – keep going!