When it comes to blogger excuses, I am the master. Procrastination is something I’ve perfected. When I started blogging full-time, I had to work hard to retrain my brain. It’s still an ongoing challenge to avoid distractions and get my work done in a timely fashion. I like to have a schedule to avoid staying up all night or rushing to meet deadlines.
Here are some blogger excuses that I know I am not alone in allowing to destroy productivity:
“I need to rebrand” – I have been thinking about rebranding Sweep Tight for approximately four years. Most of my blogger friends are probably gearing up a virtual throat punch if I don’t stop talking about it. There was a long stretch where I let this completely destroy productivity. All creative ideas were blocked by my wishy-washy attitude regarding my blog name and niche. Guess what? No one cares about your blog name if you aren’t posting anything.
“I need a new blog design” – Blog design is important, but don’t let it stall you from creating content. As long as your blog is responsive, you should keep working while waiting for a design.
“I have to get organized” – The current situation at my desk is starting to look dangerous. In the process of switching over files, things got a little out of hand. Every time I look over at the growing mountain of paper (and a there are a few snacks in there – not gonna lie), I get a rush of overwhelming panic. I need to just handle it, but until then, I cannot let it kill my content creation.
“I am not sure if people will like it” – Unavoidable. Someone will always not like it. I have gotten nasty comments on the tamest posts. As a recovering people-pleaser, I struggle with this daily. But, if I don’t stop giving a hoot so much, I will never type another word.
“What if no one reads it” – Oh, but what if they do? Honestly, it’s so hard to anticipate how a post will perform. I have published a few that I thought would take off and, nope. As long as you do your best to write valuable content and promote it, just keep on trucking.
“I can’t find a good SEO keyword” – Yeah, like with this post. I spent a good 30 minutes trying to find a good keyword for this topic before I just said screw it. I get so hung up on SEO sometimes that it prevents me from writing the post at all. As much as it kills me, I am going to try to get over that and just type. If I can’t find a great keyword in five minutes, I need to move on.
“I have to do {fill in the blank with housework chore}” – Working from home is so distracting. It’s hard to focus when you know your laundry is breeding somewhere. There are always chores to be done. The thing is, if you are going to be a successful blogger or entrepreneur, you have to make your work a priority. Either set strict work hours or figure out a way to ignore the dirty dishes that are summoning you until you have a certain amount of work done.
Which blogger excuses destroy productivity for you most often?
Holley says
I spend time with blogger friends through the day and some do seem to struggle with these things. I wonder at times if the “rebranding”, reorganizing, or changing of headers doesn’t do more to harm the productivity and ability to actually connect with the reader, than just to keep on moving forward. The problem that then comes is that they stop altogether. Indecision, boredom, or maybe they think these things are productive but are all potential blog killers. Lots of people think of making changes as spring cleaning and wipe out all posts and start over again and again each year. Keyword search can be done after you have done the creative part. Just write. When I am doing housework I am writing in my head. For those that are able to do more than one thing, wear a headset and use Dragon Naturally Speaking to write while you work. It’s easy to read through it later and clean it up which also means you don’t go into edit mode while you write, you just keep moving forward as you should.
Jennifer says
You are so right, Holley! That’s funny, I “write in my head” all the time, too. I need to try Dragon. I forgot about that!! Awesome tips.
Holley says
I sent your post to those friends so they know they aren’t alone and that I am not just “picking on them”.. lol
LauraOinAK says
Too much time getting sidetracked is my biggest obstacle. Facebook makes it too easy to go down rabbit trails!
MryJhnsn (@mryjhnsn) says
You know those days where you read something and think, “Boy! I needed to read that today!”?
Yeah… Thanks 🙂
Jennifer says
Yes! I have those days quite often!! So happy this post did that for you! <3