Dear Bloggers...

Nix

Just a little crazy!!
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Joined
Mar 30, 2009
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6,628
How the hell do you stay motivated to Blog??
And how do you decide what to Blog?
 

Floris

I'm just me :) Hi.
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Joined
Jan 1, 2001
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60,096
Hey :)

I do not stay motivated. And that's the truth. Sometimes it just depends on how serious the site is (do I "have" to blog?) or if it's my personal site (do I "want" to blog?) .. either way, preparation helps loads. Each time you have a thought "I could blog about this", just go and dump the title and a quick description into a drag post. You can always come back at it later. And diversify. It's not always about writing. Sometimes it's about the behind the scenes, the social media aspect of things, or just reviewing and re-reading what you've already posted.

Go back to some old posts and read through them. Maybe you think to yourself: "Oh, I can write about this, it's been two years, and things changed!" or it might just trigger motivation to pick up an alike topic and start a quick draft on that one.

Or open a new document in Pages (or Word) and write a few things down along the lines of 140 characters so it's easy to read, easy to copy paste, and easy to dump on a few social networks, like Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and some friends on Facebook Msg or Snapchat, etc. Make a reference to your content, give it a positive spin and include a link or a picture to go along with it.

Talking about pictures. Sometimes it's just fun going through old blog entries and find out what it is missing to spice it up, like a picture. Maybe don't blog, but spend time in Photoshop to make some header/footer banners, or a page filled "above the fold" for example (i can explain these things in a msg later if you want). And update those. People that find new blog entries and want more might read old entries and find out they are more 'complete', with a nice header, intro, some rich media and a fun comment at the end.

Don't forget that if you had comments and feedback from people through the blog or social media to include that in your blog post. Use that as an excuse to post an FAQ (which btw reminds me, I have to do myself for a site..)

Done with all that? Wow! You've made great progress on the blog, without writing a word! And maybe that motivates you to come back another day and pick up one of those drafts and turn it into an almost ready to publish draft. Maybe while writing it you have more ideas and start more drafts.

Haven't posted in a few weeks? No worries, pick up one of those drafts, quickly finish it and just publish it. Let it be there for the new audience and search engines to index. You can come back later. Come back a week later and complete the writing if you had the idea to insert some quotes or links, maybe you have motivation a week later.. just saying. Oh, and you can also add more images again and finish that draft to a properly published version. Happy with it? Even if it is days or a week later, you can still push it to social media and friends and let them know you've worked on something.

Another trick is to get guest bloggers. Get a friend to share their story or experience about the topic you're blogging about and start with a paragraph where you explain you've asked a friend for their point of view. Then include theirs, and write a small conclusion and a thank you below it. Boom, another blog done.

It's not strange to have 25 or 125 draft posts lingering for months and months. Just know those ideas are there and not forgotten. And once in a while you ARE motivated and you can write three or four of them into an almost ready to publish article. Then it's just a matter of spreading the work over some weeks.

And to the end user, the visitor to your blog, they only see the positive, the motivation, the consistency in publishing content.

Bonus tip, what I do for mrfloris.com for example. I do all of the above, and then I set a goal for myself to blog for five days in a row, or for two weekends in a row. Or for a month! And this gives me great motivation to find out where my limits are. What I can and cannot do. What drafts work and don't work. You find your limits and at the end of the year you can say: I had 25 blog entries, that's an average of 2 per month.. even if I didn't blog in the summer.

And a blog isn't something I look at as a 'live' thing, it's there when it's there. And sure, consistency is always key. And I wish I always had motivation to blog daily or weekly. But real life gets in the way. For me it's either focus on this, or that.. or the other thing. Sometimes I focus on blogging and I get motivated to work on the site's design, or the behind the scenes stuff. Or I try something new, or I go back and fix up some silly grammar.

Heck, since I am Dutch, I mix up 'realize' and 'realise' and I decide I want to use UK English, and I go back and try to find all the z instances and change them to s. Even that is "blogging" because you're working on your site and slowly making improvements.

Just reading this post motivates me again to pick up blogging soon. I just had some health issues, some bad news, and fighting on staying positive that were in my way. I am excited to pick up blogging and share what I've been working on and take it to the next level.
 
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Joan

Don't Blink
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Mar 5, 2017
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I used to blog more when I had it on my phone, but since I don't recall my password to log in on my phone I blog a lot less!
 

Floris

I'm just me :) Hi.
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Jan 1, 2001
Messages
60,096
I used to blog more when I had it on my phone, but since I don't recall my password to log in on my phone I blog a lot less!
wut ..

You forgot the passphrase or the pin to your phone?
 

Joan

Don't Blink
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I had the wordpress app on my old phone, but I don't remember my login details to use that on the new one
 

Floris

I'm just me :) Hi.
Staff member
Joined
Jan 1, 2001
Messages
60,096
I had the wordpress app on my old phone, but I don't remember my login details to use that on the new one

Then go to wordpress.com and click login > forget pass, and give it your email address :D
 

Joan

Don't Blink
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That's about 3 steps too many, plus logging into my email account as it's the one I don't use on my phone!
 

Floris

I'm just me :) Hi.
Staff member
Joined
Jan 1, 2001
Messages
60,096
That's about 3 steps too many, plus logging into my email account as it's the one I don't use on my phone!
Sorry, can't help when you don't want to make the effort, lol :)

Well, you can always make a new email and start blogging again on a new blog platform :D
 
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