I’m baffled. Stumped. I admit it.
I like to visit blogs. I enjoy reading other folks’ writing because I learn from their observations, experiences, and insights. I love seeing the infinite variety of blog designs and am constantly on the look-out for new ideas to improve my blog.
But I am at a loss to understand how some people maintain a healthy balance between their real life and blogging.
I visited a couple of blogs this week where the bloggers each professed to have seven other blogs, all of which were linked from the blog page I was on. That would be a total of eight. I thought, “Nah, can’t be.” So I set off to visit the seven other blogs belonging to one of those folks to see if, in fact, they were all maintained by the same person. And you know what? They were. She had essentially the same profile posted on each blog, with slight differences relative to the varying focus of the blogs. What was even more remarkable was the fact that she was a prolific poster. There were at least two or three entries in each blog every day of the week. Three posts per day times eight blogs means a whopping 24 posts per day!
Yes, many of those posts were “sponsored,” so this person was obviously spending a good deal of time working at blogging. But still . . . 24 posts is a lot of writing each day. There are many weeks when, in consideration of my other responsibilities, I can’t even manage to post a new entry once per day.
And consider this question: Where would you find, even taking into account those “sponsored” posts, the inspiration to post that much every single day?
But wait . . . there’s more! In the sidebar of each of her blogs, that individual also boasted a lengthy list of other blogs that she professed to read every day! While there was some overlap, the list of sites was not duplicated exactly on each of the eight blogs I reviewed. How is that humanly possible?
When I happened upon this cartoon, it reminded me of that blogger and made me wonder how many people it accurately portrays.
When asked approximately how many hours per week they spend surfing the Internet, a few brave souls provide estimates, but a lot of people do not want to think about the truthful response.
How many hours per day do you spend online? Be honest with yourself! Do you have a healthy balance in your life between your blogging, reading other people’s blogs, and your “real life” obligations? How many other blogs do you read regularly? And what about your relationships? Have they been impacted — for better or worse — since you began blogging?
I challenge you to spend some time thinking about those questions, examining your own situation. Engaging in a little “self-examination” is always a good thing.
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