Burning the candle at both ends is something we are becoming accustomed to at Performancing. As Nick mentioned yesterday, as well as a new release of Performancing for Firefox, we have a whole new treat in store for you lucky bloggers! While rushing mad headlong into work is always exhilarating, it’s important to maintain at least a tenuous grip on sanity so you don’t end up a useless burnt-out husk of your previous self.
There seems to be a lot of it about. I have been reading with interest D’Arcy Normans blog where he has been talking about bloggers going on hiatus, and about trying to recover some sort of balance between real world relationships and online ones. This is quite a common theme, and I can only see it becoming more so. “Meatspace”, especially to geeks like me, can be more difficult in many ways than the virtual space we inhabit. It is so tempting to give up on the real in favour of the virtual. Heck, I barely get out of the house now!
The other aspect is the amount of effort we put into blogging at the expense of everything else. It can be so rewarding, so engrossing, that we begin to forget there are other things that need to be done. For those of you with careers outside of our blogging, where blogging is a fun distraction, this can be quite threatening to the mortgage payments so be careful!
My body is telling me I am doing something wrong. I have had a cold since before Christmas, I have aches and pains and my sleep patterns are crap. I think it is about time I took the hint! I know Nick hasn’t been on top form either, to the point where he nearly had an unfortunate gastric accident at SES NY.
A sense of balance is all it takes. Even if you need to schedule time to make it happen, we need to touch base with the important people around us. Spend some time away from the computer. Especially in my case, get some fresh air and some sun. Perhaps even (shock!) some exercise. A fresh body and mind, with healthy relationships, it has to translate into 100% more success overall.
Do you ever feel like you have the balance all wrong and you are running yourself into the ground? What do you do to manage it?
8 thoughts on “Blogger Burnout”
Seven to look after certainly would put demands on your time! I shudder to think …
I think that that is a noble task to undertake.
I have no choice but to take breaks from marathin blogging because I have to care for the 7 dwarves. I have to cook, drive them to and from school and wash their clothing.
Now sleep, that’s another issue. I run on little sleep because it is the only time I am not being interrupted because someone is looking at them, breathing on them or sticking their tongue out…(you get the picture).
I have to take a longer break from blogging on the weekends. Besides, if I didn’t live my life with the 7, then I wouldn’t have humorous stories to blog about!
I stopped doing the 20 hrs/d of blogging several months ago. But I do still occasionally stay up ’til 3 am. I have burned out several times in the last 9 months, so I called a hiatus on 3 blogs about 2 wks ago.
How to deal? I’ve been trying to approach blogging lately from more of a journal approach. That way, I don’t feel I have to write every single day and burn out.
…good bloggers are not always blogging. I think of journalists. Journalists are not always writing. In fact, most of their time is spent gathering information, etc…
I find my best blog entries are thought of in the middle of my normal (real) life. The key is keeping a good mental note or carrying a small notebook in your pocket to record ideas that pop into your mind.
The more I sit in front of the computer the worse my blogging becomes. Very rarely do I sit at my computer and stare at the screen saying, “oh come on… what should I post about now?”
I used to ski giant slalom and slalom. When you are going through a gate you are actually looking 2 or 3 gates ahead of you so you know where and how to position yourself so you don’t lose your line. I find blogging the same way. I write my posts expecting they will be published 2 or 3 posts from now. This wouldn’t work well on newsy blogs because you would be late on reporting. But when you have timeless material you can be publishing work you wrote days ago.
I just keep an inventory of articles and when the next one’s time is up I publish it. Just the stress from having to execute a post immediately triggers bloggers blog. Knowing that what you are writing now won’t be published for a few days releives that stress and eliminates bloggers block.
sremington
Lord, i know what you mean with the burnout. I produce a lot of big gift/buying guides at my weblog, and the scale of them is just horrible — 70+ products, all requiring images, affiliate links, copy, etc., i’m so pleased to have just finished the last one i’ll do for a few months. I’m like Markus — i can’t really help my situation, as i really love my weblog and couldn’t live without it. I just wish i were independently wealthy so i didn’t have to stress about it making money!
Heh, “My name is Chris Garrett. I am a blogger. It has been 10 minutes since my last post”
Bloggers Anonymous, anyone?
the same for me. Not that I am feeling sick but since last July my time at the desktop eats up everything else – mostly.
I can’t do much about it. It’s personal project work and I am into it. Meeting friends – who call me (!) for a gathering – helps a lot.
I hope I will straighten it all out in the next two month …
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