No matter how efficient you are or great your writing is, maintaining a regular travel blog is very time consuming. Whether you travel full time or have a day job you will continually be balancing the time you spend on your blog and everyone else. Your spouse, significant others, and friends may have difficulty understanding the rigors of blogging, networking, and managing a travel blog.
A big part of that is because you don’t realize how much work a travel blog is until your site grows a bit, you’re spending hours everyday answering emails, exchanging links, and using social networks to expand your travel blog.
Realizing The Wave
At some point if you stick with your travel blog you may begin to feel the “wave”. That’s the moment when you find your travel blog is causing more stress not only on yourself but on your personal relationships. You want to go out for dinner with a friend, hang out with your husband, and do all sorts of things but…you can’t. That is when you get hit with the wave – and it comes in the form of stress.
Set Limits and A Schedule
The single most important thing I’ve done for any of my travel blogs is to set myself a blogging schedule. I treat all of my blogging like a business with defined times for writing, social networking, and everything else. By doing so I end up with more free time and enjoying my friends and family when I’m with them. It goes both ways though, when it’s time to blog it’s like sitting in front of a computer in any corporate office – time for business.
- Separate your travel blog from yourself and create a schedule. That way you can focus 100% on the task at hand. By setting deadlines for yourself you’ll also force yourself to get more done in less time.
Ride The Wave
When you set your blogging schedule, try to keep in mind some of your personal commitments. Schedule around the things you want to do or have planned in your personal life so you’re not struggling to finish a post 5 minutes before your best friend’s wedding. Add variety to the length of your posts, take smart breaks, and use some of these quick post ideas.
In a company, the boss gives their employees time off. You’re the boss of your travel blog so it’s your responsibility to be good to your workers – in other words yourself.
Bring Them Along
Tell your family and friends some of your travel blogging goals and objects to help them quantify what it is you do sitting in front of a computer typing away so long. It might even work that someone you know wants to help contribute with written or photographic content, or behind the scenes with design or something as simple as signing up for your newsletter.
Some Things You Won’t Always Avoid, and That’s OK
Inevitably your travel blog is going to, from time to time, put a dent in your social life. You’ll just have to accept that unless you happen to be an exceptional planner that can do no wrong. Accept that there are some things you won’t be able to avoid.
Put boundaries on your blog so it doesn’t start consuming the other parts of what make you happy or prevent you from having fun with those around you.
[photos by: Mattong, Michael Dawes]
Anil,
My duties of writing a blog, and serving an important role in an online community has, at times affected my relationships, sleep, and other goals.
Your tip on making a set schedule for blogging is an excellent idea. Do you set your schedule by number of hours per day?
Hi Amanda,
I do both the number of hours per day and within that time I set what I want to accomplish. So I’ll give myself, for example, 2 hours to write blog posts, 1 hour to catch up on RSS, etc. I also schedule out in advance; a rough idea of when I’ll be working in the coming week ahead and the posts I’d like to write about.
Doing those simple things has really taken a lot of the stress out of the process.