Why We’re Not Publishing Every Day This Month And Our Goals for October 2019
Disclaimer: Posts may contain affiliate links. We earn commissions if you shop through the links on this page. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. For more info, read our disclosure policy.
Many of you who have been following our journey would probably know that we set a challenge for ourself to publish a post daily for the last 30 days. That was our goal for last month.
We’re quite happy to say that we’ve exceeded that goal and have, in fact, managed to publish daily for 45 days (starting mid-August). Whilst we didn’t say it, we were sort of thinking that we could do this all the way to Christmas.
FLASH SALE
However, now that I’m standing here in front of the laptop and writing about our goals for October 2019, I realise one thing – I don’t want to do this all the way to Christmas.
Why?
Read on to find out why we’re not publishing every day this month (and possibly for the next 6 months)…and why you probably shouldn’t either.
I’m bloody exhausted and stressed out.
For the first 2 weeks, I was on a roll and I wrote maybe two posts a day but published only one. [I mean, really, how many blog posts per day should we be publishing for our blog to succeed? How often should I blog to make money?]
That meant that I had a few posts lined up for the next few weeks.
The problem was, it meant that I was sitting in front of my laptop for hours every day – with hardly any break.
Conscious of the deadline I’d set for myself, I kept pushing myself to churn out content.
At about that time, my son started going to nursery for 3 hours every day so I had enough time to write as much as I wanted.
Unfortunately, this winning streak didn’t last long.
For various reasons (which I’ll talk about in an upcoming post on choosing childcare providers), we’ve had to pull our son out of nursery and choose another.
This meant that the time I had for writing was drastically cut short.
Not only that, my body decided it’s had enough of my Type A personality and send a particularly crippling bout of migraine my way, which saw me unable to leave my bed (much less write anything) due to nausea, pain and photophobia.
It was not my finest moment and instead of relaxing (which would’ve helped me recover quicker), I was even more stressed just thinking about the clock ticking without me writing.
So, what did I do?
As soon as the pain abated enough to let me start typing, I went and started typing.
Within 24 hours, I was back in bed – again laid low by migraine.
It’s something I do not recommend to anyone so take it from me, make sure you look after yourself, rest properly and #dontbejade.
Don’t sacrifice your mental and physical health. Nothing is worth it.
I’m running out of ideas.
Our brain is a practically infinite source of ideas. However, when you’re too tired and stressed out, that well seems to dry up.
It doesn’t really but it feels like it does.
In fact, it sometimes feels like our access gets cut off and talker’s block ensues.
This is pretty much what happens to me when I’m exhausted.
My mind rebels against the thought of churning out new ideas in a way that other people would understand.
Every moment, my mind races with new ideas. But the difference is that I can understand my own thoughts, thank you very much. I don’t need to transform it for the benefit of other people so that they can understand what I’m grappling with – and why.
Or do I?
I’m a content creator, a full-time blogger. I put my thoughts to paper (so to speak) and publish online because it’s what I love.
So, running out of ideas or, far more accurately, rebelling at the thought that I have to publish a post today – this minute – because it’s what I decided I needed to do to be successful…well, let’s just say that it’s something I don’t care for and is a powerful enough reason why we’re not publishing every day this month.
Do you find that you’re the same? If so, publishing every day may not work for you either.
I want to have more time with my family.
Another reason why I decided to slow down is that I want to have more time with my family.
For the past 45 days, I’ve had to decline most of my son’s offers to play with him.
For the past 45 days, I’ve had to wait for Kevin to get home, after which I’d run out of the house and into the library to work (or I collapse in a heap on the bed).
If you’re a parent or a partner, then you know that that’s not good for any relationship.
Equally bad is when you’re physically spending time with your loved ones only to have your brain racing non-stop because you’re worried about the deadline you’d be missing by not working.
Sadhguru reminds us that everything is important and it’s true.
Even when you’re neck-deep in a new project, it’s important to remember that people matter. In fact, people matter more.
But if you’re like me, then it’s sometimes easy to forget that spending time with those you love isn’t just something you have to do. It’s not something that takes away from the real work of setting your blog up for success.
It’s just as important, if not more so.
Goals for October 2019
So, this month, what are our blogging goals?
1. Publish at least 15 posts and hit a big milestone – 100 posts.
2. Publish a sponsored post.
3. Publish 3 Quora answers a week and link to the blog.
4. Create a full month’s worth of social media content for Facebook (13th October), Twitter (14th October), Instagram (15th October) and Pinterest (16th and 17th October).
5. Go through The Genius Blogger’s Toolkit, paying particular attention on the following training, eBooks, templates and courses (and complete at least one from each category):
✦ Photoshop Pin Templates by Carly Campbell
✦ Next Level Pin Designs: Everything you need to design NEXT LEVEL Pinterest Pins for FREE in Canva by Nadalie Bardo
✦ Explosive Traffic With Tribes: A step-by-step blueprint for bloggers to reach 90K+ page views per month in 90 days by Maria Juvakka
✦ Pin Practical Influence by Monica Froese
✦ The Pinterest Studio by Katie Grazer
SEO & Traffic
✦ Boost Your Blog Traffic: 50 Strategic Steps to Increase Traffic To Your Website and Make It A Success by Frances Vidakovic
✦ ROI Action Plan: Where to Focus Your Time to Make the Most Money When You Have Limited Time by Caroline Vencil
✦ The Beginner’s 40 Day Action Plan for SEO Success by Sarah Hardee
✦ The Secret Sauce to Skyrocketing Your Blog Traffic by Angela Mary Vaz
✦ SEO Playbook for Bloggers by Niki Robinson
Content Creation & Promotion
✦ Promote Your Content: How to Create a Successful Content Promotion Plan by Tonia Kendrick
✦ One Year Content Planner: Blog & Social Media Planning Workbook by Laurie Cosgrove
✦ Cranking Out Quality: A Blogger’s Guide to Crushing Content Creation by Heather O’Donnell
To recap
Whilst writing and publishing daily was a wonderful way to increase our blog’s content and traffic, it’s just not something that we can keep up with long-term.
Mind you, we highly recommend doing this as part of a challenge, like Blogtober, but not as a permanent thing – unless you have writers and VAs at your beck and call (we don’t!).
As long as you’re publishing consistently, then Google will love you. Just remember to post quality content and not spammy, useless posts you’ve just scraped off somebody else’s site. #notgood.
This month (unlike in August and September), we’re also going to keep it simple and focus on 5 key things to complete this month.
We’re all about going back to the basics and enjoying the unfolding of our blogging success.
What about you? Anything in particular that you’re looking forward to achieving this month? Do let us know in the comments below!
Good to see you are monitoring your energy Jade, and only doing stuff that makes you feel good. I had to learn this lesson the hard way, straining and striving until I learned to do the fun and easy thing, right through highly scary moments. I create and publish up to 10 posts daily between my blog and guest posts, but it took me 20,000 to 30,000 hours of blogging to build up the skills, to be at this point.
Trust your intuition, pull back, relax, and realize that your energy dominates everything. Your energy wins, every time.
Ryan
PS…still doing my Isha Kriya guided meditation by Sadhguru morning and night.
Thanks for your comment, Ryan. I wish I could find the time to write more than one post a day but between blogging, promoting and homemaking, I’d be lucky to get 4 hours a day. What Isha Kriya guided meditation are you using specifically? Would love to try it. 🙂
I’ve done the post a day challenges a few separate times and while they were a fun push, a way to challenge myself for a short period of time, I always find that continuing to do that long term would mean sacrificing the quality of the blogs that I’m sharing and that’s not a sacrifice that I’m willing to make. I’m not saying I won’t take it on again at some point for a while but I don’t see it as something that I feel is sustainable long term.
Hi Britt, I agree completely. I was only able to write 1k or so words per day and couldn’t even promote it properly. Now that I’d gone back to 3x a week, I’m able to write and publish a 3k-word post and properly promote it. I might just start doing it as a once a year challenge but certainly not permanently. 🙂