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Posted on Monday 21st of April 2008 at 13:07 in Blogging

Taking time off from your blog - 3 tips to take your foot off the throttle

This is one of the strange things about being a blogger; if you're writing to a set audience on a regular basis there suddenly becomes this self-enforced expectation to keep up your posting schedule. But unless you're a professional blogger (With nothing else to do) this is very very difficult. So how much time can you take off?

I've been consciously avoiding blogging recently purely because I've not had anything meaningful to say. I've lost my motivation and there's no point posting poor quality content because that'll be detrimental to my overall objective. So I've just left the site alone.

1. Take as much time as you need
If you're taking a break then take as long a break as you feel you need. If your motivation has slipped away then wait for it to return. Your readers aren't unhappy with you.

2. Keep an eye on those feed stats
A good sign that you've been inactive too long is when your feed subscribers start to drop off significantly. Obviously the stats rise and fall as the days go by but consistent drops will need addressing - if your subscriber stats are dropping on a daily basis then your time off is undoing all your good work to date. So it might be worth getting some content up!

3. Keep promoting the older content
Just because you can't find the motivation to write new content doesn't mean you can't promote the older stuff. Unless you're in a news niche most of your content is timeless, so it doesn't matter if it's 12 months old, if it's still useful to people then promote it.

That's all I've got for now. I'll be back when I find my motivation and stop being quite so busy with the rest of my life. I'm still alive though...

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Showing most recent 3 of 3 comments

I agree, this a is a great tip to keep in mind.
www.worthpoint.com
Ok, the foot’s off the throttle for too long now... :)

But seriously, I know things are busy. Hope everything is going well.
Pete
Great tip, Steve. Especially for those who blog professionally, there is a fear that if we deviate from the regular posting schedule, we would disappoint readers, and therefore lose readership and income. That is not completely true. Taking time off from writing may not mean stopping altogether for that length of time. In our heads, I’m sure we are always thinking about new ideas, and freed from writing our brains should have much more room to work with. Taking time off from writing also means we can step back and review some things that we may have been too busy to look at because of the writing, such as optimizing the site layout, maintain relationship with sponsors, etc.
Pete