Comments on: Maintaining a Blog/Life Balance

By: FaithBalance

FaithBalance — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:02:38 +0000

Darren,

Of all of your posts on this site, this one has hit home the closest. I’ve also taken to creating a hobby and turning it into a business, and I too am blogging about the importance of balancing life with our commitments — whether its family, work or faith.

We actually speak about this regularly at our site, and have you on our Blogroll as a reference to maintaining a life-work balance.

Keep up the great work,
R

By: Blair Valley Media Blogs | Blair Valley Media

Blair Valley Media Blogs | Blair Valley Media — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 02:52:42 +0000

[...] Here in Blair Valley, I started playing around with blogs in September 2004. What started as a bored Saturday afternoon at work turned into full blown Blogsession early in 2005. From this, Blair Valley Media has been born. These are the blogs we write these days. [...]

By: blogpocket 6.0 » El número de Septiembre de la revista PC Actual ya está en los kioscos la locura de los weblogs dentro de uno

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:23:32 +0000

[...] Mantaining a Blog/Life Balance (Equilibrio entre vida y blogueo) [...]

By: gary

gary — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:58:40 +0000

my wife would definately say i’m blogsessed. i however say that i’m focussed on a long term goal. :)

that said, the reading required to write 3-5 quality posts a day can be challenging when there is a full time job and 3 kids. I’ve taken to spending an hour or so in bed with the lappy before going to sleep.

on another note, this often gives me the jump on news from other time zones. i may post about some news late in the evening & the other auto bloggers don’t post on it until more than 12 hours later.

By: Trevor Hampel » Getting a Life

Trevor Hampel » Getting a Life — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:10:45 +0000

[...] I’ve recently read two great articles on the hectic, demanding life of bloggers and writers. The first was Maintaining a Blog/Life Balance written by Darren Rowse. The second was by Wendy Boswell and called How to get things done working inside and outside the home.The issue of scheduling came up in both articles. Finding a balance between writing or blogging and the rest of life is a delicate balancing act. Since starting to blog seriously in March I have found that the pressure to post has sometimes taken a little enjoyment out of the whole process. Yet the challenge is there and is, in itself, enjoyable. I have certainly done far more writing in the last four months than ever before. And that has to be good. Some of my frustrations – in no particular order: [...]

By: Halfdeck

Halfdeck — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 06:49:55 +0000

Limiting the amount of time I spend on one post to X minutes a day prevents me from overtime blogging.

By: Ben Wilks

Ben Wilks — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 06:22:27 +0000

Hi Darren,

Good to see an Aussie blogger doing so well!! Re: Blogsession, I have suffered from SEobsession for nearly 3 years, burnt myself badly last year.

Exercise is the best remedy, also 8hrs work, 8hrs sleep and 8hrs play is a good policy, provided you don’t ‘play’ SEO as well like I do.

Cheers!

By: Geneve

Geneve — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 03:46:13 +0000

You raise some great points in this post. I’m new to blogging but already sense how addictive it can be!

By: Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:32:17 +0000

Motte Bonk – it’s not been too bad. I have most of my sites hosted on a server that is monitered for me via the host (very personal service). The DPS site isn’t on that and is more of a worry for me. I’ll be changing servers on that at some point soonish as all it takes is a couple of big link ups in the one day and I’m in a bit of trouble with going over my limits of 13GB (mainly cause the site is image heavy).

By: Motte Bonk

Motte Bonk — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:01:29 +0000

making you nervous about whether the server is holding up after that link on digg…

If you make more than $500 a month in revenues, you might want to look into outsourcing the monitoring of your server. It costs about $70 per server and gives you peace of mind (PS: You will know what I mean after you have woken up at 2AM to reboot the server — or worse — gotten up in the morning only to realize that the server was down the whole night)

For people who own/lease their own servers, I would recommend http://www.totalserversolutions.com/ . They charge $70 per server and I have had good sucess with them (they are up all night and I have seen my server restarted in less than 2 mins in the wee morning hours). I am sure there are other companies or individuals who do this as a service. You ideally want to go with a group of admin so that someone is on shift 24/7.

Darren, given the amount of money you make :-), do you have an experiences to share on this ?

By: Glen L Johnson

Glen L Johnson — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:01:06 +0000

For sure I have found many a day that I would suffer from blogsession. I have to back away from blogging to do other things so I don’t get totally burned out.

By: Jason Haley

Jason Haley — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:21:16 +0000

Interesting Finds: June 28, 2006 AM edition…

…

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:45:41 +0000

Thankfully my little guy demands my attention enough that I can’t get too sucked in, but I do have to make a point of actually shutting the computer off and paying full attention to family at points in the day.

By: Bloggers Buzz

Bloggers Buzz — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:50:44 +0000

[...] Darren Rowse has picked up and expanded with his ideas on Maintaining a Blog Life Balance which is interesting and valuable reading. Darren makes very valid points and i particularly agreed with these two quotes [...]

By: Matthew Stibbe (Bad Language)

Matthew Stibbe (Bad Language) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:18:59 +0000

I try to write my blog posts and catch up with RSS feeds before 8am each morning. If I’m not done by then or I have a lie-in, I don’t blog that day.

Another technique I use is to have a couple of posts ‘on the boil’ during the week that I can send out over the weekend. For example, a pick of the web style post. I add to it whenever I see an interesting website but it doesn’t require a lot of writing. This gives me blog-free weekends.

By: razib

razib — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:37:01 +0000

I have been blogging for just over 4 months and I have got married during this time. The main problem is that except the bloggers, other people do not understand what is blogging and that is why most of the problems happen. For example, suppose now I have found a story that if I can cover it then it will give me 500 extra hits today and also another 10 blogs will link my story. Unfortunately, at the same time, some relatives or guests come to my home and I have to talk to them. It is impossible to explain them about this matter. They will feel what is the problem if I write after 2 hours or next morning. I admit often I do extreme and every passionate blogger does it but I feel that if others could knew about the nature of blogging then many things would have become easier for us.

By: blogpocket 6.0 » Cómo mantener un buen equilibrio entre vida y bloguear la locura de los weblogs dentro de uno

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:41:28 +0000

[...] Escrito por blogpocket el 28-6-2006 a las 10:35 am | Archivado en: Blogging A propósito de un post escrito por Wendy Boswell en LifeHacker, Darren Rowse en Problogger da en el clavo explicando los probables motivos por los cuales bloguear es tan adictivo: Probablemente se trata de una cierta mezcla del encanto de ser el centro de la atención y el entusiasmo por encontrar historias interesantes. También tienen que ver con el número total de lectores junto con las posibilidades para abrir puertas a la nuevas amistad y oportunidades. Pero llega un momento en el que muchos bloguers necesitan ponerse límites para mantener otras relaciones, conseguir bienestar físico y tener una vida simplemente. [...]

By: Balancing the cyber/real life » Personal Learning Arena

Balancing the cyber/real life » Personal Learning Arena — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 05:44:12 +0000

[...] If you feel that maintaining a blog, or maintaining a group of websites is a real challenge and makes you cancel the smoking habit quit; you are not alone. It’s a problem to some others too. [...]

By: Mick Gordon

Mick Gordon — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:01:00 +0000

Yeah, I recognize myself in the individual that you describe as an obsessed blogger. Thankfully my eyes get tired and scratchy after about two hours in front of the screen and without a continuous new stream of experiences I am unable to sustain the flow of posts. This, I suppose balances my blogging illness, it is in essence my penicillin.

By: Maricar

Maricar — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:38:42 +0000

Thanks, Darren, for this reminder. I don’t have “blogsession” yet, at least I don’t think so. My little rugrats definitely help me keep a balance. They’re first priority during the day.

I believe balancing work/life requires discipline, as with anything else. Everything in moderation, even blogging. I’m actually afraid of spending too much time online. It dries up my creativity and gets me in a rut, which I hate. So I consciously make time for other things. For example, I don’t blog on weekends. Those days are set aside for extended family time, and for my other hobby, which refreshes me.