Comments on: The ProBlogging Workflow of a Working/Traveling Mother

By: Melissa

Melissa — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 20:10:08 +0000

#10: I work at the office from 9-5 from Monday until Thursdays. I travel a lot but mostly within the EU. Rather than spend on hotels, the company pays a bit more for my plane tickets because I prefer to go home every evening. I am a night owl so I blog when the kids are asleep. And on weekends, my husband gives me a few hours to work on my blogs.

There are days when it really is difficult and when my mind goes blank but I do manage. I slip from time to time and fail to meet my blogging quota but it does work out most of the time.

Anne-Marie: whenever I feel like I can’t blog, I turn my computer off and just do something else. For me, it makes me even crazier to face a blank screen with an even blanker mind. hehe

Steve: thanks. I am very conscious about my work-life balance.

It is sooo interesting that a lot of people do use wordpad! hehe

By: A Tentative Personal Finance Blog

A Tentative Personal Finance Blog — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:47:45 +0000

How do you manage a family while working so much? Do you hire someone?

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:54:40 +0000

I agree with the notepad usage. I write pretty much everything in notepad, from html code to articles. Sure it lacks spell check and all the rest. But I was fine before spell check existed so i’ll be fine now.

Not to sure why i always use notepad, its lightweight, no on screen clutter, simple .txt format, no nonsense. perfect for blogging.

Its then nice and easy to paste into wordpress, and format from there.

I thought I was the only one!

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:57:46 +0000

It’s inspiring to see that you can keep up your blogging even with a fulltime job outside of mothering. Yet, there are times when it’s just too much, i.e., BURN OUT. It’s not a matter of cutting back or ending a few blogs. Instead you don’t want to blog at all.

Just had a month long (plus) episode myself, kept up with my paid assignments, but lost a lot of traffic on my personal blogs. Now I’m trying to catch up.

So any advice on avoiding (or seeing the warning signs of) burn out, Darren and Melissa?

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:42:22 +0000

Five blogs, two kids and you travel all over– I’m impressed! :)

I use my trusty Sidekick when I’m on the road and I send notes and blog topic ideas to my home computer. Sometimes I even start a post on the Sidekick and tweak it later.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:30:59 +0000

Dave beat me to it. Google Alerts is great for sending ideas. One thing to watch out for though is not to sign up for too many. I started a new blog a few weeks ago and set up alerts for about a dozen different keywords and phrases that I thought would keep me up to date. I had to turn most of them off because I was getting so many emails.

Another Google tool that helps me is Google News. On the search results page there’s a small XML icon that you can use to subscribe to that search in a feedreader.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:00:56 +0000

Melissa,

First off, I think it’s great that you’re blogging. What i think is even more cuel is that you gave up some of your other blogs in order to put more focus and balance into the rest of your life. I am a big believer that if I take on something new I need to give something else up in order to maintain life’s balance. This isn’t always true but it’s a general rule of thumb for me.

Kudos…

Stephen Martile
Personal Development with NLP
http://www.stephenmartile.com

By: Dave Starr --- ROI Guy

Dave Starr --- ROI Guy — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 23:13:25 +0000

One tool I would add that I don’t think many bloggers make full use of … Google Alerts.

You set these for blog subjects, localities you write about or keywords you are interested in. Virtually every mention of the subject around the blogoshere and the rest of the world (yes, there is a world out there beyond the ‘Net ;-)) will come to your mailbox (use separate folders for different alerts) and when it is time to produce apost there are snippets all in order for you review and behin writing on, if they grab tour attention.

It’s like having a full-time research assistant, even when you’re traveling and away from the Internet.

By: Victor Franqui

Victor Franqui — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:50:41 +0000

I find myself with just a totally awkward schedule, it seems I am blogging way more then I should. I loved your post and i think it is time for me to make a tight schedule.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:12:29 +0000

I don’t have the luxury of carying around a purse ;) but whenever i get and idea i sometimes write it in my cell phone for when i get home.

By: Elaine Vigneault

Elaine Vigneault — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 21:47:01 +0000

I use notepad, too, sometimes when I don’t have a network connection or if I just want to jot down an idea without writing a full post yet. I carry a real, actual notepad in my purse, too, to write ideas and phrases.