Happy and Blue 2

I get two days a week off. If I want to take vacation I do so by requesting time off and , if approved, take the time of at no pay. Sick time is also unpaid time where I work.

I’m not telling you this to get pity. I chose this job. It’s pretty standard in private business to have these kinds of “benefits”..

And I’ve also spent the majority of my working life in a Government job that gave me paid sick time and 4-6 weeks paid vacation a year, etc..

The reason I’m even mentioning any of this is that I blog.

Blogging is different from having an offline job. Even people who blog for social reasons are expected to post daily or at least several times weekly, every week, 52 weeks a year.

We are under the impression that if we stop for just a day or two that we will lose our readers.

The expectations for business bloggers is even higher. Not only will the business blogger lose his/ her readers but they will lose credibility and their business will fail.

Business bloggers are expected to keep a posting schedule, be active daily in Twitter, Facebook, etc, produce products, do promotion and marketing, deal with mounds of email, do guest posts, create unique content, give away things, build a list, write a newsletter, create forums and paid sites, et.al..
Couple that with the fact that the longer one continues the more readers one attracts, the more comments and emails one has to deal with, the more demands on our time…..

The current model of blogging is doomed to failure for almost all bloggers. Which is probably why most bloggers, even successful business bloggers, seldom last for more than a year or two. (more…)

Part of the time Zimble had a reason for what he did and part of the time he didn’t. Life seems to be quite random at times. Do this, don’t do this. It often didn’t seem to matter.

Some people, like those living in Mosolo for example, had fewer choices. When you have nothing you must continually work to survive. There is only one choice.

But Zimble didn’t live in Mosolo. His choices seemed unlimited.
And that was the problem.

When it really doesn’t make a difference whether you do one thing or another then doing nothing is as good an option as all the rest. (more…)

Over the weekend I had an unannounced visit from family. The visit lasted 3 days in total.

I’m glad they came. It was fun to see them. Hope they return again soon.

But, and there always seems to be a “but”, whenever something like this happens it throws my routine off.

And yes, I do have a routine like everyone else. Except that one guy in Asia who is kind of a rebel. And that one girl in Poland who refuses to follow any routine. And a few others who I don’t know who also don’t follow any routine.

My routine, where blogging is concerned, involves getting up early in the morning, writing a post and posting it, reading and commenting on other blogs and checking my email and maybe responding to it. (more…)

Comments are the lifeblood of our blogs.

We want to receive comments on what we have written.
To know that others have read what we have toiled to create.
To spark discussion on a topic we are interested in. To gain further insight and ideas that will help us all grow.
To obtain important links from others so we can return to their sites, read what they are thinking about, comment and get to know them better.
To begin building a relationship with others.

This is really the primary reason we blog. To meet and interact with like minded people. (more…)

I just started reading Beyond Blogging. I realize it’s been out for a while now but I was hoping I could just download it for free off a bit torrent site. That never happened so I paid for it. As should everyone. And no, I’m not going to share my copy for free either.

This book is amazing. Mike and Nathan did an excellent job with creating the book.
If you haven’t already read it I’d highly recommend it. And I don’t even have an affiliate link thingy on my site so I’m not making anything out of steering you to the product. (more…)