Do you look at the left column in your Bloglines screen and don’t care anymore? Another 13 posts at Boing Boing? Don’t these people ever stop?
As you’re screening news and posts in search of that perfect link for a post in your blog, does it all suddenly blur and become the same thing, none of it worth your time? Nothing to link to that seems original?
As you struggle to write original posts, do you feel as though all you can do is repeat yourself because you’ve said everything already to your target audience?
You, my friend, may be suffering from blog fatigue.
I don’t have any snake oil for you, but here’s what I’ve done to combat blog fatigue:
- Cut in half the number of feeds to which you subscribe. Force yourself to keep only the ones you truly enjoy reading (notice I didn’t say to keep the most “important” ones).
- Change the settings in your feed reader program/service so that updates are ignored, so you don’t keep thinking there are new posts when there aren’t.
- Focus on your niche. We already have enough general technology blogs. If you’re link blogging instead of creating original material, you’re not a thought leader in your space. The more into your niche you get, the more important (and easier) it is for you to write original material.
- Repeat yourself. The people looking at your blog today aren’t the same people who looked at it yesterday, and it’s all new to the new people. When you do this, refer and link to your older posts. As you’re repeating yourself, what you’re also doing is confirming to your readers that you were right about something before, and by repeating yourself here, you’re confirming your authority and thought leadership.
If you’re suffering from blog fatigue, you may have lost your focus a little bit. It happens to all of us, but of course, we must regain our focus and press on. Or in my case, WordPress on. Get it? WordPress? Press on? Never mind.
I did something today that I rarely, almost never do. I clicked on your name in the comment you made at Dave Taylor’s Intuitive Life Business Blog, in that post about Who Should Not Blog.
I liked what you said about keyboard typing to become quaint soon, and the internet too. We will talk to our computers and not have to write. This is probably true, but there will always be writing and blogging in some form.
I hate talking. I hate telephones. I prefer email and blogs. I hate IM. I hate text messaging. Intrusive and frivolous. For teens and maybe businesses.
Anyway, I’m going to quote some of this post at my blog Vaspers the Grate.
Your blog is similar to mine. So is your blogging style. You are also the first blogger I’ve ever seen add explanations for functions in your sidebar.
You and I have a lot in common. We are the leading edges of Blogging. I champion your blog. Keep it up friend.
[...] Do You Suffer from Blog Fatigue? 4 Strategies to Help [...]
Michael – I just had to make the decision on who to cut and who to keep. So I cut some and diversified. There are only so many other real estate blogs I need or want to read. Seeing outside my little world is refreshing me! – Ashley
Ashley, it’s funny, I think now I could just as easily write a post about social media fatigue!