My Experiences and Advice with Blog/Life Balance
Having a blog or not – managing your time wisely and efficiently is tough! With a new marriage, a fairly new job as a teacher, and launching my blog – managing my time has been a challenge. By no means am I an expert, but I believe it’s beneficial to share what I’ve learned so far in hopes of helping and/or inspiring some of you!
As most of you know, blogging is pretty new for me. Before starting, I had done quite a bit of research about the commitment it takes to run a successful blog, especially how much time you must dedicate to this.
During the time leading up to launching my blog I was so overly excited that it soon turned into being overwhelmed by the fact that I wouldn’t be able to have everything perfectly the way I wanted it for my launch. Turns out that building a website, creating content, learning the basics of coding, creating email newsletters, linking my outfits, and posting on instagram was becoming overwhelming very quickly. I wasn’t using my time wisely and because of that, it was taking away precious time that I typically would spend with my husband. Something had to change for my blog to continue.
I had to take a step (or a few steps) back to reflect and go back to the drawing board to do more research on how to best manage my time for my blog. The most important thing I learned and quickly changed was planning ahead to decide in advance what days I’d want to post on my blog, what content I’d create for the week, when I would sit down and create that content, etc.
Taking a step back when you are overwhelmed may seem counterproductive, but it can allow yourself to click ‘reset’ and start fresh – and that’s exactly what I did.
For many of us, blogging is (right now, at least) just a side hobby that allows us to express our creative side and share to the world what we love and are passionate about whether that’s fashion, lifestyle, fitness, health, parenting, etc. Though it may ‘just be a hobby,’ it’s definitely a time consuming hobby and if you are anything like me, you want everything you share to be content you are proud of, which takes much time, intent and thought to produce.
Thankfully with my full time job, teaching, I am able to leave work most days at a reasonable time (this means managing my time very efficiently at work as well), which gives me some time before my husband comes home to work on my blog so that I’m not working when he comes home and we can spend more time together.
On the contrary to what many people think of blogging, it is not all glamorous. In fact, most of it (aside from getting those few perfect pictures) really is not glamorous at all between changing outfits in your car during shoots, shooting in drastic temperatures, hustling to grow your following, etc.
I am learning so much about myself and have absolutely loved expressing this side of myself to my followers. Although there are many ups and downs in blogging, I’m thankful for my support team of my husband, family, friends and other bloggers!