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blogging

Making blogging easier: a note to self

February 1, 2014

CBD courtyard

One of my goals this year is to tend this blog and post more regularly. It’s a great love and so important and rejuvenating for me to write and create here. But it gets squeezed out with work, with other life and people priorities and currently, with the joys of renovating!

So I am looking to see how I can make blogging easier and how I can make it less onerous to be here writing, creating, connecting and communicating. What’s the secret?

I’ve been scouting the net for clues and found some great posts full of ideas. I’ve also revisited my own thoughts on this issue.

Some sites that have provided valuable tips:

100 tips and tricks professionals use to make blogging easier

5 tips to make blogging easier

5 techniques and 10 tools for making blogging easier

My post on this previously:

Shorter posts, smaller steps

These sites reinforce that blogging is hard work but that the job can be made easier.

Here is some distilled wisdom from these instructive posts, the strategies of other bloggers I admire and my own experiences:

1. Get organised with your time

Make time to blog and schedule time for planning and writing even if it’s just short grabs of time:

Treat your blogging like a friend. Schedule a regular amount of time where you can completely focus on your blog. It might  be 30 mins every Tuesday lunchtime or an hour every second Thursday at 9pm.

from: 5 tips to make blogging easier

Part of this is planning your blog posts and scheduling your time. See Charlie Gilkey’s ‘Productive Flourishing’ for some useful blog planner and calendar tools with tips on how to use them.

2. Collect your thoughts

Make sure you capture those fleeting thoughts that might result in a blog post. Brainstorm, mind map, make notes – find ways to capture those treasures on paper or digitally. It’s amazing how you think will remember something later but you often can’t. The random notes and clipped articles can be a rich source of ideas but you have to catch them and collect them like a bower bird.

A tip from 5 techniques and 10 tools for making blogging easier:

When capturing ideas for a post try to write more than just the title. Also write down the key points of the post. This will make life easier when writing later.

And here’s a really useful post from ‘The Mojo Lab’ on capturing creative ideas.

3. Be organised with the equipment and inputs

Try to be as organised as you can with the inputs: possible imagery, links, quotes, clippings and with the equipment: your computer, printer, browser and apps. It’s amazing how a fabulous idea can become a nightmare time-wise as you try to gather your resources. Some things are beyond our control but being organised with all the supporting technologies and resources can make the process so much easier when the times comes to write.

I find evernote the best for clipping articles, tagging them and making notes. I love feedly for managing online reading and keeping track of favourite posts and bloggers.

See ‘The Mojo Lab’ again for a great toolkit post and tips on all sorts of useful creative inputs and technologies.

4. Don’t make the task bigger than it can be

Yes, this post is getting long! But you don’t always have to write the long, well-researched, extensively redrafted blog piece – though these are important. Don’t defeat yourself mentally before you start. And don’t get hung up on having to write ‘x’ number of words.

In tip 89 of 100 tips and tricks professionals use to make blogging easier we are reminded to:

Chill out about length.

People are always in a tizzy about how long posts should be. It really doesn’t matter. Keep writing til you’re done.

5. Mix it up

Find different ways to blog: quotes, images, photo essays, short pieces, lists, poems, links to what you have discovered or enjoyed. Your blog posts don’t always have to feature lots of words. This is not to under-estimate the time investment and creativity of primarily visual posts or posts that share valued reads on the net – they all take time and care. But just to encourage an attitude of mixing it up so it’s not always writing time intensive pieces that require a lot of research, drafting and editing.

Some of my favourites:

Olivia White’s Sunday Reflections

Susannah Conway’s annual break from writing-focused pieces: The August Break

Tammy Strobel’s beautiful photo essays

6. Be more spontaneous

Try to write from the heart more without feeling that every piece has to be referenced, reworked and crafted over time. Try to learn to write and blog anywhere, not just at your special spot at home.

I am loving Ellen Nightingale’s Choose your own Journey for posts that have a spontaneous feel – coming from the flow of her days and thoughts as a creative working mother.

And I highly recommend Susannah Conway’s Blogging from the Heart e-course for learning about this special skill and art from one who has led and modelled its development, especially in terms of the emotional courage required.

7. Just do it…blog more often

And finally in a somewhat counter-intuitive approach to making blogging easier, Gretchen Rubin suggests do it every day and put yourself in ‘creativity boot camp‘:

Whenever anyone asks me for advice about how to keep up with writing for a blog, I always say: “Post every day.” Although this sounds arduous, many people find, as I do, that weirdly it’s easier to write every day than just a few times a week.

This is sound advice – I can see that the things that slow me down are because of the spaces in between. I am just not organised and it’s like starting over again each time. By being more engaged with blogging on a regular basis, it’s easier to pick up the pieces of all the tips above: capturing ideas, mixing it up, ensuring my systems and processes are up to speed, finding resources and being spontaneous.

I know some of my blogging buddies are working on this right now with Ellen Nightingale working on a 30 day challenge for her blog. And I am so loving the work that she is producing! I’m sure it’s not easy with all that she is juggling but Ellen’s blog is a great example of how engaging in a ‘boot camp’, committed way can result in beautiful outcomes.

So tell me, what makes blogging easier for you?

Would love to hear your tips and experiences! And I have to say this post took the longest time to write, managed to break all its own advice and everything went wrong whilst writing it including a glass shower screen shattering into a million pieces over my head today ( cf the joys of renovating above!) – so yes, a note to self if ever there was one. Would love to hear your thoughts to fuel my journey! Clearly there’s a long way to go!

3 Comments
blogging transcending

Keeping transcending

December 3, 2013

Keeping transcending Yes it’s been quiet here…nearly three months to be precise but who’s counting.

I’ve missed it here, creating these pieces of me to put out into the world. It’s been hard to get back to it, a combination as always of work pressures, plus more travel time. I am working further from home and in a new, exciting and intense job role that has required my highest attention and priority.

And then there’s ‘Transcending’ itself, as the blog, as the practice it talks about: ‘strategies for rising above, cutting through and connecting…’ In the strangest of ways, the practice of writing the blog itself enacts this, how I have to keep coming back and revitalising it.

Many times I have nearly stopped writing here altogether especially after a break such as this. I’ve nearly given up on it so many times.

But it’s important to keep going, to keep transcending and to think about what I have achieved, why I do it and write here, the reasons for it, who has helped me and been on the journey with me and what I hope for ‘Transcending’ into the future.

So what have I achieved?

I started this blog in May 2010 and in between busy job roles, I’ve kept writing and creating its content, even if there have been gaps at times. The wonderful ‘Blog in Review’ report for my blog for 2012 sent from WordPress is insightful. I have revisited it now to help me see what I have achieved and what else I can do to keep the momentum and to do it better and more often.

The report told me there were 2400 views in 2012 alone. That might not seem many to some with bigger audiences but to me, it is staggering. I have now created an archive or body of work of 88 posts since May 2010. That’s probably about a post every three weeks. I could be more regular in my work here and write shorter posts more often, but in the circumstances of my life and full-time work role, I’m claiming it as an achievement.

My busiest day so far yielded some 197 views of a single post and I am proud of this and grateful – it was thanks to mentions posted by friends in the blogosphere and especially Tammy at RowdyKittens and a flow on from her extensive readership. It reminds me of the continuing need to visit others and spread the pleasure of their work as well, repaying the kindness. And to be thankful.

My top posts of all time are:

Poetry: into the light

Working your introvert

The value of howling into the wind

Poetry: Optical Illusions

About stillness

My 2012 ‘Blog in Review’ report tells me:

Some of your most popular posts were written before 2012. Your writing has staying power! Consider writing about those topics again.

This is good advice that I need to heed. Especially the posts on poetry, one of the major loves of my life, seem to have resonance, so this is something I can work on in moving forward. This can move both loves forward: poetry writing and blogging.

One of the main search terms that found my blog was: “theme +passion to create”. I am thrilled that I came up as a reference point under “passion to create”.

I am grateful for my blogging buddies, my referring sites, my new and enduring friends developed through Susannah Conway’s ‘Blogging from the Heart” and “Unravelling” e-courses as well as the Australian women writers and blogging communities I connect with. I am especially grateful to:

Victoria at The Mojo Lab who continues to inspire and support

Liv at When Ideas Fail for all our connections and her beautiful reflections

Tammy at Rowdy Kittens who gave me the first thrill of a flood of readers and a taste of what could be

Ellen at Choose Your Own Journey for connecting on choice and authentic journeys

Evan at Living Authentically for being such a faithful reader and commenter especially in the quiet times and for all those readers who have stayed the distance quietly

Sage at The Path of Possibility, my poetry teacher and muse who encourages me here still and to whose writing I return regularly for poetic encouragement and structure

Susannah Conway – for her blog, books, inspiration and fabulous e-courses which have kept me renewed and alive and connected with kindred souls across the world…and for being the best role model for enduring creativity ever: “using creativity to set us free”, being one of her core mantras.

I am also really grateful to all the recent people who have subscribed to my blog in the midst of its current silence – you have come from all different places especially my current Unravelling team – and I am honoured. It’s been a real spur for me to return. Thank you for your faith in me to write again.

So it seems this blog is as much about practising transcending as it is anything else. My spiritual name given to me by my yoga teacher is turiyamani – ‘transcendental jewel’ and that is very much what all this is about, finding a way to keep it happening, here and elsewhere as creatively and positively as possible. And in that, to shine.

There’s a sense of keeping on, resilience in writing here so I am going to keep transcending and not give up. I thank you for sharing the journey and hope you will stay and keep transcending also in whatever is your journey and passion, keeping the faith and the practice of what you love.

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blogging transcending

Thought pieces #1

June 23, 2013

IMGP5388

‘Transcend’

Verb:

to rise above or extend notably beyond normal limits

to triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects of: OVERCOME

Middle English, from Latin transcendere to climb across

from www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcend

That’s what this blog is about and it seems one of the biggest applications of this has been trying to overcome the challenges of writing the blog itself. In the context of a busy work and life schedule, to be able to carve the time and headspace for reflecting and writing here.

If that is all the blog does: document the attempts to carve this unique space then perhaps it has served a useful purpose.

One of the pressures I unwittingly place on myself is the sense of having to write full-blown pieces, fully researched and documented, edited carefully and dense in texture.

I am an INTJ, a Virgo and an Ox – so no surprises there that this should be my natural inclination with such perfectionist tendencies, shoulder to the plough approach and an introverted analytical approach to life.

Yet some of the blog posts I love are more elegant and less dense but have more impact because of this: a photograph or series of photographs and none or few words; a quote with a perfect visual image like Liv White’s wonderful Sunday Reflections; or perhaps a poem or a sequence of more random thoughts like this leading to a new direction (or not).

It’s time for some release of intensity here. I’m currently doing Susannah Conway’s ‘Journal your life‘ e-course and that may be a subtle influence in this direction towards the more natural and spontaneous.

I’m calling this post ‘Thought pieces #1’ – always scary as you don’t always know what is next with #2 and beyond, but here’s to randomness, elegance, spontaneity and more simple flow here to find a stronger and more frequently heard voice between the spaces of an otherwise busy life.

blogging work life

Blogging and work

October 21, 2012

There’s a bit of a brick wall between this blog and my work role and working life; maybe not so hard as brick, but a deliberate separation. Because I’m in a leadership role in a public sector organisation with a social media policy, it’s important that I keep a clear space around this blog about my creative self and my life other than work.

I don’t talk about work or my work role, except obliquely and generally in terms of how creative strategies for life may apply to work contexts and vice versa. Some work colleagues know about my blog and keep an eye on it; I blog under my full name so it’s not secret; it’s just not so connected, sort of like two parallel lives.

But of course, in practice it’s not quite that straightforward. It was interesting when things started overlapping more than usual recently when I started a new temporary work role in a different location. Once this new work role was announced, I noticed a sudden surge in my blog stats and people coming to the blog via searching for my name. People were trying to find out about me: just who was this person who was coming to lead them?

As I moved around to meet people in my temporary job role, a number of them said to me, “I love your blog!”. They were tentative and respectful, aware of some of the silent boundaries between the work role and the rest of life, but knowing that I was blogging publicly and out there for all to see. They mentioned my creativity, and how pleased they were to see that I had another life other than work. We discussed the links between creativity and leadership and the value of thinking in this way outside the work role. They loved the links in my blog posts and were interested to see what I was engaging with.

They didn’t:

  • express horror that I had a creative life other than work
  • focus on any negative aspects or details of my writing
  • pick holes, find fault, wish for more or otherwise find me wanting

They just engaged with my blog as intended as a space where I am out in the world, alongside my work role, complementary, mutually inspiring and whole.

This made me reflect on many aspects of where work and my creative self coincide, overlap and mutually benefit each other, and where there is further potential for this. It made me think also about whether these aspects are too separate and need to come together more. Some other bloggers have been thinking about this also.

In ‘Personal Blogging at Work Increases Productivity’, a recent article in Forbes.com, Susan Adams discusses the link between personal blogging and the workplace. She reports on a new academic study that shows that:

Along with sharing information about work tasks, blogging at work pulls employees closer to one another, builds relationships, and over time, increases productivity.

The study looked at people blogging in work contexts and found that blogging also about leisure interests and other more personal aspects of life increased engagement and then translated into real life connection. Adams notes that:

We’re seeing more data that shows what we already know in our hearts: when we connect with people beyond work, we work together more productively.

For me, it’s also about bringing your whole self to work rather than leaving key parts of yourself, especially the ones that are your own personal drivers, at the door when you arrive.

On a related theme of the work and personal coming together in the physical workspace, Victoria Smith in a recent post on ‘Beautility: Making the Useful Beautiful for a Magical Work Space‘, highlights the concept of how we can ‘beautilify’ our workspaces and work tools, to make them both practical and a reflection of ourselves:

Most of us spend about half of our waking hours at work and our surroundings have a huge impact on our happiness, creativity, ability to focus, and even our interactions with others…..There’s simply too much evidence about the increase in productivity when our work environments are more pleasing to the eye and reflect us as individuals for companies to ignore the benefits.

Victoria has many practical suggestions for bringing the two together that have certainly made me reflect about my own workspace and how I reflect my creativity and personality there (or not!).

On the broader issue of creativity and work, in a recent Huffington Post piece, ‘100 Reasons Why You Don’t Get Your Best Ideas at Work’, Mitch Ditkoff suggests that the barriers we create with our thinking about the two polarities may well be the answer to where the real issues lie.

So perhaps there is less of a need for a wall between this blog, my creativity and the job role, apart from the caveats of social media policy, and that the interplay between them may result in more productivity and creative ideas in both spaces.

Interested in your thoughts on blogging and work and the interplay between!

Excellent photo taken in Singapore by my daughter, Caitlin

2 Comments
blogging creativity introversion

Collecting ourselves

July 22, 2012

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

‘Song of Myself’ – Walt Whitman

We collect many things: shells, stamps, books, art…you name it, someone is collecting it. The urge to collect, to gather possessions and things we love is an extension of ourselves. You wonder what attracts us to collect or gather just those specific items.

A collection seen in a museum or gallery is meant to represent an entire people, but our personal collections show who we are as individuals. Walking into someone else’s room is like walking into a small museum where a person’s identity is preserved in its original context.

Comment, blog post: Response to James Clifford’s, ‘On Collecting Art and Culture’

When we think about the definition of ‘collect’, it’s really about ‘gathering together’ and we can bring together two key definitions or senses of the word:

To bring together in a group or mass; gather.

To accumulate as a hobby or for study.

with…

To recover control of: collect one’s emotions.

Definitions from ‘The Free Dictionary’

In collecting what we love around us, we are in a sense gathering ourselves, bringing the different pieces of the multitudes of what we are and what we love together to reflect the whole and make sense of it.

This can be physical or virtual. A blog is really an online gathering of ourselves, a collection of ourselves we present to the world, with all our loves: books, photos, words, thoughts, family, passions. Like journal writing, but more edited and audience focused, blogging is about reflecting, collecting and building for the next phase of our creative endeavours.

Likewise, Pinterest is a perfect example of how like bowerbirds, we scan for images that reflect who we are to display in an online gallery of ourselves portrayed through our interests and style preferences.

My ‘Blogging from the Heart’ friends also wrote about this theme at the same time as we learnt and connected together. We reflected in various forms about how we collect ourselves: gathering, noticing, stopping, recollecting, appreciating the present moment and preparing for moving onto the next phase.

In ‘Summer of Me – Moodling‘, Jessica Brogan writes about the value of doing nothing and being idle as a way of incubating for the next phase of creativity.

I wrote in the same week about unplugging and rebooting and how an enforced break from technology through circumstance brought home the message about needing to stop to reconnect the pieces.

Many posts connected at the same time via our ‘Blogging from the Heart‘ e-course and seemed to have some link with stopping to gather in some way, like a collective exhale.

So, just like we collect, physically and virtually, as an expression of ourselves, sometimes we need to gather ourselves, to recollect, as preparation for moving on, settling our identity and what defines us before we move on.

Here are some ways I have found to be of value in collecting myself:
  • Writing poetry, journal writing and other personal narrative writing has been of great value in re-grouping. These activities are all about collecting ourselves, taking stock, maybe a catharsis, in a way that summarises the experience in language that captures it and then holds it, enabling us to reflect and move on, whether public or not.
  • Writing my blog, an example of personal narrative writing and expression – and just take a minute to listen to what Seth Godin and Tom Peters have to say about the power of this act!
  • Reading and working through ‘Style Statement: Live by your own design‘ by Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte has been a wonderful way to work through what’s important and to create a personal style statement to define your authentic self. I have found my two word style statement, Sacred Creative, something I return to again and again.
  • Linking what I’m learning in the work sphere with what I am learning in other creative aspects of my life and vice versa: blogging, reading, photography, twitter, online reading, strategy, productivity and change.
  • Taking photographs, collecting and connecting them including on flickr, instagram, facebook and the blog. The value of this was learnt through the Unravelling e-course with Susannah Conway; it is such an accessible way of recording, sharing, tracking and celebrating.
  • Walking, especially on the beach; my poem, ‘Narrative‘ was very much about the theme of collecting yourself through a walk on the beach. It’s amazing how during a walk, ideas often connect and come together, seemingly resolving themselves.
So what have you found to be of value in collecting yourself and regathering for the next phase?

8 Comments
blogging music & images reading notes

What I’m loving

June 24, 2012

The orchids outside my front door

Image

The bracelet that attracted me yesterday: simple, cool and calm.

These books that arrived recently that I can’t wait to get more time to dive into.

Race out and buy them too:

This I Know: notes on unraveling the heart – Susannah Conway

Instant Love: how to make magic and memories with polaroids – Susannah Conway, Amanda Gilligan and Jenifer Altman

Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking – Susan Cain

Changing on the Job: developing leaders for a complex world – Jennifer Garvey Berger

‘Blogging from the Heart‘: the e-course, the creator – Susannah Conway, the community that has evolved from the group taking the course, the reading I have engaged in over the past 6 weeks from this brilliant creative tribe, how good we look on feedly when all together like a gorgeous magazine of kindred souls – thanks Susannah for yet another inspiring and perfect learning experience that will impact for a very long time…

The Lominger Leadership Architect tool and how we are using this in my work space to define and develop the leadership skills we need for the challenging times ahead in Australian vocational education and training

‘The Light Between Oceans’ by L.M.Stedman, an expat Australian writer living in London. I finished this novel this morning as part of the Australian Women Writers’ 2012 Challenge. It featured lighthouses, a wild West Australian coastline, a remote island, language that took me there and circumstances that wrenched my heart. And yes, I cried. A beautiful, atmospheric and engaging read.

What are you loving?

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