What I’ve Learned From Blogging Every Day

Hey, little dudes.

Guess what? As if you haven’t heard, there’s an epic blizzard outside in NYC right now. This means I am in FULL ON snuggle mode with a blanket and…my laptop. ;) I’m in a long-distance (ok, “bi-coastal”) relationship – and most of the time I actually really like it because I love my alone time. But this is definitely one of those nights when it would be really nice to make a little blanket fort and hibernate and watch the snow and eat chocolate together. That’s just what I’m thinking about right now. But I won’t go to this extreme. I really won’t.

I actually kind of got nostalgic for working at an office job today, because I remember how exciting it was to get a snow day. For me, though, working for myself, I had a lot of things I wanted to do today, and being snowed in isn’t as exciting. I can stay home anytime I want. MAN! Wait. Am I complaining? Yikes. No. I know I have luxury problems. Sheesh. I truly do love snow, even when I get punched in the eyeball by a windy snowflake going 1000 miles per hour into my face.

Tonight, as I was preparing to make some magnesium tea (I’m wild) I just had the thought that if I didn’t blog soon, the power might go out, and I won’t have wifi, and then my laptop might die, and then….I’d be screwed, no blog for January 26th. Can’t have that.

I’ve learned a lot about writing since I created the challenge to publish a blog every single day for the month of January. I know the month isn’t over yet, but I’m ready to share some of the lessons. As a writer, it’s been a really interesting month.

What I’ve learned from blogging every day for a month: 

• I can, actually, physically publish a blog post every single day. I’ve had a lot of different things going on this month – apartment hunting, out of town visitors, various moods, you know. The things I usually use as excuses not to write. But I pressed that little “publish” button every single day. And for the couple of days later this week when I’ll be traveling, I’ll schedule posts to go up (I gotta dig a little deeper to do that, but I will). Now I know for sure, I CAN do it. We can do more than we think we can. It’s all about mindset and prioritizing.

• It’s not the end of the world if I post mediocre content. It’s really difficult for me to post anything that doesn’t feel perfect and incredibly inspired and uber-helpful. I tend to put creative projects off a lot, and I won’t pull the trigger when something isn’t “ideal.” But this month, some days I just didn’t have it in me to post something ideal, and I did post something anyway. The practice of just creating and putting stuff out there is important (and also – to realize that people really don’t care as much as you think they do).

• I don’t actually NEED to publish a blog every day – in fact, it may not be ideal for me or my business (even though my business is a blog). Have you ever heard the concept of the minimum effective dose? I think I read about it in the 4 Hour Body. Basically it’s the smallest dose that will produce the desired outcome, and anything beyond that is wasteful. Like with supplements. More isn’t necessarily better, you just pee out whatever your body doesn’t use. That’s what I’m realizing about blogging. I believe the process of WRITING every day is great – I just don’t necessarily think PUBLISHING something every day is the best use of my time. Why? I’ve found that it’s taking away from time I might be able to spend sending out emails promoting the blogs, doing social media promotion of things, working on my affiliate relationships and revenue streams, interacting with readers, getting back to important emails, writing a book, creating products, etc. With blogging every day, I just can’t really keep up with myself and the content doesn’t get focused on as deeply. I’m not the type of gal who works all day long, posting blogs AND doing a million other things. I know myself, and I hit a limit with this stuff, and I close the computer and go outside or cook something. If I want to get other things done besides writing blogs, I have to honor my own rhythm, and figure out what my minimum effective dose is – that place where I create everything I need to produce, but where I don’t press publish JUST for the sake of pressing it when something doesn’t actually need to be said (i.e., peeing out the extra vitamins). Maybe it’s 3x per week instead of every day. I’m not sure yet. Finding the minimum effective dose is the sweet spot.

Those are just a couple of takeaways. I will say this challenge has been a really necessary way for me to get out of my comfort zone, and get back to putting a lot more “me” into my blogging, like I did when I first started. It feels more like an actual blog and less like an “online magazine” of health content. You know what I mean?

This is why I love challenges – they teach you about your own limits. Where you’re going too far, where you haven’t been going far enough. And challenging yourself helps you to calibrate to that sweet spot.

Have you ever taken on a challenge and then used the information to find YOUR sweet spot, or minimum effective dose? I wanna know.

Adios, snow bunnies. Now, let’s see if that storm is really gonna be as big as they claim.

This song rules.