Pushing posts at midnight. Getting up after going to bed because I remembered I need to write something – anything – just to say I did. Writing about what I had for lunch and dinner.

These are some of the things I don’t relish about my challenge to blog every day for 30 days.

For those who weren’t counting, I actually only made it 24 days into the challenge before a trip to visit family threw me out of routine and day 25 got missed. But, then on day 26 something brought me back to express my feelings and it turned out to be the post that brought in the most comments and got the most tweets.

So… what did I learn through this exercise?

Well, I can indeed be a daily blogger if I really want to give up an extra hour or two of sleep each night – almost all my posts ended up being written between the hours of 10pm – 12am. With a full-time job and a family that would like to see me without a laptop in my lap, something has to give to make room for this.

Posting every day is a good way to keep yourself in the habit of blogging, but the quality is very inconsistent (at least mine was). I suppose that’s forgivable, but in an age when I believe fewer people are loyal to reading a blog and more likely to just read what others are sharing or talking about, it could also be a waste of precious time.

It seems to me, that it makes more sense to simply write when you have something to say. That goes against all the “rules” I’ve read for increasing readership and building your blog, but it’s always fun to break a few rules now and then.

Time seems to be a most precious commodity these days, so why take up time writing something that’s going to waste someone’s time to read it just so you can check a box for the day?

So, hopefully, doing this to get back into the swing of writing will break me out of the habit of not writing. But, don’t expect to hear from me hear unless inspiration finds me. I still make no promises that every post will be a hit, but at least you can count on the fact that it’s not something I did just to say I did it.

[soundtrack for this post: “Tick Tock” from Family Style by the Vaughn Brothers]

Image via Creative Commons by Thomas Hawk