How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger
Published Sunday, September 17th, 2006 at 9:43 am
wikiHow has the following 4 tips on How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger.
1. Find five completely random blogs, and read them daily for a month. After thirty days, you will absolutely dread your self-imposed requirement to read all that dreck. Any blog you create will most likely be on par with what you’ve been reading. Don’t put anyone through that.
I don’t read other blogs often and when I do they are usually technical blogs. I’ve never been a fan of “My parents just don’t understand me” blogs. My first week writing a blog I tried to be more personal and talk about myself but I could not stand reading it myself. So now I stick to tech and links.
2. Consider that your voice, even if it is truly a good one, is a tiny peep against the massive wave of tripe out there. The odds of anyone you don’t already know finding your blog are low.
It’s true. I can look at my stats and see that the majority of traffic comes from Google searches and are first time visitors. Obviously people wander in looking for something in particular (hopefully they found it) and then wonder off never to return.
3. Write on a regular basis in a text editor instead. If that doesn’t satisfy your urge, and you feel that you must post your blog online, then you might just be craving attention and validation–which you’ll never truly find in a blog. If you give up on your Wordpad journal after about three days, you’ll do the same with a blog that just takes up server space.
This is different for me. I stated my first webpage back in 1996 called Labtek’s Laboratory and Physics Forum. At the time the Internet was new. Google didn’t exists. About.com was just starting and there was room for someone like me to help others find new stuff. The problem was keeping a static webpage like that fresh with new material was a pain. Everytime I wanted to make a change I needed to edit the HTML and upload it to my sever via FTP. Needless to say Labtek’s Laboratory got little love. Now 10 years later with blogging and CMS technology it is very easy to maintain a website and keep it fresh with new material… that is if I wasn’t so lazy.
4. Ask yourself if you really have the time to commit to a blog. What about that treehouse you wanted to build? Or the book you wanted to write? Or the car you wanted to fix up? Or the restaurant you wanted to take your significant other to? Or the new career you wanted to pursue? Instead of writing about pretty much nothing, or whining about all the things you wish you were doing instead, start doing something that’d actually be worth writing about. And if it’s really worth writing about, you’ll be having too much fun doing it to tear yourself away from it.
I don’t have the time. I always have a few other side projects going, family obligations, and not least of all the paying job. I started out blooging in a flurry. Posting everyday on any little thing I see. Now I wait for more significant incites before writing a post (is this significant?). I collect the little things for the Links of the Week. This frees up a lot of time for other things.
The wikiHow article also includes a warning about sharing too much information. It is true. Even before I had a blog I went to a job interview in which the prospective employer began asking questions about my website. What is the nature of your website, do you earn money through your website, etc. That makes me very aware that anyone, including potential employers, may be reading this. Oh and by the way: I am a very dedicated worker with excellent problem solving skills and a high level of ethical integrity.