
Me in the inspirational Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa
Is the grind getting to you?
Has the blogging inspiration muse deserted you?
Are you, like me, trying to figure out how to avoid blogger burnout?
Here’s a summary of my presentation on this topic for the Building Community Midwest Travel Bloggers conference … the first-ever event was held in 2018 in Clear Lake, Iowa, and the 2019 Midwest Travel Network conference is scheduled for June 13-15, 2019 in Medora, North Dakota.
3 Reasons for Blogger Burnout
Based on my own experience wrestling with this problem – I started my first blog in February 2006 and let me tell you, the well has run dry a few times – here are three reasons for feeling as though your bloggy skull is aflame….
1) You are actually fried. You really have hit a wall.
Just about the time that I started thinking about this presentation, the New York Times ran an article titled “Feeling Burned Out? Here Are 3 Things That Can Help” that gave me some concrete steps to fix things.
They suggest:
a. Stop digging. Take tiny steps to get out of your mess.
This reminded me of my favorite Martha Beck quote, from, of all things, an Oprah.com article about interior decorating:
“Tiny steps allow action to slip through the cracks in your anxiety.”
b. Take time off. Even a half-day can do wonders.
c. Talk to people. Get some help.
2) You simply need better content planning to feel less frazzled.
Lord knows I’ve pulled a lot of blog posts out of my left ear, but it’s so much less stressful to have a plan.
The content planning process sparks ideas, AND it shows you the gaps between what you’ve already blogged about, and what else needs to be said.
Some tips for not running out of blog post ideas:
a. Build a proper editorial calendar of planned content, based on your blog’s topic areas, for at least the next couple of weeks. Here’s how to kick-start that DMO blog.
b. Quit waiting for a magical blogging muse to strike. Make sure that you build inspiration boosters into your daily routine, to feed the [brain] machine (which includes scheduling regular exercise, to help that mind-body connection.)
Plan some time to be around art, gardens, music, architecture….beauty that feeds the mind. If you’re a CVB or DMO blogger, that’s a good excuse to get out and about in your town and region.
3) You need to make better use of work you’ve already done – especially your archives.
a. Have a plan for consistently re-sharing evergreen and seasonal blog posts from your blog’s archives. Yes, you’ll have to read through the post to ensure that it’s still accurate, and that the links still work, but that’s easy compared to starting a post from scratch.
I use a simple system in my Google Calendar. New posts are shared across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter when they are a day or so old, then I set up calendar reminders to re-share (mostly on Twitter, because it’s the noisiest platform and easy for people to miss things) 1 week later, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 1 year later.
For a tourism pro, you sometimes need to come up with fresh ways to tell the same story, especially with recurring events. Try to change the type of content: if last year’s post about the event was text, make this year’s mostly video, and next year’s a photo montage.
b. Let your own visuals inspire you. When I’m stumped for ideas, I scroll through photos in my Dropbox that are backed up from my phone. Often I’ll find a few pics from a trip that I haven’t done anything with yet that could form the nucleus of a blog post.
That’s how I wrote this post about a sunset river cruise in Pittsburgh – I’d taken photos on the cruise but had forgotten I’d taken them! Half the work was already done.
c. Never waste a well-thought-out paragraph. When you find yourself writing a long response in an email, or in a Facebook comment, or a Twitter thread, that’s a draft blog post right there. Copy, paste, boom.
For more lessons learned, here are my thoughts after 10 years of blogging, and below are my slides from the conference if you want to flip through….
Direct link to the slides on SlideShare – Avoiding Blogging Burnout from Sheila Scarborough
How do you avoid blogger burnout? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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I’ve got a different problem…getting back on track after Tim’s death with all of the things I had to do in the wake of the deaths of both my mom and him has been overwhelming. Tim was my travel buddy and in-house tech guy…so that’s another couple of holes on top of every thing else I’ve had to do, re-do-re-learn. re-place. Still working on things and trying to really relax through the summer at this point 🙂 I cannot believe how much has changed in the way of how things must be done (photo storage has been a big issue for one)…and even being able to get out of town is still an issue at this point. I have some non-photo heavy things I’m trying to push through the system at this point…and one trip planned for later this year. I’ve been trying some new things lately to see how they work for me (Zumba or meditation sessions anyone?). Even getting back into doing inter-library loan (system was down at my local library until very recently) and getting signed up with AirBnB for a trip was also a large production (seriously, if I weren’t so stubborn and persistent, it wouldn’t have gotten done…and it took a couple of hours even at that!) I haven’t given up the idea of returning to blogging, but it’s taking far longer than I thought it would 🙁
Thanks for your thoughts, Dominique, and I am so sorry for your loss. I know how much Tim supported you and your Midwest Guest blogging over the years. At least now there’s an active “Midwest travel blogging scene” – you were out there by yourself for the longest time! Hope the post gave you some ideas….
I knew that writers’ block is the problem bloggers face but didn’t know they face burnout too. So, It is a universal problem, huh.
It sure is, especially when you consider that bloggers not only write, they must know how to take good photos, shoot video, do SEO, etc. It’s a lot!
Hi Sheila,
At one point, I took 6 weeks off. Never touched the PC during that length of time, then was able to fly back into it again. Yes, it is just like hitting a brick wall.
Cheers Sharon…
Good for you for taking a break, Sharon. The brain needs to rest sometimes.