Book Blogging + Real Life

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly series created by Rukky at Eternity Books and hosted by Aria at Book Nook Bits. The full list of August topics can be found here.

This week’s topic is about balancing blogging and real life.

How do you manage balancing blogging and life?

Its not easy! Or at least it wasn’t in the beginning. Over the years I’ve gotten better at balancing blogging and life. For one, I learned it’s good to plan posts in advance so that if anything comes up in your personal life that may prevent you from having time to read or blog, you will have a couple posts in the drafts folder no matter what. My goal is to post at least once per week, so having a few week’s worth of posts ready to go is where I feel most comfortable.

In what ways do school and work get in the way of blogging?

I rarely have the energy before or after work to work on my blog besides drafting a review if I happened to have just finished a book and want to record my thoughts while they are fresh. I could never draft and publish a post in the same day, so I don’t even try! Work and weekly commitments take up so much of my time that I don’t even try to cram blogging into that. I only work on my blog on the weekend, and I limit myself to an hour each day so I don’t get overwhelmed.

Are there any ways that blogging can help with everyday life?

My blog gives me a place to talk about books, plain and simple. In real life I don’t know many people who read as much as I do. The WordPress community gives me a place to express shared interests with fellow readers, which means a lot to me. In that sense, it gives me something to look forward to every time I blog-hop or engage with other bloggers in the comments.

Are there certain times of year when blogging becomes harder or more overwhelming?

I will admit that I feel pressured to post seasonal content every fall and winter. I try to squeeze in a few of those types of books each year, but I’ve cut back a lot in recent years. (I can’t believe how much I used to focus on that, even reading things I didn’t feel like reading just so I could have a themed post along with everyone else!) This year I picked 3-4 seasonal reads I’ll try to include in posts between October – December, but I’m not going to make myself do any more than that if I don’t want to. It’s hard to not give into the pressure to do what other bloggers are doing.

Thank you Aria for this really great topic this week!

How do you balance blogging and real life? Tell me in the comments!