When I was working a regular day job, some years ago now, I read a book by Steven Covey called “First Things First”. I really enjoyed the book and totally agree with the principle that in order to be successful, you have to continue to make the most important things a priority. Angela Stevens recently wrote on her site about “Blog Snobs“. There were several definitions of “blog snob” offered, but the one that hit home with me was the tendency of some bloggers to stop interacting on other blogs in the way they did when they were working hard to build up their sites in the beginning. Once they reach a certain plateau, such as page rank or traffic levels, they have little motivation to participate in the discussions going on elsewhere.
This got me thinking about the last several months, and how little I’ve been commenting on other sites recently. Is it because I think I don’t need to anymore? Is it because I’ve become a blog snob? Hardly… there are so many people who do a much better job at this blogging business than I do. I have no illusions about my place in the blogosphere. I’m happy to get a decent post up once a week these days, and grateful that you take the time to read and comment.
What’s the reason for my slacking off in such an important area then? It’s because blogging has been such an effective tool for networking and building my business that I’m simply overwhelmed. Things I enjoyed and had time for a year ago, or even 6 months ago, have fallen by the wayside as I’ve become busier and busier. It’s a circular problem: the more work I do to build my blog, the more design work it creates, the less time I have to continue to work to my blog. I suspect this is the case with at least some who are perceived to be blog snobs.
The thing is, some things are just too important to let slide. The excuse of “I’m too busy” isn’t really good enough, and I resolve to do a better job of putting aside time to enjoy participating on other sites like I did when I had more time.
What about you? Are there things you used to do when you started out blogging that have slipped as time has gone by and the busyness of life has sucked away your time? Do you think it’s okay to let some things slip as we take advantage of opportunities that come our way? How do you keep the right balance?
