Work-Life Balance Tips to Keep You Happy as a Blogger
Blogging is hard work. Some bloggers end up working 10 to 12 hour days. Of course, in addition to writing, bloggers often have to do SEO work, social media, networking, and many other things that can eat up the hours. Working all day, and weekends is not good for your health. Work life is only successful if it strikes the right balance with family life. If you are a busy blogger, here are several tips that will help you balance work with life better:
Know What’s Important in Life
First of all, you need to clarify what’s important in your personal life and blogging life. For example, is it more important to spend time with your family at home? Or do you want to travel to promote your blog? Sometimes, your priorities as a blogger may come into conflict with your priorities as a child, a spouse, or a parent. That’s why it’s important to have an idea of what matters to you. You should honestly be able to list your values and goals for the future. When you have done this, you will be able to see where the work-life balance scale tips clearly.
Prioritize Your Goals
You may want to be a great parent who spends eight hours a day at home. On the other hand, as a blogger, you may want to go on business trips to give lectures and build your brand. You won’t be able to accomplish both at the same time, though. Striking the right work-life balance means making compromises. In the above situation, you could commit yourself to spending the weekend with the kids. During the rest of the week, you can travel all you want for work. You have first to understand that you cannot, in reality, have it all. So, instead of neglecting one goal, try to reach goals in a more realistic and sober manner.
Learn to Relax
Working long hours can take a toll on anyone’s psyche, even if you work at home. You may feel more stressed and exhausted than usual because of other things running in your head.
This will make you less productive as a blogger.
You need to learn to take a break and relax. Taking short amounts of time off will also help you gather your thoughts and come up with new ideas. You can try many things to relax.
For example, you can learn to meditate or read a book during the weekends. If you are strapped for time, you can make time for relaxing between appointments. For example, if you travel for your blogging job, you can use a service like GetFlix VPN to stream your favorite shows while in-flight or at a foreign location. The point is that you need to do what you need to do to relax.
Manage Your Time Better
If you are blogging ten hours a day, it’s worthwhile to sit back and wonder if you can manage your time better. Are you sure you are not wasting time at work? This could be unintentional. You could be spending hours accomplishing a tedious task that can easily be automated. Your schedule might not be as organized as it should be. So, take some time off to sit back and see where you may be wasting precious minutes. Managing time better will leave you with more time for your personal life.
Don’t think that you are a victim of circumstances. If you try a little harder, you will be able to have a personal life and a thriving blogging career. It’s easy to get caught up in blogging when you are in front of your laptop plugged in. Keeping that in mind, follow the above suggestions to strike just the right work-life balance that you need.
Freelance writer for hire by day. Heavy sleeper at night. Dreams of non-existent brass rings. Writer by trade. Pro wrestling fan by choice (It's still real to me, damnit!). Family man all the time.