Bookish Discussions: Balancing Blogging and Real Life

http://www.lindasdailylivingskills.com/2012/04/finding-balance-between-remediation-and.html

Being relatively new to the blogging community, it's definitely been a learning process of how to fit everything together.  As some of you know, I'm in school, and this year am taking a course load full of AP and honors courses.  So sometimes, it can get a bit crazy and sometimes, I get so behind on my posting and reading schedule.  Here are five ideas that have helped me balance blogging and school work!

1.  Write posts in advance.  Usually, I write all my posts for the week over the weekend but if there is any spare time in my day, I'll be making notes in my handy dandy notebook for blog posts and reviews.  If you leave posts until that day, and it ends up you have a lot of other things to get done first, you'll be exhausted before you even get to writing the post and blogging will become a chore instead of something fun.

2.  Don't procrastinate.  I'm so guilty of procrastinating for basically everything.  Just on Tuesday (well I wrote it on Sunday...) I did a tag that I was tagged for in August.  I should have written the post right away.  So try not to get into the habit of telling yourself 'I'll just do it later' because it will be waaaay later before it actually happens.

3.  Keep a calender.  I have my digital calender set up where it's basically a calender for all my real life stuff and then a calender for my blog posts.  Then, if I so choose, I can combine the views to see when I should write my posts if for example, I'm busy during the beginning of the week, I should write posts in advance for those days and plan my work accordingly.  Organization is key!

4.  Carry a book wherever you go.  I write 3-4 reviews a week so I have to be constantly reading to keep up with the pace.  Most of the time, I read for 2-3 hours before bed, but if I have a lot of homework that night, I'd rather get more sleep so I can get out of bed the next morning.  If you carry a book with you (I carry my kindle) you'll probably find you have a lot more downtime than you realize.  I have 5 minute spans between each class and then 10 at the end of class (where the teachers plan work-time and like a boss, I have everything done) when I can read.  This helps so much!

5.  Get things done.  Do your homework first in a location where you wont' be distracted by your phone, computer, music, or anything else.  I try to do the homework I don't need to do research for at my kitchen table so I can just sit down and do it.  That way, I'm done so much faster and have a lot of down time where I can write the next week's posts or read!

If you have any other suggestions, let me know in the comments!