I’ve been having a bit of a slump in my blog-writing endeavours at Waiting for Olives. You’ve probably realised this if you follow closely (soz about that missing week). There are a few reasons for this, which (if you’ll indulge me) I was hoping to work through in this post.
So much screen time
Firstly, I do have a full time job, which keeps me at a desk and in front of a screen for eight hours a day. Many times, I just don’t have the energy to stay sitting at that desk to do blog work. I need to go for a walk, get dinner on and spend time with my friends or family. Often, I write very short pieces to keep me ticking along. There’s a dream of writing longer, deeper posts here, but I can’t seem to get there just yet.
It’s a lot of fun when I get a creative streak, to write and prepare a post. Sometimes it’s a real outlet if work is very slow or full of mind-numbing admin work. But I must admit that I’m struggling to keep up with the publication schedule at the moment.
There are so many things I want and need to do outside of work hours that aren’t the blog. Exercising, praying and spending time with my husband are all far more important than Waiting for Olives. But I often find myself feeling guilty if I haven’t uploaded new Pinterest images, written this week’s posts or prepared the newsletter. But despite my guilt, I struggle to deal with more screen time after eight hours of it for work.
Social media isn’t good for you … but a blog requires a lot of it
Another element of this is how much time I spend with screens. I’m particularly bad at wasting time on Instagram and constantly checking my phone in a totally mindless matter. However, the more I read about the effects of social media on our brains, the less time I want to spend there. I hate that I’m so addicted to my phone. Working on the blog does require me to spend a lot of time on Pinterest and Instagram to promote my posts. It’s fun, but I notice I spend more and more time there the longer I work on the blog. Honestly, I hate that one of the first things I do when I wake up is check instagram!
In this hyper connected and online age, how can I work on a successful blog and still cut back on my screen time? I’ve tried different strategies to achieve this, but I haven’t been very successful. I feel my creativity is being undermined by the very things that I hoped might develop it. Certainly, I’ve seen my attention span and ability to absorb information degrade. That’s partly why I took on the challenge of reading 20 new books this year: I wanted to strengthen my attention muscles again.
I don’t like feeling the addict’s desire to check my phone so often throughout the day. I hate feeling frazzled as I try to absorb information that wouldn’t have phased me a few years ago. When I reflect on how I can improve my relationship with technology, I really struggle to see how I can continue to put so much into the blog and its promotion.
The algorithm in ruthless. I’ve noticed that when I pull back from being active on social media, my readership tanks dramatically. It’s an all or nothing game here. I’ve watched other bloggers I admire struggle with the same issue. They’re always on or they lose followers. Some, with large and developed audiences, have been able to step back. However, my blog is still a baby and without constant promotion, it won’t grow to a sustainable size.
Aiming for the slow life with Waiting for Olives
I’ve written previously about my wish to live a sustainable, slow life. I still want that. But I don’t quite know how I can balance that against the need to be ‘plugged in’ all the time for the blog. How I wish I got my blogging start in the early days of the blog, when social media was just a sparkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye.
When I started this blog, I committed myself to at least three years. I wanted to make a real go of it, and I still do. This blog has sparked some lovely conversations with people offline. It’s been a real outlet for heavy emotions around death and infertility over the last year and a half. I do enjoy the creativity of writing and love sharing tips, tricks and good reads with you all.
However, I think I need to work through the best way to do this without getting sucked into the social media machine and all its attendant evils. I want to use social media, not have it use me! Maybe that means offloading Instagram and sticking with Pinterest instead. Possibly I need to reduce the number of posts I write, so I can give you one or two longer and more considered pieces each week.
We’ll see. I’ve got some thinking and writing to do before I can land on a new balance for this endeavour.
[…] I am thinking about spiritual motherhood recently. Which is to say, I’m thinking about what it means to be a woman. Motherhood is an intrinsic call to each woman, whether that be through biological or adopted children, or through spiritual nurturing. In these days when we cannot define a woman, I feel that the world is more than ever in desperate need of motherhood and all that women have to offer. I am, however, still learning how one can do this without physically being a mother. […]