I updated my blog after nearly 3 weeks today. And have missed several deadlines on other writing commitments – one each for Financial Express and afaqs. It’s been bugging me for a while and I was determined to write something…anything, on my blog. While work and personal commitments have kept me busy (er..work has kept me busy earlier too), I used to average 2 posts a week. So why the slack? Reason No.1: distractions (been spending way too much time, fiddling with the iPad and its apps, perhaps?) Reason No.2 – blogging is hard work. While it is easy to tweet in a cursory comment about goings on in advertising or elsewhere, typing a blog post is bloody hard work. So it really calls for major self motivation and time management to do a good job of maintaing your blog. While I admire many of the Twitterati who practically live on Twitter all day (makes you wonder how they manage to keep it coming in the way of um, er..real work), there are 2 prominent bloggers for whom I doff my hat:
@beastoftraal: There are several Digital & Social Media gurus out there. While some are self-proclaimed gurus,there are others who you genuinely look up to. You tend to admire them for their clarity of thought, the fresh perspective they bring and the sheer enthusiasm they show for the medium. For me, @beastoftraal clearly falls in the latter slot. The sheer depth of his analysis, his eye for detail and the frequency with which he updates his blog, deserves a salute. What’s more apart from his demanding day job he maintains not one, but two blogs: Beast of Traal (Insanely dense commentary on social media usage by Indian brands. And assorted marketing/ branding rants) and Milliblog (the 100-word music review blog). Phew!
Marketing Practice: dubbed as the World’s Largest Online Resource On Indian Brands, Marketing Practice is the creation of Harish B, Professor at IIMK. Over at his blog, there are archives running as far back as 2005! The marketing strategies of over 400 Indian brands are analyzed by Harish and is a great online resource for students & practitioners alike.
I guess it all boils down to passion – how desperate you are to pursue what you love doing. But without discipline, passion is of little use. So at least in the interest of my Indiblogger ranking (where frequency of posting is a parameter), I have to update my blog more frequently. And for inspiration, I have at least 2 blogs to look up to.
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[On my blog] Blogging is hard work, passion and discipline http://www.lbhat.com/personal/blogging-i… salute to @beastoftraal and @harishbnair
@bhatnaturally Thanks! You might be interested in my post today 🙂
Thanks! Your endorsement is a treasure as far as I am concerned. looking forward to more insight from your blog also.
Can't agree more that blogging is time-consuming and hard work for sure. But with me I have often observed that there are phases. At times I get these awesome blog post ideas and I manage to write quite a few of them. And then there are weeks or even a full month when I don't have anything to write and I am thinking hard for a topic to blog. So what I have started doing is for posts which are not time-sensitive I put them in draft to publish later when I may not have really good enough to write at that time. this way I keep the consistency and yet put down all the thoughts I have in one shot.
and yeah, discipline – can't do anything without it. how to switch off those channel surfing sessions or get lost on the twitter link sharing and instead but down a nice post on the weekend. big challenge.
I admire Chris Brogan and Problogger on how they manage to write so much and engage with their readers.