Why Blogging is Taking Over My Life

in Blogging|Depression|Happiness|Life|Me with 16 Comments written by

This post is tough to write and yet very liberating at the same time. I have been blogging everyday (I miss some days) for 10 months now. I have been working on gaining a community as well as being apart of other communities. Inside of this process I have interacted with many of you on twitter as well as on your blog. It has been a great time, but to be honest, has overtaken my life and become my idol.

I never meant to let it run me, or for that matter hold my emotions and happiness. But it has taken over my life and has moved my emotional happiness up and down. Mainly, my love/hate relationship with this blog is stealing a piece of who I am everyday. Its not that I do not enjoy writing and being apart of a community. I have really enjoyed the process and all the interaction we have had over time. What I do know is that it is taking away from my time and energy.

I have decided to change things up a bit and slow down in my posting. I know this will hurt my numbers and stats, and therefore will hurt me personally. I like to be able to have a measurement for how effective things are. I would be lying if I told you that I did not check my blog stats or that I do not care about them. I do, and I often can let them dictate my emotion on how “effective” I feel like I was that day. But to be even more honest, I was getting so caught up in maintaining my blog stats that I was putting crap out there just to have content out there.

The new schedule that I am looking to set up is a every other day type posting style. This is subject to change and could go all over the place. My hope is that I will be able to cut back from all the BS that I was writing and focus in on great subject material as well as other projects and ideas that I am working on.

Thanks for being an awesome community and I hope that we can continue to walk through life together here on the blogs and in person. Looking forward to another season of life and blogging. Oh ya, and watch for a new name and blog title coming soon.

Have you ever thought about your blogging strategy and its effectiveness?

About Kyle Reed: Kyle Reed is a connector looking to connect with others. A 20 Something that is blogging his way through life and looking to connect through community. Also a team member of the 8BIT Network and brand evangelist. Find me on twitter: @kylelreed, lets chat.

All Posts by  |  Personal Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Share By Email
  • http://www.ricianne.com patricia

    The first day I started to feel consumed about blogging/writing/twitter stats& followers I stopped going online.

    It scared me to think that this tool would be used as an idol rather that something I would use to gloriy God.

    It’s hard to get caught up online, especially when you try to make ur online presence felt and build your community here. but we must realize that our identity is not supposed to get caught up in who we are, how good we write, how many (or how few) people visit our blog or RT or posts.

    Our identity should be so secure in Him that whether people visit or not… Whether people comment or not, we should be okay with that. And that hurts sometimes.

    There are still certain days I feel it and when days like that come…I unplug esp on my blog. Id rather not blog than sin.

    That kind of confidence and self control doesn’t come easy but it MUST be learned. Because of that, I limit my posts – even to once a week… and everytime I write, before I hit “send/post”… I ask myself these questions:

    1. Who is glorified in this post?
    2. What is my motive in writing this?

    If my answer is questionable, then I dont post.

    God reminded me that I should learn to write for an audience of One, I Preach and Teach for an audience of One.and I asked Him to break whatever it is that hinders me doing so.

    • http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com Kyle Reed

      This is a great reminder patricia.
      You hit the nail on the head. When it becomes an idol it starts to be a problem.

    • http://www.imnachallenge.com Josue Izaul

      Patricia you nailed it there for me. I been trying to start my own blog and been so overwhelm by it. But, definitely , sometimes there are some drastic measures that need to take place. Who are we doing this for and why? are great question to ask before pressing “publish.” Thanks alot for the message

  • http://morethanuseless.com Tom

    Good stuff, Kyle. It’ll definitely be liberating to not have to post daily.

    Still looking forward to reading whatever you share..

    • http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com Kyle Reed

      thanks man, maybe I will go cold turkey like you.

  • http://twitter.com/shelbyisrad Shelby

    I’m glad you realized it and are doing something about it!! Thats such a huge thing. I’m praying you can get it all balanced and I will still daily check your blog see if anything is popped up, its part of my morning routine. :)

  • http://ministrycare.org Gary Reed

    As Dirty Harry said, “A man’s gotta know his own limitations”. Good job son!

  • http://www.dannyjbixby.com Danny Bixby

    Could be a good call.

    Maybe post on M/W/F? All the cool kids do it ;)

  • http://www.contentunderpressure.net Josh

    The potential for this in my life is huge, as I just started things up about 8 months ago. Luckily, I simply can’t post every day due to my work schedule taking up loads of time, leaving little for my wife. I thank God that he’s reminded me to not neglect her for the sake of social media. But, does that affect my blog stats and twitter followers? Absolutely. They’re pathetic. But, I would call it, personally, just as pathetic if I sacrificed my marriage and integrity to have more of a stake at any online acclaim.

    If this is becoming an idol for you and you recognize it, then the decision to reduce posts will be one that’s honored, I believe.

    All this to say: Good call, man. Good call. :)

  • http://christybaggett.wordpress.com/ Christy

    Awesome, Kyle. This is what I had to do with Facebook. I didn’t get on for 15 days, which doesn’t really seem like very long but with the amount of time I had been spending on it, it was huge. Now that I’m back on I’ve set up some guidelines to prevent myself from falling back into those old habits of posting just to get responses….and then using those responses as a standard for my worth.

    I sucked in terms of communicating with people. I quickly found out that I didn’t have anyones emails and very few phone numbers. But, I’m glad that I did it and have learned some important lessons about God and myself.

    Way to step back and desire to align yourself with Christ!

  • http://- Ani

    It’s a start you acknowledged this. This why I don’t blog or use my cellphone for Twitter otherwise I would be online all the time. It’s nice to have a community on internet but internet robs my time of community with people offline and with God. So I don’t do it. I only read blogs and/or reply on the blogs. You will do fine. You’re a smart and intelligent guy. You will find out what to do and how to do it. I’ve decided to only get online on Mondays. Wednesdays and Fridays. Only when it’s really necessary to check on something I will go on online on other days. You have to draw a line. Good luck.

  • http://manofdepravity.com Tyler

    I’m with you Kyle. I blogged everyday for over a year and a half. And really part of blogging success in terms of numbers is frequency of posts. You can cover up bad content with the number of posts in order to get more hits.

    I simply came to a place of it being unsustainable with my life. I was sacrificing things that shouldn’t be sacrificed in order to post consistently.

  • http://godlysheep.com Brett Barner

    Good stuff, Kyle. I think you’ll enjoy not posting everyday. On Monday’s when I see the low blog stats, I say I’ll start posting on weekends, but I really enjoy my weekends off. It keeps me balanced.

    Also kudos on focusing on quality over quantity. Always a good choice. Good luck with the changes.

  • http://www.anidolheart.com Grant Jenkins

    Good stuff. I completely relate to this, both in theory and in practice. Proud of you, bro. Hate that I’m not going to see you this weekend now, but we must get face time soon and start digging deeper.

    • http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com Kyle Reed

      Yes, we will hang and talk deep into the night.

  • http://www.a1-webmarks.com/links-getyourpurseona.html CONNIE SELLERS

    I have to say, every time I come to thoughtsaboutnothing.com you have another exciting post up to read. One of my friends was talking to me about this topic several weeks ago, so I think I will e-mail them the link here and see what they say.