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January 23, 2006

Top 10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 6:33 am

Photo of White Arrow in Road pointing down

January, February, and March are boring. They leave me feeling like I have nothing to look forward to. New budgets, new plans, and New Year’s resolutions hover over. Everyone’s working and often everyone’s miserable. So I offer a list of 10 things you might do, so that when everyone’s having fun being miserable, you won’t feel left out.

Before you begin reading, prepare yourself. Adjust your thinking to realize that, no matter the season where you are, next winter is too near and next spring is too far.

Top 10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger

      10. Spend your first quiet morning hours checking your stats to see who was not reading your blog at 2:18 a.m. When you’re done, check 4:47 a.m. and 1:31 a.m. too.

    9. Read the feeds for the exact idea you will write about, rather than just looking for fodder. Then decide all of the good ideas have already been done, because you know that five seconds ago someone took the last one.

    8. Keep your mind focused on all of the things you have to do and how little time there is to do them. Check the clock often to see how behind you are in getting them done.

    7. Don’t prioritize or make a plan.

    6. Answer every email, important or not, as soon as you get it. While you’re there, think of the ones you might write and write them before you do anything else. If you’re going for the gold, do the same with telephone calls. Heck while you’re at it, call my mother-in-law.

    5. If you finish with email and it’s still the same day, read other blogs that have no relationship to yours. In fact, choose blogs in a language you don’t even know. When you stop to eat lunch, clean the refrigerator.

    4. As you read and comment on blogs, notice how much better every other blog is. Then think of the reasons you wouldn’t read your own blog.

    3. Spend hours tweaking your template over details no one will ever notice.

    2. When you finally sit down to write, know you will have writer’s block. Think about it. Talk about it. Then watch the clock.

    1. Count your value as a human by links, stats, and number of comments.

There you have it. Follow this Top Ten List, and you will be miserable when you need to be. It will serve you well into Spring–which we know will be rainy, cold, and ugly this year.

If you’re an overachiever and you just need one more, here you go . . .

Definitely, positively, and for sure, buy into all of your own PR, and believe whatever other folks say about you, because everything put into print simply has to be true. :)

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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25 Comments to “Top 10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger”

  1. January 23rd, 2006 at 7:43 am
    Cas said

    Lol :D
    And eek! because numbers 9,8,4,3,2, and (though I try not to) 1, could all be applied to me.
    Definitely time for me to go and purchase one of those Anti-SAD Natural Light thingies to sit on my desk.

    But of course it won’t work, so why bother even blogging about it? ;)

  2. January 23rd, 2006 at 9:16 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Cas!
    I think we all do a few of these things. And then there are the other ones, like assuming if we’re at a meeting and someone doesn’t show that it’s our fault. :)
    Liz

  3. January 23rd, 2006 at 3:37 pm
    Martin said

    Yeah, I’m miserable … it was 43 degrees (110f) the other day and that woud make anyone miserable :-(

    #10 & #1 - stats and numbers: gave up that daily addiciton around Sept’05 … now, it’s just a cursory glance once in a while.

    #6 - Answer every email - Ha, I wish. It’s more like watch them mount up, know I should get to it, never do and finally get grumpy cause I have to answer 30 emails.

    #4 - Yup. Read too many blogs and think hmmm what nice blogs, why’s mine so fugly and then I just rip off little ideas here and there ;-)

    #3 - I’ve been known to tweak my designs obsessively like a madman, never happy, always that one little bit that’s just not right. So … to save myself, I went the simplistic route, stripped my sidebar bare and I haven’t touched it all year (oh yeah, it’s only been 24 days since my last tweak :-)

  4. January 23rd, 2006 at 4:17 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Martin,
    Great to see you! Misery loves company that’s why I wrote that post. Glad you came round to help me out.

    Nice to know you’re handling your tweaking in such a grown-up fashion. I just don’t have time to do it. :) I’ve been answering emails, but I don’t have a clue what it is that I’m saying. Maybe your way is better.

    Liz

  5. January 23rd, 2006 at 4:37 pm
    Martin said

    Liz,
    last night I did 25 emails straight that have been glaring back at me wanting my attention :-) … for the older ones, I simply add “sorry for the late reply, your email got caught up in my spam filters” - better than “sorry, but I’m a real slackass in repying to your email three weeks ago …”

    Me thinks I might have a time management issue with email - and my solution to it all: bury it deeper and deeper until my too-hard basket (aka: my Inbox) goes nuts and demands action ;-)

    I have to learn the art of the very short email reply and … short comments - see ya :-)

  6. January 23rd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hey,
    I understand, emails and comments can steal more time than telephone calls these days. But we get so isolated in our computers, I suppose it’s easy to understand why we avoid them and then why we overdo them too.
    Liz

  7. January 23rd, 2006 at 8:36 pm
    What we are doing right now - Clear Your Mind - Management, productivity and marketing for entrepreneurs said

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  8. March 5th, 2006 at 9:46 am
    Rocky said

    That is too funny. I have done many of them (I have not called your mother in law) You can get caught in the doldrums very easily.

  9. March 5th, 2006 at 9:48 am
    ME Strauss said

    Oh, Rocky,
    Do call my mother-in-law. I spent the day with her yesterday. i know she’d love to hear from you. :)

    Thanks, as I tell my mother-in-law when she occassionally asks “did you really do that?” You can’t write it, if you haven’t been there.

    Liz

  10. March 9th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
    Celebrity Wonk said

    Guilty of all 10!

    Thanks for letting me know I’m not alone. If I wrote during the time I spent obsessively checkign my site stats, I’d have twice as many articles. You’ve set me on a better path - thanks!

  11. March 9th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Happy to be of service Celebrity Wonk,
    Now you can spend all of that extra time reading and commenting at Successful Blog!

    smiles,
    Liz

  12. June 22nd, 2006 at 6:57 am
    Christine Kane said

    Okay, I’m a little late to the party on this one, but it’s a great and funny post. I especially get the email thing… Email is the great distraction from all things real and joyful! I find that if you can just play with writing and slowly get into that mindset, you do eventually move out of the obsessive, neurotic and “how am i doing?” stuff. Writing is always the reward! (even if the writing is not so great!)

  13. June 22nd, 2006 at 8:39 am
    ME Strauss said

    Christine,
    I agree with what you say about email. I try to hide mine when I can.

    I especially like what you say about writing. Do you know this quote?

    I hate writing. I love having written.

  14. July 3rd, 2006 at 1:56 am
    Brian Taylor said

    Very nice! I’ve just started my blog, so almost every one of the 10 things apply to me, especially number 3. I just wasn’t happy with the template, and before I knew it, hours had gone by and I was changing things just to make them look different!
    Again. Excellent post!

  15. July 3rd, 2006 at 6:24 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Brian,
    We’ve all been there, and between you and me, I don’t think we ever get too far away from there either. :)

    I still can spend hours tweaking my blog. I just don’t do as often now. I wait a few weeks between before the urge over takes me. :)

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