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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