Sometimes people ask me what I do if I run out of blog content. Do I have a list of ideas that I keep on the back burner? I see posts come through every once in awhile about what to do if you run out of blog content. Honestly this rarely happens to me.
I do not run out of blog content when I am living my life. Usually I have too much to even keep track of. The few times where I felt empty of what to talk about meant that I needed to step away from the computer and live my life.
Blogs come in different niches and purposes. For me I talk about entertaining, homemaking, and simple living but only as a reflection of a life that is already being lived versus coming up with new ideas. I rarely ever create a project or try a new recipe just for blog content. It is more of a matter of I try something and if it works I make sure to stop and take a few pictures so that I can blog about it later.
Creating content for a blog is not bad. But for me to be able to continue to blog for the long haul, I have to stick with just blogging about my life. I do not have time to make up content for just content's sake (One reason why I hate to guest post! It feels like so much work coming up with content for content's sake!). Instead I choose to write and share about life that has already happened. I guess you could say I take more of a story telling approach to how I run my blog.
But by spending more time living my life than blogging about it, I have plenty of content. This is why it takes me months sometimes to blog about something. There is just too much going on and I have to balance my home life first in order to not let blogging take over my life.
But by maintaining a constant documentation of what is going on in my life and things I am working on, I have created a steady pace of sharing. Sure I get behind or occasionally have less to say because life is busy. But rarely do I ever have incredibly dry seasons where I do not have anything to share at all.
I suppose you could say blogging holds me accountable to being more creative. I guarantee I am more critical of the parties I throw and the decor on my walls because I want to present it in it's best light for the sake of my blog. For some, this motivation can be dangerous, but for me it helps me stay on my toes when it comes to design trends, improving my photography, and sharing ideas.
Blogging seasons come and go. I love seeing some of my favorite blogs come up with wonderful new ideas and content. And I get sad when I see a well loved blogger walk away from blogging or just slowly disappear because the balance of life and blogging becomes too much.
I love what I do here with blogging too much that I am willing to sacrifice success, a certain blogging routine, or following blog rules. Instead I have found a rhythm that works for me in keeping my blog fun, fresh, and rewarding without the feeling of burden or drain. I want to be around for awhile and I know many of you want that from me as well. So if I am online less, do not comment as much, or don't always have new exciting ideas, it's because I am simply living my life and blogging about it along the way.
And that is how I blog for the long haul (Five years and counting by the way!).
// How have you learned to keep up motivation in blogging? Have you found your own blogging rhythm?
