What Does the Bookworm Say?: Balance
Hi and welcome to What Does the Bookworm Say?, a feature where I discuss bookish topics with my friends at The Reader’s Antidote, Books Unbound and The Windy Pages. Each week, we will discuss a new bookish topic. This week’s topic is balance – how do you balance blogging and everyday life?
Time is one of our greatest commodities. There never seems to be enough of it and I often find myself wishing for a time-tuner a la Harry Potter. Unfortunately I cannot change time (and let’s face it, I am sure I’d mess up the time continuum if I did) so I have to balance my time like everyone else. First let me just say that I have 24 hours in the day, just like everyone else. A lot of times when I tell people that I blog or read a lot I get a response similar to “Oh, I wish I had as much free time as you” or “I don’t have time for that.” It’s often said with a sort of weird judgmental tone as if to say that I have some kind of lackadaisical life which allows me to read as much as I do. This annoys me because it assumes that what I am doing is of less value that what they are doing. Everyone has their own priorities about what is important to them and they make time for it. I am not married and I don’t have children, so I don’t have those particular responsibilities. But I have a job, family, friends and a lot of other things that take up my time. I always tell people that you will make time for what you love. Some people spend their time sleeping, watching TV, hiking, or hanging out with their family. One is not better than the other. We all make choices and you should not judge people for them.
Sorry that ended up a little preachy and wasn’t where I meant to go with this topic, but that’s where my train of thought went. Back to balancing…
As a blogger, I feel a lot of pressure to have new content up on the blog every week. It doesn’t have to be every day but I like to be consistent. This can be hard because, like I said, I have a full time job and a long commute, which leaves very little free time during the week. I don’t have a set schedule for when I sit down to blog. I don’t think that would work for me since my plans often change. I try to get in blogging time when I can, usually after work or on the weekends. I try to schedule posts ahead of time whenever possible, though I am never more than a week or so ahead. I don’t have a blogging calendar though I have friends who use them and find them very helpful. I am a pretty slow book reviewer. It just takes me a lot of time to figure out my thoughts and put them into a review. So I’ll often jot down notes while I am reading and I try to write a quick review on Goodreads after I finish a book so that I can go back later and flesh out my thoughts.
As for the time to actually read the books, like I said, I love reading so I make time for it. I read every day, even if it’s just for 5 minutes. When people tell me they don’t have time to read, I tell them that I do it every day. Just a little bit. Because that little bit adds up to a lot if you do it consistently. I will sometimes multi-task by listening to audiobooks while I am at the gym or in the car as well. I try to multi-task as much as possible really. Unfortunately I cannot read and knit at the same time but I can watch TV and knit, which maximizes my time.
While I try to do my best to balance everything, there are definitely days where I forego sleep in order to get stuff done or just to finish a great book. It’s a small sacrifice to do the things I like and to be a part of this great community.
I don’t have any great tips or advice for balancing blogging and life but these are some of the things that I do. What about you guys? What do you do to balance all of the things you need and want to get done in the day? I’d love to know.
Don’t forget to check out The Reader’s Antidote, Books Unbound and The Windy Pages to see what their answers are to today’s question.
