I’m a believer that you are what you do every day.
If you want to change something about your life it’s good to make the change to your daily routine. Maybe you take one day off each week. But even that can be risky.
I love when Jerry Seinfeld talks about how he writes his jokes or bits or routines. He says that he writes every day and when he does his writing for the day he puts a big red X on the calendar. After you build that chain of red X’s on the calendar it becomes something that you don’t want to break.
When I first became curious about blogging and decided that I wanted to try it I started by doing it every day. And after a short time it really became like the Seinfeld chain to me. I wanted to keep doing it. And I did it for at least a full year.
There were some pros and also some cons to blogging every day…
Pros
1. Quantity Leads To Quality
After one year of blogging every day I obviously had 356 posts. I believe it was a regular year and not a leap year. That’s a blog of posts. Most were bad. Some were good. One or two was maybe better than good.
I learned a lot from that year of blogging. I learned what people seemed to like. I learned how to write a post. The structure. The research. Forming my thoughts. That kind of thing. After 300+ of anything you start to get fairly good at it. You start to learn nuances.
I’m not saying that most of what I write today is quality, but I am a believer that putting in the quantity leads to quality. Even if your first 300 or so are all “bad”.
2. More Data To Learn From
If you blog every day for a long time you’re going to have a lot of data. You can use that data, probably your blog or website analytics, to see what is getting the most traffic and engagement. This can help you to build your future blogging strategy. You won’t be just guessing anymore about what your audience wants from you.
3. More Content to Promote
Sometimes it’s good to have a little of something to promote. You can narrow your focus. You can go all in one something you have a great feeling about. You don’t want to spread yourself thin.
But I’m a believer in the bullets then cannonballs method. Create a lot of blog posts. See what’s working. Promote them all a little. When something starts going strong, take time off from all your other content and go all in.
But this strategy requires a lot of content and that comes from blogging daily.
Cons
1. Time Commitment
Blogging every day is a big commitment. When I did it I was 24 years old and didn’t have much going on outside of my 9-5 full-time job. I could blog every night and on the weekends with no issue. Back then it took at least an hour to write a blog post. Usually it took longer than that because I had no idea what I was doing.
If you’re going to commit to daily blogging, consider what you may need to eliminate to make the time.
2. Burnout
I don’t know that I was burned out after a year of blogging every day. But at some point I stopped doing it. I took on other things that kind of filled in the gaps of what I was doing. But blogging is definitely something that can burn you out. This is especially the case if you don’t schedule the time for it or if you’re already doing too much.
It was an odd source, but Rod Stewart said that his dad told him that everybody can do pretty well with one job, one hobby and one sport.
That’s it. Just one of each.
If blogging is your new hobby, great. But consider eliminating your other hobbies.
3. Focus Blinders
If you’re blogging for business it can be a great marketing strategy. But if you’re doing it daily it can force you to really focus in on this one thing. You kind of get blinders to anything else going on in the marketing world.
Gary Vaynerchuk calls it Clouds & Dirt. Blogging every day is getting in the dirt. Make sure, though, that you schedule time every month or so to go up into the clouds to see what else is going on in the world that may cause you to consider a change.
Conclusion
Daily blogging was something great for me. But there are pros and cons. It may not be something that you want to take on. Hopefully these considerations can help you decide if it’s the right path for you. Having a fair understanding of what to expect certainly helps to avoid some pain in the future.