Comments on: The Number One Reason People Don’t Have Time to Accomplish What They Want

By: Donna C. Rodgers

Donna C. Rodgers — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 03:13:47 +0000

Hi Brent, I agree about the time wasting. I’m almost afraid to tell you though about my biggest time waster. Before this, I never wasted time! I sewed, quilted, chatted with the kids, went on drives and walks and spent time with the Lord. I gave pep talks at workshops about making the most of every minute. I love the book by Don Aslett..the 24 hour day. Like him, I got tons of things done!

Then I started a blog. The blog was fine when I was just uploading my projects. It was sort of an online sewing journal. Without a single bit of effort, after about 3 months of posting my quilts and stuff I’d done over the years, I was getting a hundred hits a day just looking for the projects I’ve done. I do unusual things like Persian knotted-rug tying, French boutis, Kuna Indian molas etc which I teach myself how to do. You can hardly find anything on the internet so of course people end up at my blog. So I did my art and people looked at it and I don’t know what they do, but they reference my stuff all the time.
But I started a homemaking ‘blog’ sharing the stuff I have for years at workshops etc. 1/4 of the 2000 people per month who hit my blog, spend an hour or more. I don’t know if that’s the usual amount of time. I have 300 posts right now since 2007. I only started posting regularly in Nov.of 09. I’m up to 10,000 hits as of Dec.1 09.

Here’s my question though. I’ve started working on making it look better. I’ve started writing better posts. They are always popular anyway. But I only get a few comments a day and that’s if I go and visit lots of people and follow them, which is what friends told me I must do if I wanted an audience to share my ‘content’ with. They told me..you’ve got great content, but you have to develop a community. No one reads it..you don’t have followers.

So I started doing give aways and other sorts of bloggy things which don’t honestly appeal to me. I like people and I like encouraging people, but I want to spend most of my relationship time with my family at home. In other words, I want to teach but I don’t want to hunt down an audience.

So now there is this pressure to keep up the posts…and now I don’t sew, quilt, or do the art show submissions that I normally work on every year. I love doing tutorials and posting them, but I spend more time just tweaking my blog and trying to comment to people. It’s driving me crazy.

I guess I’m just a workaholic, but I never intended to switch from doing my best as a homemaker and fabric artist to being the best blogger. I feel some kind of weird pressure to make sure a post gets up every night.

I used to avoid the computer because it wasted time, but this whole blogging thing has become almost too compelling. I love helping people, but I almost think it would be better to go back to making all my creations..which I love doing and can put down any time to take care of other things..and just post when something’s finished rather than feel I have to keep up the posts. How often is enough? Maybe I should just plan to only post something once a week and make it a really great sewing or homemaking or organizing tutorial and rely on the content to keep people interested. I have 78 followers and 30 return daily.

When ever I do a sewing post and post it say at Wardrobe Refashion I end up with 600-800 visitors and several new followers. I would really like to do an E how article now and then. (Some people do such mediocre work on that place! Though some do a great job of course.) I’d like to do more posts for Wardrobe Refashion. I think I’d do better getting stuff to them which brings the readers to me than the other way around. I feel I’m sacrificing quality for quantity.

I’m stumped..can you advise me? I wish you could drop by my blog, like a doctor and see if you can tell me what I’m doing wrong. By the way, I did donate 20.00 to you right off the bat. It would be worth the whole amount if you could give me a clue of what I should be focusing on here. I’m tired of the pressure and am not sure I’m really helping people all that much.

I have lots of kids too and I know you must be so busy, so if you can even jot me a clue in a comment, I’d appreciate it so much!
Thanks!

PS. I have to say my blog looks so much nicer and my articles seem so much more inviting thanks to you! You’ve helped more than I can say. I did a post featuring your blog the other day.
Thanks for helping us all out.

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:21:14 +0000

Brent,
You’ve brutally hit the nail on the proverbial head with this article. I am/was one of those people. Always making excuses as to why I didn’t have enough time for this or that. If it’s not TV it is the internet. Recently I have at least made the decision to try to do something productive with the time I spend online. You’re article has really got me thinking. Life is to short to waste it glued to the TV.
Thanks for the e-kick in the pants.

By: Thena

Thena — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:12:49 +0000

Like our Pastor said this morning it’s all about priorities. We make time for the things we want to do, but what about the things we need to do.

By: heckety

heckety — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:32:16 +0000

Yes! Someone else who thinks that people with full lives don’t need television! and other ‘stuff’. I’m too busy to watch TV and that’s not frantic busy, that’s house-full-of people’s-children-and -friends busy. That’s people who haven’t time to spend with their own children because they switch on the TV as soon as they walk in the door. So their younsters talk to me-how sad is that? What they are missing. Another funny thing, when our house is full of teenagers and they bring videos to watch 9 times out of 10 they never get round to it because they are talking, cooking, playing board games, and even tobogganing down the stairs in sleeping bags…to me that is ‘real time’…

By: brentriggs

brentriggs — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:03:40 +0000

It’s ironic… the people who have the LEAST need to do these things always have the clearest understanding of them… I guess that goes without saying but you would think it would be PAINFULLY obvious to someone who watches TV 11 hours a day…. (or today it would be “on the computer”)

By: brentriggs

brentriggs — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:02:11 +0000

Wow…. I bet you are seeing a remarkable difference with all those great changes!!! BR

By: Cardamom

Cardamom — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:12:24 +0000

Thank you – excellent article! It is always good to be stepping back and evaluating your life. We have 9 children and don’t watch TV and people often say the exact words you said, “how do you get so much done?” Inside we chuckle, since we know that we constantly struggle against wasting time!

We do enjoy Facebook and set a little time aside for it – we live out in the country and stay home a lot – so it’s an efficient way to keep up with some of our distant friends. This morning my husband sent me this article as a great reminder:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204660604574370450465849142.html

Thank you again!

By: LS

LS — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:40:35 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said! I have been on the path of simplifying my life as much in the past year. I came to a point where I felt like I was getting NOTHING done, despite the fact that I was running in circles doing as much as I could in a day. At the end of the day, I would look back and see that I got very little done. I started searching for the reasons why my days were so unproductive and found it in the form of T.V., cell phone, internet, messaging, etc. I realized that having these things readily available to me was too much temptation and keeping me from the responsibilities God had set before me. So, I have been slowly phasing them out of my life. I turned off cable and get the occasional movie through Netflix (I have their cheapest subscription option), my cell phone contract is up in about two weeks and I will NOT be renewing it (bye-bye cell phone), I downloaded an extension from Firefox that tracks the time I spend on the internet, and I have limited myself to 30 minutes a day. This is just a start, and it has made a HUGE difference. I get a lot more done and I don’t feel drained by days end.

Anyway, great article and thank you.

By: Tania

Tania — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:29:37 +0000

Great Post.
It’s particularly hard to stay focused when you have a blog – there are always more things you can be doing.
Thankfully with the blog I can reach over and have a tickle with my little ones in the middle of making comments like this…

By: mannoy

mannoy — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:40:34 +0000

hi. i thinks this is a great post. can i copy this post or part of this post and put it my blog. i’ll put a source and a link back to this post. thanks