Based on posts I’ve read and chats I’ve had with friends, clearly I’m not the only one suffering from a lack of motivation lately. And these past few weeks have been particularly rough — loneliness hit hard, teaming up with the stress of finishing up my semester online to make me an unproductive lump hiding from the world.
To be clear: it is absolutely okay to not be Doing All The Things (reading, blogging, whatever hobby you wanted to pick up). Life is hard right now.
However, I always feel better when I have some semblance of routines to fall back on and can check at least one or two things off my daily to-do list. So this is me, freshly freed from classes, holding myself accountable to get out of bed and Do A Thing a few times a week.
Where’d You Go, (Previous) Routines?
Last month I posted my Blog Maintenance Checklists, which have basically been the extent of my blogging routine — I aimed to complete these sets of tasks regularly, but I didn’t have set times of the day/week/month to work on them since my schedule changed so much.
(I also talked more generally about my Prescheduling, Blog Organization & Mood Blogging process last year; not a ton has changed since then.)
And it was all working fine, in part because I was consistently using my bullet journal and I had classwork to get me into a workflow. Okay, and it was something I could procrastinate by blogging. Nothing like avoidance to get other things done.
Now, though? I’ve fallen (behind) and I can’t need to get back up.
I Got New Goals (I Count ‘Em)
(What gets measured gets managed, a journey of a thousand posts begins with a single word, and all that jazz.)
- Over the rest of this week, ease back into routines:
- Writing posts
- Replying to comments
- Bloghopping
- Over the rest of this month, take care of one-time tasks:
- Clear out blog email
- Update About page
- Update review policy
- Update disclaimers + privacy policy
- Spring clean (and reorganize) Goodreads shelves
- Work towards consistency:
- Prewrite and schedule each week’s posts the preceding week(end)
- Bloghop a bit each day (at least 2-3 posts)
- Keep up with comments
- Finish reviews the same week I finish the book; cross-post as needed
- Do you have blogging routines?
- If you’ve been keeping up the motivation/discipline to blog, what’s your secret?
- If you haven’t been keeping up with blogging, please know that you’re not alone — and I hope you’ll find something helpful in this post and/or the comments! ❤
Nine Tale Vixen 
Goodluck !! Hope you’ll get back to it 💕
So far i’ve posted on all my needed days.. but days like today I just- melancholic and the need to cry just take all the place from imagination to write and ;-; while I know this is normal and okay to leave a hole I just !!! I can’t bring myself to!! but at the same time idk what to write.. (and then cue at like, passed midnight when words ACTUALLY pops into my head)
most days i’ve kept up my reply/return (when I get comments) and bloghop atleast every 2-3days… which is better than nothing! as for my yoga- well.. I try to keep it at twice a week rather than three times xd it’s been hard when you do fours 10hrs shifts…. just so tired, and so sad all the time- I hate it !!
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thanks Kristina! I totally feel you, it seems to get harder and harder to be productive (especially during the hours I actually want to be productive) and it’s a rough time mental health-wise too 😕
but you’re absolutely right, keeping up with it all a few days a week is of course better than nothing, and you got to take care of yourself first 💕
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Blogging is not an easy work! Even though it’s a “hobby”, I never actually treated it as one, and always think about it as another part-time job that sometimes takes too much time to be called part-time 😀
I’m the same, I need to set up goals to myself everyday otherwise I won’t accomplish anything. Good luck with all of these! I def need to update various pages on my blog as well… but it usually takes so looong. Lol
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absolutely agree, Alex! there’s always another post to write, another graphic to make, another book to read (and don’t even get me started on reviewing) … 😅
it’s definitely a struggle to keep everything updated too, haha, so I totally feel ya.
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Aaah sending you all the good energy Izzy so you can make your way through your task list ❤
I’ve been straddling the line of being busy with the blog and avoiding EVERYTHING with every bone in my body, I think a lot of this though is stemming from my online course and me realising I haven’t done the first assignment yet (doesn’t help we don’t have set deadlines for each assignment). I also don’t have a lot of motivation and sometimes I just want to watch youtube and forget…about everything.
I have been writing some posts out when I’m able to though and at this point I may end up focusing on June’s content rather than May’s…so I can have some breathing room again.
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yupppp I feel that, there are days when I have the energy to do ALL THE THINGS and then there are days I don’t even want to read let alone review or blog, and lately it’s been more of the second one 😪 online courses are def rough, too.
life is hard right now, but you are doing awesome 💕 i’ve also been thinking about jumping a little ahead so i can be back to having posts planned and scheduled, so heyyyy great minds think alike and all that!
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Oh! I need to write up a schedule. I sometimes forget to blog hop every day, and so I guess I want to try what you do and just do a few bloghops a day.
I love some of your ideas, and may have to borrow some myself!
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scheduling definitely is a huge help, when I can stick to it! and i’ve learned that for me personally, it helps if I can do a few a day, and more on days when I have the energy; it can definitely take some trial and error to find what works for you.
glad to hear the post was helpful for you! 💕
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Good luck! I love the idea of a maintenance checklist to help stay on track. I might have to do something similar as getting back into the swing of things has been a little bit tough on me lately, too – not for lack of wanting, just because I can be so forgetful haha!
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thank you, Destiny! and I feel that, haha; once you’ve fallen out of routines, it seems like you’re always forgetting something or other 😅
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This is definitely I need to start doing (as in getting back into blogging consistently!!). But I agree that we all also need to just be ok with what we are doing at the moment!!
Sending love 💕
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💕💕💕
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routines are so helpful but I’m definitely struggling to establish one now that school’s over – I want to start establishing a more organized blogging routine for sure. I recently revived my Feedly account and my basic starting goal is to check it every day and comment one at least 2-3 posts. 🙂
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I definitely feel that; without even online classes there’s nothing holding me to getting up before noon (and therefore going to bed at a reasonable hour) or to help me get into a workflow each day. but best of luck getting back into it! 💪🏻
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“loneliness hit hard, teaming up with the stress of finishing up my semester online to make me an unproductive lump hiding from the world.” MOOD. This sums up my past few months perfectly (not so much the loneliness on my part, but I think it’s because I’ve been dealing with people on a constant basis for so long, it’s actually been welcoming???). Sending you all the good vibes and that your motivation will return sometime soon! 💕
I definitely need to get back in the blogging routine, though. (I did some cleaning though? Small steps.)
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thank youuuu 💖
small steps indeed, life is hard and human interaction is exhausting (but also necessary tbh) and blogging is so much work. worth it, but so much work aaaaaaaaaaa
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I’m shocked that I managed to blog through finals! But really all that meant is that I let my reading fall through the cracks instead. I think for me blogging is the most structured yet fun thing that I do, and so I used my breaks from studying to blog because it helped me relax a bit.
And now that the semester is over and I have no summer plans, I’ve been blog hopping like crazy! I need to stay busy and I dislike doing activities for long periods of time, so blog hopping works perfectly! I can find a post, and comment on it then take a break and read or chat with friends before blog hopping some more.
I wish you the best of luck getting back into your blogging routine! Having taken a few unplanned hiatuses from my blog, I understand how daunting it seems to catch up on everything, so I hope you cut yourself some slack!
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that makes sense; I’m glad you figured out something that works for you! and it’s admittedly been a bit of a struggle, so I really appreciate your kind words 💕
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