"Bloglife"

"Who's that gut lord marching... you should cut down on your bloglife mate.. get some exercise!"

I've been thinking a lot about blog-life balance recently.  I know companies like to harp on about work-life balance.. how much they "care" about you, their employee.... are you getting home early enough?  Not taking work home with you?  Make sure you switch off when you leave the office you know.. just so long as you've put in an extra half hours work without claiming overtime, we'll be happy to encourage a healthy work-life balance!

What am I getting at exactly?

Well... I suppose it's the age old dilemma of how you go about fitting everything into your life without becoming a run down mess.  Many of us are familiar with Muso Dad who very recently gave up blogging and is currently taking a break from social media all together.  I can understand why he'd do this.  I've been blogging for years on and off, but it's really only in the last 6-8 months that I've made a real stab at it, trying to blog once a day, keeping an eye on stats, tweeting my posts, networking, making contact with other bloggers.. and it has to be said that at times it feels like work.

I'm a stay at home Mum.  Just because I don't go to a paid job doesn't mean I don't work though, as I'm sure any parent reading this will agree.  The majority of my day is bloody hard work.  When evening comes, I want...no, need to relax.  Whilst I love blogging and having a space to vent, it does sometimes feel like something I "have" to do if I want my blog to be a "success".

I suppose one answer would be not to care.  After-all, what am I doing it for if not for myself? What does it matter if no one reads?  It does though... Why would Google provide us with the ability to check our stats if no one was interested?  We humans are ego lead.  It's a great ego boost for me to know that a few people each day have popped by and read my thoughts, admired my photos, commented and perhaps even  (on occasion!) learned something or found something thought provoking.

No.  I can't not care about the stats.  I can't just do it for the love of it I'm afraid.  Maybe that makes me shallow.. I'm not sure.

Something I do try to do is not actually blog every day.  I tend to blog on Sunday and Wednesday evenings with the odd extra bits thrown in here and there.. I schedule a few blog posts.  The idea is that I then have some evenings where I'm not thinking about blogging.  This doesn't really work though.  I think this was something Muso Dad was struggling with as well.  It's very hard to switch off from blogging.  Even if you're not actually writing a post every day, if you want to do well, you have to keep the networking up which means dedicating time you're not writing to reading other people's blogs, or promoting yours via twitter or facebook.

I'm not ready to give blogging up.  I do love my blog.  I'm happy with my achievements, I love the fact I've made online friends with a lovely group of people.  I enjoy reading other blogs, getting ideas and being inspired. I'm just concerened about other areas of life.  My mental health, my physical health, my relationship with my husband (poor blog widower!).

I'm interested to know how other bloggers manage it?  So many of you seem to find far more time, both for blog posts and twitter.  Ethan hardly gives me any time away from him in the day.. even nipping onto twitter is an impossibility most of the time.  When he naps, I'm often out of the house and my phone gets a rubbish signal so I can't even do much then.. and that's if he does nap, which isn't that often!!

How do you all do it?  Answers on a postcard... or just the comment box ;-D