I’m going rogue for this week’s Let’s Talk Bookish and jumping back to a prompt that I missed from July? Yep, that far back!

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Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits, and it’s where we get to discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! If you want to join in the bookish discussion fun, check out the July 2022 prompts and for November 2022 to check out today’s prompt!

Now without further ado… The topic asks us about:

Balancing blogging and life

(SUGGESTED BY ARIA @ BOOK NOOK BITS)
Prompts: How do you manage balancing blogging and life? In what ways do school and work get in the way of blogging? Are there any ways that blogging can help with everyday life? Are there certain times of year when blogging becomes harder or more overwhelming?

Balancing blogging and life

Since I started this blog, I think I’ve gone through phases with how well I manage to balance blogging and life. I don’t really have very much of an “active” life to begin with—and by that I mean I’m not super social since I don’t have many close friends in the country, and neither do I have a partner or kids or any other major obligations outside of work! With my time being mostly ‘me-time’, it’s definitely easier for me to balance blogging and everything else.

I’ve always prepared a post for every day of the week but at the start, I would occasionally even post more than once a day! That led to me burning out after a while and I took a blogging break because it just wasn’t sustainable with work (and at the time I was making daily bookstagram posts too). I think it’s just about being smart and knowing what works for you and not trying to compete with others—some people have the time, energy and drive to do the most and if that works for you, that’s awesome! But it’s 100% okay to not do the same.

Work gets in the way-ish

For the most part, I don’t think work gets in the way of my blogging because I usually focus on it after work hours. There have been times when I’ve been too tired to write up a post on the day because I’m terrible at scheduling ahead but as far as I can recall I don’t think it’s happened too often.

Whether work (or even life) gets in the way of blogging depends on my situation at any given time. During the pandemic, I was working part-time and had ample hours to read, blog and engage. Earlier this year when I became unemployed and went to India for three months, I had much less blogging time as I had a more active social life. And now that I’m employed full-time with a busy work schedule and a (roughly) 2-3 hour daily commute, it’s more about whether or not I have the mental energy to write and blog hop at the end of every day.

If anything, I’m still mostly able to get my posts up on a daily basis, I just find myself blog hopping less and not immediately responding to comments which frustrates me sometimes because I really miss the engagement side of blogging!

A positive addition to my everyday life!

Although blogging takes up a lot of time and energy, I love what it brings to my life. It helps me relax (mostly, lol) and allows me to create connections with like minds and even make new friends. I love the routine of blogging every day and checking my email and reader feed to read what people are posting and to catch up on what’s going on in everyone’s (reading) lives. I would feel like a huge part of my life would be missing without this blog and even though it’s maybe it’s not as ‘optimal’ as I’d hoped it would be or as it once was, I still love what it brings to my life.

The months of feeling slumpish…

I actually have noticed that there are periods in a year when I go through blogging slumps and I’ve noticed that it can be linked to weird reading moods or reading slumps. This usually happens around March/April/May and I also find that it sometimes happens around July/August, too! I really don’t know why it gets more difficult to blog during these times but I did notice that the few instances I’ve taken blogging breaks or an extended hiatus it’s been around these months. The longest that a blogging slump has lasted is about 4 months and although I needed the break, it was really weird not blogging or coming online as often! 😂

How do you balance blogging and life? Do you find it’s a struggle sometimes or do you mostly have a good system worked out? Do you find it harder to blog at certain times of the year?

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