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Do you let blog-traffic slow down your own work?

Click on the pic: Keep watching the cars!

I’ve been thinking about writing a post about blog traffic for a while. It’s something that I’ve found quite hard to deal with recently, and eventually I had to stop and ask myself why I’m spending so much time on ‘traffic’ that my own posts and creative work are suffering. Of course it’s lovely to receive comments about one’s posts, and I appreciate every single one. I also enjoy sharing, and getting to know other bloggers, and following other blogs. But recently the scales seem to have tipped and I’ve started to feel that traffic is controlling me rather than me controlling it. If nothing else it’s definitely been slowing down my own work.

In my in-box of a morning (as I’m sure there is in yours too) there are:

1.New Posts from Blogs I follow

2.Likes for my blog posts

3.Comments on my posts

4.Other emails

Sometimes it seems quite daunting having to deal with possibly 30 – 40 emails. But I feel I have a responsibility to those who have made the effort to send me a nice comment, and equally I like to return the compliment and look at their posts. I hate the thought of offending or upsetting people, when, after all, they have taken the time to read and comment on one of my posts. A friend of mine who was saying she has the same problem came up with a very good point. If the emails we receive every day were dropping onto our desk in old-fashioned paper form, we’d never get through them. They’d be stacked up to the ceiling and falling all over the floor within days.

My own analogy was of a sailor who finds his boat full of water every morning. He has to bail it all out before he can go sailing. Trouble is he spends so much time bailing that there’s little time left for the very thing he wants to do – to sail.

I decided recently that I had to take a different line and get very selective in the way I deal with email. The wheat from the chaff so to speak. Even though I’d like to read all the chaff I just don’t have the time. So I decided:

1.It’s just not possible to look at every new post on the blogs I follow and make a comment, so I need to select a chosen few to ‘Like’ or comment on each day.

2.Mentally thank everyone for a ‘Like’ on my posts.

3.Write a thank-you to everyone who has given me a comment.

Another aspect of blogging which can take up a large amount of time is awards and things like ‘You’ve been tagged’. Initially I groan when I receive one, then I feel guilty for feeling that way, then I try to fit it in. Maybe the hardest part is nominating sometimes up to fifteen other bloggers from my ‘Blogs I Follow’ list – which is about forty-five, and growing. I’m sure some people follow a lot more than that. I know that some of the bloggers on my list don’t participate in awards, and lots have the award already, therefore reducing the options of who I can nominate. I then feel uncomfortable about nominating the same people for further awards – assuming maybe incorrectly that they may not want the extra work of an award either!

Funnily enough I read this post yesterday:

http://sillyfrogsusan.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/to-dabble-or-not-to-dabble/

An excellent post and it made me feel better about my own feelings with regard to blogging and how I see my responsibility to other bloggers. My first responsibility should be to my own creative stuff – after all that’s why I started it in the first place. Somehow along the way that was getting lost.

I’d love to hear your thoughts – if you have time!