What did I learn when I stopped blogging?

FIVE MONTHS ago I stopped blogging. After two years of exploring and writing about social media, online operations and strategy, and finding my way back to work in a new and exciting area that had opened up while I was mostly distracted by small children and their demands, I wasn’t making the progress that I wanted to. Mostly I was not achieving the aim to spend time with the children while earning my keep, and I felt it was time to stop and take stock and look at new directions and new opportunities.

On reflection, stopping probably wasn’t the best idea, but it certainly has given me the chance to think and the opportunity to refocus my goals for my self, my partner and our family.

Where the time has gone I am not sure, but once there is a whiff of cooler air under the sunshine and the promise of Autumn days in the crisper mornings, that back-to-school frisson means change and opportunity for us all. With our ‘little’ girl off into Year 3 carrying her One Direction school and lunch bags, and our still little boy heading off for reception with his over-sized waterproofs he can barely pull on for himself, times change for us all.

Time to kick off the sand and slouchiness of a wonderful summer full of fun, friends and picnics. Time to start September energised and motivated and ready for action.

Some things I learned when I stopped blogging

• To be present for the children more has been great, to focus on them and what they have to say for themselves without distractions has been a real treat. At 7 and 4 they are completely their own people with developed personalities, they are funny and they are fun to be with most of the time.
• I have a fundamentally lazy personality. I was the one finishing homework on the way to school, I didn’t put in the effort I should have done with my A levels having already bagged my place at Oxford, and things around the house are always being done just in time.
• My time management skills need to step up at the same time my browsing time online needs to be curtailed and contained. Removing a regular commitment to writing and publishing didn’t exactly leave me with a full backlog of dynamic posts waiting for an airing.
• The discipline of sitting down to write and having the space to do that is important; writing and rewriting until it comes out right is fine, but it is critical to commit to writing for a certain amount of time each day to learn and to develop.
• Blogging for me isn’t the main aim; the intention for me blog is to support my marketing services business, to showcase what I know and what I learn, and at the same time to add some personality which demonstrates the context of the work I am doing; this blog is intended to support my client work and to gain more client work, so I need to focus it that way.
• I will have more hours available more consistently – at least through term-time – and so I need to be more mindful of the time that I spend working, to achieve work goals in work time and to still be present for the children when they are home, as we have seen it is more fun that way.
• I need to remember this and maintain focus and remember that when I stopped blogging I missed it, that blogging is an important part of my working life and that it needs to find its right-sized place with the other things that I do.

Enough about what happened when I stopped blogging; I hope you will read and enjoy and come with me as I find out what happens when I start up again.