June was a busy month for me: I got back into working on my Secret New Novel draft (which won’t be Secret for much longer!), I had a few editing jobs that needed finishing, and I’m *still* unpacking and organizing after my move back in April.
As a result, I realized that I needed a blogging break, and took the last two weeks of June off. For several years now, I’ve been blogging regularly every week with very few weeks missed, but during June, blogging felt less important than the other, more urgent matters demanding my attention.
Of course, the world didn’t come to an end because I didn’t blog for two weeks. Instead, I felt more in control of my workload, and felt like I was prioritizing based on what needed to be done.
The two week break also got me thinking more about how I structure my time in general. With so many things I’d like to do, is the 1.5-2 hours per week I spend on this blog worth it, or could that time be better spent on other things?
Perhaps more importantly, on a personal level, what am I getting out of keeping a regular Day Job blog? Does it help people find my work? Am I reaching people who find these posts interesting? Is it helping me hone But I Also Have a Day Job into a nonfiction book, which is a project I’d really like to start someday? Or, does the mere act of sitting down to blog every week improve my writing skill? Or my sense of self-discipline?
Let’s address each of these questions one at a time…
Does the Day Job Blog help people find my work?
Kind of. In the years since I’ve been keeping this blog, it’s been getting a steady uptick of traffic from Google. When people search for things like Japanese Campus notebooks or toxic work environments or being a Renaissance Man or going to work on two hours of sleep, my posts on these topics come up pretty highly, which is really cool.
But, are those people sticking around to read more, or following my work after they find it? I have a pretty high bounce rate and a low time on page rate for this blog (which I can check via Analytics), but I do get some traffic that sticks around, and some followers trickling in.
However, is this enough to justify 1.5-2 hours per week during times when I’m really busy? Probably not.
Am I reaching people who find my posts interesting?
Sharing my work with people who genuinely enjoy it is really important to me, and one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place (and the main reason why I write in general). This blog has helped me start really fulfilling conversations with people in my life and a handful of strangers, which is super-rewarding. Others, I’m sure, reflect on the things I share but never reach out to tell me, which is of course fine—that silent enjoyment is a big part of how we enjoy art, after all.
But more and more, I wonder: could that 1.5-2 hours per week that I spend writing and posting here be better spent writing and editing a novel, other writing, or even other creative work that I can share with people who would enjoy it?
I think often about not writing as much, or as quickly as I’d like, and can’t help but wonder whether I could spend my blogging time making progress on other, potentially bigger projects that would reach more people—and getting those projects out much sooner.
Is this blog helping me hone But I Also Have a Day Job into a nonfiction book?
The answer to this used to be YES in all caps. Since 2016 I’ve been toying with the idea of a nonfiction book about how creative people keep the bills paid, the mindset required to do this, and the social forces that make this difficult in the 21st century. The book would be part social examination, part how-to guide, and part autobiography, and my original plan was to reflect on my different ideas as blog entries first before ultimately writing them as a for-serious book that I could pitch to agents.
While I still REALLY want to start But I Also Have a Day Job: The Book within the next few years, more recently I’ve been sensing a disconnect between the posts I’m actually writing, and what kind of writing would ultimately end up in the book. Whereas my early, fundamental posts on budgeting, commuting, and living two lives at once felt like seminal aspects of how to work a Day Job lifestyle as a creative person, more recent posts about double-booking, my teaching hustles, and even going outside every day feel…less like something that I’d actually put in a book.
Does the mere act of sitting down to blog every week improve my writing skill?
The answer to this is a pretty clear No. I write most of these posts on auto-pilot, using skills I already have in ways that feel more or less comfortable, so on any given post, I’m more or less writing what I know. (This is in direct contrast to working on a novel, which is always a new adventure and requires me to go through major thought processes and skill honing.)
If anything, I worry that blogging too much can actually make me lazy: by spending a fair percentage of my writing time every week producing blog posts that follow a formula, I’m reinforcing bad habits that can detract from more mentally involved projects.
I will say, though, that I find value in reflecting on all of the topics I write about, even if it’s only for an hour or two every week. This reflection is incredibly important to me, even if the topics are small, and writing about them even in a simple, blogging way, feels like I’m developing a better understanding of the world.
Is blogging every week improving my sense of self-discipline?
At one time, the answer to this also would have been a resounding YES in all caps. When I was first becoming more self-motivated and organized, setting a promise and deadline of blogging every week helped keep me focused on my writing (even if it was just blog writing), instead of getting carried away with Other Life Responsibilities. This was REALLY important for keeping my mind and work where it needed to be, and for that, I’m grateful.
In more recent years, though, I’ve already honed those habits. I know how to set a schedule for myself and plan my writing progress without self-imposed weekly deadlines to keep me going. I’ve won that victory, and those skills aren’t going away.
So…Where Do I Go Moving Forward?
Reflecting on the questions above have made it pretty clear that at one time, working on this blog was a major part of my development as a writer and a creative person, as well as my understanding of the world around me and my push toward other goals. While a lot of those things are still true to some extent, it doesn’t quite have the same impact now that it did in 2016 or 2017.
My main worry, though, is that time and energy I spend in this blog is time and energy I could be spending on other things that would not only help me progress in the direction I want to move in, but would be more mentally and developmentally fulfilling.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly: it’s not the 2000s anymore, and people use the internet differently now. In 2007 when I started my first non-LiveJournal blog, there were no smartphones, YouTube was barely a thing, and Facebook was the only social media game in town. Things have changed.
With all that in mind, I won’t be giving this blog up entirely, but you can expect my blogging frequency to drop down a bit. How often exactly I’ll be posting here, I’m not sure, but this feels like the right move for a new stage in my creative career, and a way of facing new challenges yet to come.