Shooting Thoughts: The Struggle to Juggle

Posted November 19, 2014 by shooting in Uncategorized / 11 Comments

Welcome back to Shooting Thoughts, my randomly posted discussion post! Today I want to talk about trying to fit it all in – blogging and life.

The Struggle to Juggle

I’ve been meaning to talk about this topic for awhile now, but I was really inspired when I started a new job a couple weeks ago. At the moment, I work 20 hours a week at that job, between 8 and 9 1/2 hours at my other job (I scaled down some hours when I got this new job), and I’m a full-time graduate student with all my classes online (3 classes is full-time). Add in regular life with family and friends and blogging, I’m pretty busy. So far, I’m doing okay with reading for fun which is nice for the blog and keeping somewhat up to date on book reviews. But it’s still difficult..hence the fact that I didn’t have anything posted between last Wednesday and Monday. Sorry about that, by the way. I’m trying to at least fill up MWF, especially with scheduling ahead of time, but again, it’s still hard.

I’d love to know what things in your life that you have to juggle along with being a blogger. Some of you post something almost every weekday and I just don’t know how you do it! I’m sure people definitely utilize the schedule function, like I have been trying to do, but even then, you have to find time to write up reviews and all sorts of other posts. I’m lucky in that I focus on a variety of things for my blog, so I don’t have to worry about just book reviews or other book-related items. Like I said above, I’m currently doing okay with my reading but I’m not some super fast reader. If I can get one book read a week, that would be great. Sometimes it’s two if I read a graphic novel or something smaller. I’m trying to keep up with book reviews as much as I can, so I can space them out, but for all the other empty days, I need to come up with something to post.

Besides scheduling posts ahead of time, how else do you juggle all your responsibilities with being a blogger and all other aspects of your life? My long-time job was nice enough to let me take a day off each week to make time for my new job and class. They know the new job is important because it’s a temporary position within an academic library, and my long-time job is a public library. Since I’m mixing my classes between public and academic, it’s good to get as much experience as I can. Working a lot and still trying to read, do homework, and work on projects for class is overwhelming sometimes though. I need to get a lot of sleep and try and do things ahead of time. I try not to plan too much on certain days if I know I need to do a lot of reading or something is due soon.

Anyway, I don’t want to ramble on and on about my own life. I’d love to hear what you juggle and how you deal with it!

11 responses to “Shooting Thoughts: The Struggle to Juggle

  1. It can be really hard to juggle reading, blogging, commenting, family, friends, and still having time for all the other things you need to do throughout the day, say like sleep LOL! Some weeks/months I do way better than others and I sadly think it will always be a struggle but it is a fun one and while blogging is still fun, I will keep at it.

  2. I've actually been thinking about writing about this because this year it's been a particular struggle for me. Today I decided to get caught up on commenting which means I'm not getting blog posts wrote up, but oh well, I seem to manage. Last Sunday I didn't have a post and stressed. I ended up getting a book review up for a children's book but it was in the middle of the day, which is unusual for me.
    I work from home and am a mother. So managing to do it all is hard. I don't know how people do it when they work outside the home, have school, etc. Sometimes you just have to scale back and I don't think you should feel bad if you have to do that.

  3. For a split second I totally thought this was legitimately about being able to juggle. Like with actual batons or something. Anyway! I pretty much can't. LOL. I try scheduling but it never works, I always have a slow period of time when I catch up to the scheduled posts and then I'm messed up again. So now I only post when I can and I think I'm coming to terms with it. People are really understanding about life 🙂

  4. I juggle various minute-notice deadlines for online media, magazines, and newspapers; helping to take care of my nephews {5 and 3}; and job-searching. As a freelancer, you have to be ready at a moment's notice to drop everything and work on a story – fun, yes; but it definitely requires juggling.

    xx

  5. Lucky or unlucky in that because of my various disabilities I don't work and so am able to devote my time to blogging and yet I still find myself weighed down and juggling things from time to time. I have seen several posts in which bloggers are talking about reconsidering the nature of their blogs.

  6. I've read a few posts the art few weeks telling bloggers to stop apologizing and I realize we all do it as we struggle to find balance.

    I'm really trying to not to worry about it anymore. I just so happened to be on a roll with reading/reviewing and had all of October booked but now I don't have anything scheduled past today.

    Karen @ For What It's Worth

  7. I'm a full-time teacher. I keep a to-do list for all aspects of my life so I can cross things off. Sometimes I'm slightly behind, but weekends and holidays are a great time for me to get ahead.

  8. I struggle all the time to get stuff up, but I decided I'm not going to stress about it any more if I can't get something up every day. Some people are just way more organized (and disciplined) than I am. I am a huge procrastinator with a tendency to fart around on the internet too much. lol

  9. For me I have plenty of time to blog. I don't work, or have kids, so I am pretty much open. I never know how people do it who work. I did recently have a hard time reading so that made me get behind in blogging. You would be surprised but even not working sometimes I have nothing to blog about. I wouldn't worry too much about not getting up a lot of posts in one week. I think you have a pretty loyal following so you will be just fine!

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