Many blogs never make it past the first three months. The authors start with a flourish, then founder sometime between months two and three.
What happens? Is it to do with priorities? Effort? Lack of ideas?
My view is that it boils down to one thing – over thinking.
After a couple of months, a blog starts to develop an audience. The author starts to establish a rhythm and a consistency of voice. Comments start to come in and it becomes thrilling to engage with “your” audience.
But then there is a choking point. The authors lose their way – wanting to dramatically increase traffic, comments and subscriptions. There is an attempt to make each post better than the one before, and increasingly the “fun” of blogging begins to look more and more like WORK.
If this sounds familiar – then one technique to help you smash through the three month barrier is to remember that blogging is like writing with a thick marker. This is how Jason Fried from 37 Signals (see below) describes his idea sketching process. The aim is to NOT get buried in the details – and a thick marker is the tool designed for that very purpose.
Think of your blog as a thick marker – and each blog post a single idea designed to inspire, engage and stimulate. And then, sometime in the future, go back, write a whitepaper, create a presentation or write a book on the ideas that stick.
