Keith Goodrum

Today is the 21st post of my getting back into the habit of blogging thing. I started this whole odyssey back on the 22nd of September in the blog post Let’s Break Some Rules… The rules were pretty simple:

So, I’ve decided to get the momentum back, and I have a plan. I’ve read many times that you can make or break a habit in 21 days. It’s pretty simple to explain, and tougher to follow through till the end.

Here it is in a nutshell: Any good habit you want to start, you just do it for 21 straight days. At the end of those 21 days you will have added that new habit to your life. Likewise for a bad habit. Just cut it out for 21 days & will be gone from your life.

So, I’m going to blog for 21 days & get back into the habit of writing. Not going to make this overly complicated with a bunch of rules. Just going to write a post & publish it… simple.

It took a little longer than 21 days because I skipped a day early in the challenge. So, I decided to start again from day one, and commit to finishing. It would have been easier to catch-up by writing a couple posts & publishing them one day. But, I wanted to create a habit of blogging daily.

I did learn a few things the past 21 days…

1. Setting a goal to blog for 21 days in it’s self is not a very good idea - I jumped into this with only the plan of writing daily. There was no purpose other than to write, and that made it difficult to get this done on several days. There was no master plan, or direction to the blogging. As I look back over the posts… they were all over the place.

2. Traffic increased by posting content - Once I did start posting on a regular basis the traffic started to return. I watched the Alexa score drop from just under 200,000 to 132,000. Even with the lack of focus there was a return of traffic. I wonder what the traffic stats would have looked like if I had narrowed the subject matter.

3. Less participation in the comments - Except for a few posts. the comments & emails have been less frequent per post. Once again I can attribute the lowering of participation to the subject matter of the posts being scattered.

What am I going to do with this information?

This is something I’ve been thinking about over the past few days a lot. And I’ve decided to spend a few days to put together a plan for this blog. It will be related to online marketing… I just haven’t decided the exact direction. But, it definitely be more focused than the past few weeks.

Feel free to leave your thoughts, or comments below.

Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t explain long absences from your blog…

Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t blog about things like your spouse or kids…

Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t blog about your dog…

Sorry… Gypsy!

Well, being conventional & wise are two things I’ve been accused of lacking a few times in my life… I’ve been anything but conventional at times… and I’ve certainly lacked wisdom every now & then!

The truth is this past month I haven’t felt like blogging much. The motivation to sit down & write was missing. So, I skipped a couple of days, then it turned into a week and each day I skipped it became easier to skip the next day… Before I knew it a month had passed.

Wow, that flew by quick!

I’ve been thinking about blogging again for the past week. But, boy it sure was tough to get back in the saddle again. You know we it’s easy to take the path of least resistance. And I can tell you not writing sure has been an easy path.

Momentum is a funny concept. Once you have it… it’s easy to keep it going. But once you stop, it’s a bear to get going again.

So, I’ve decided to get the momentum back, and I have a plan. I’ve read many times that you can make or break a habit in 21 days. It’s pretty simple to explain, and tougher to follow through till the end.

Here it is in a nutshell: Any good habit you want to start, you just do it for 21 straight days. At the end of those 21 days you will have added that new habit to your life. Likewise for a bad habit. Just cut it out for 21 days & will be gone from your life.

So, I’m going to blog for 21 days & get back into the habit of writing. Not going to make this overly complicated with a bunch of rules. Just going to write a post & publish it… simple.

Ok, I’ve made this goal public, so the pressure is really on. As a side note making your goals public is a great way to help your motivation. It adds a high level of accountability.

Here we go… one day down, twenty more to go!