Why is it that whenever you think you’ve kind of got everything sorted in your life, when everything is ticking along nicely and you just start to kick back and get comfortable with the status quo, that is the exact moment that the universe decides to throw you a massive curve ball?
I personally received a rather ginormous Shane Warne-style spinner right to where it hurts – my relationship – not that long ago (apologies for the mixed metaphors, sport really ain’t my thang!). And the fall out was both heart-breaking and chaotic.
But even though one area of my life was falling on it’s face (hard!), I was bloody-mindedly determined that it didn’t mean the first love of my life (my blog) was going to have a similar fate.
So now that the initial chaos has cleared, the brain fog has lifted, and life is doing what it does best (just going on..) I really wanted to share the tools and tricks I used to try and coast through the insanity, and the days when I could barely remember my own name, let alone the 101 things that you need to do daily to keep a blog (let alone two blogs… and a blogging school!!) running, just in case you also find yourself in a similar state of complete soul-crushing madness, or stuck in bed with the world’s worst case of the flu, or both!
Fingers and toes crossed that is not the case though of course!
How to (TRY TO) life-proof your blog!
1 – Get help, or at the very least get some guest posts!
One of the worst parts about having you brain completely hijacked by a single event, is that you literally cannot think about anything else. Let alone in any sort of witty or readable fashion (well I can’t anyway). Even worse when the particular subject of your constant obsessing has nothing to do with your blog’s topic in the slightest (somehow I don’t think that a post titled “The 10 best outfits to get divorced in” was really too on brand!).
So I decided it was best just to not blog at all! Instead I reached out to a few of my lovely blogging buddies and asked them to pitch in, which they were more than happy to do (another reason I love the blogging community), and I don’t think anyone really noticed!
2 – Try and have a stockpile of ever green content ready to go at all times
Another habit I have tried to get into over the last few years is to try and batch-create lots of ever green content that I can publish in place of my regular posts if I really need to. Things like my series of “Best advice ever” posts, which let me create 10 posts all at once (sneaky and genius… I know!), and has been a fantastic way to fill in the gaps.
This is also an awesome trick if you have some holidays coming up, or a busy time at work. It’s not just for freeing you up to spend your days eating Magnums by the box-full (mini ones, they are too cute to be calorific) and watching Sex & The City reruns!
3 – Refresh and replublish
Still have a few gaping holes in your editorial calendar? Why not refresh an old post.
Just trawl through the archives, click ‘edit’ on one you like, change the date to today’s date, publish, and voila! It’s not the best for SEO (might want to be selective with the ones you do republish), but it’s a great option if you don’t have the option of not posting at all. And it’s definitely better than just posting some weird-ass Haiku about the cracks in your ceiling (not that I know anything about that…. ahem…)
And you can even put a little intro paragraph up about how you were trawling through your old posts and refound and reloved this one, so had to share. No one will mind (and if they do, they are jerks!)
4 – Automation is your friend
The other areas that it can be hard to let slide are of course your social media platforms. You don’t want to lose your momentum, because it can be bloody hard to get back.
So this is where I would highly recommend making friends with something like Hootesuite or Buffer App (for Facebook, Twitter and Google +), and Remindagram for your Instagram (#flashbackfriday and #takemebacktuesday are your new best friends!), and just let the machines make it all happen for you.
Maybe even ask one of those aforementioned awesome blogging buddies to jump in and schedule some things for you, you can always pay them back with cupcakes once the world has righted itself again (which it will).
5 – Know that it is OK to not be perfect right now
And the last and probably most important thing to know, and it’s one that I probably found the hardest, was to know that it’s OK if you do let things slip a little when times get tough. For me personally I still needed to keep the blog rolling because that’s how I pay the bills, but I still realised that in the end it was far more important to let myself have the time that I needed to grieve and that trying to just push through it was not doing either myself, or my readers (or even my poor dogs!) any favours!
Image via dollarphotoclub.com
