This post topic kind of came about as a joke at work. I have this book titled, "How to Manage Your Boss". I added that book to a bunch of other ones on my desk and one of my co-workers found it can gave it too my boss. She and everyone else got a big laugh out of it and gave me a little ribbing. Well, the other day my boss sent me a link to Seven Tactics to Manage Yourself because well, I guess I need to be my own boss. And as I read through them I knew that they could be adapted to help bloggers manage being their own boss as well.
We often get caught up in making sure that we manage our time, money and other people. But what about stepping back and managing yourself. This ability will determine the extent of your career success so don't overlook this important concept. Take action today. Here are the Seven Tactics to Manage Yourself for bloggers.
1. Establish a Professional Network - In your professional network you should have people who are Maintainers and Propellers. A Maintainer is a person who will help you get the job done effectively. In the blogging world those are the technical gurus who can help you fix a theme, write some code and even figure out widgets. A good Maintainer is worth their weight in gold. A Propeller is someone who is going to push you into a new area so you can grow and develop as a blogger. This is the person who is pushing the boundaries and encouraging you to do the same. They are always ahead of the game and are challenging. Each person adds value to your blogging career and so you should have a good mix of both in your network.
2. Set up your own Board of Advisers - Your Board should have three individuals. They can be a spouse, parent, childhood friend, mentor, coach or anyone else who knows you and cares about your growth and success. Each person should provide you with a different element to help you insure success. The three elements are clarity, comfort and challenge. One person should be able to provide you with clarity in regards to your ideas. If you are having trouble expressing something they can cut things down to the core meaning. The second person will make you feel comfortable with the choices you have made and your growth as a blogger. They encourage you and tell you to go for it. The third person is a person who will challenge you to move beyond your comfort zone and can help you when real challenges arise.
3. Identify Your Symbols of Significance - What fulfills you, is it money and power? What if those are not motivating factors for your blogging. Maybe you are a photo blogger and it jazzes you up to have others favorite your photos. Or maybe you feel significant when you have a high number of people reading your blog. For me, the best feeling is when someone leaves a great comment on one of my posts. For someone to take the time to stop, read my blog post and make me a comment, well that is the best feeling. For me numbers are just numbers true interaction is what is key.
4. Schedule Time with Yourself - You might schedule time for blogging, family and work but what about time for yourself. Schedule one hour a week with yourself, unplug from the computer as it causes distractions. Take a pen and pad of paper with you to a place where you can be productive. This meeting will be important for a couple of reasons. First you should identify two things that you are doing that support your success as a blogger. The second thing is to identify two things that you would like to do over the next 6 months to make your blogging stronger and more a part of your everyday life. Keep a record of the meeting. You can transfer your notes from the pad to a file on your computer. That way if you need to refer back to them to stay motivated you can easily review those goals.
5. Replenish Yourself - Give yourself some rewards and recognition. If you are making money blogging, take some of that money and buy yourself something nice, something that you can see and touch and say, this is here because of my hard work. Or maybe you take a day off after some grueling weeks of blogging. Maybe you've done some elaborate contest and it was very successful, reward your work with a little time off. You've earned it.
6. Write Your Own Review - Many bloggers write reviews of products, blogs and anything else you can think of. But what about yourself and your blog. Once a year I have to write my own review at work. I have to write up my strengths and weaknesses and what I can work on to improve for the future. I suggest that you do this as a blogger. Where did you excel this past year? Where were you weak? Is it time to change the blog theme and shake things up a bit? Or are things running well. Look at your blog critically and write a review of it as you would write a review of another blog and blogger. Make six month and one year goals for the blog. Save your reviews and refer back to them during each year's review.
7. Hold Positive Thoughts - If you think you are a failure then you are right. If you think that you can do amazing things then you probably will. I keep a file of all the e-mails of praise that I get at work. That way I refer back to them when I am having one of those tough days. You could do the same thing. Did you get a great comment on your blog? Did someone write a glowing review of your blog? Was one of your posts stumbled and you got 7000 visitors in one day. Take a screenshot of that and save it in a file that you can refer to often. Positivity goes a long way in being successful.
If you can think of some other tactics to help manage yourself and to become a better blogger please leave a comment and let me know.
Drew writes four blogs, is an avid kayaker and a Transformers fan, he also does a mean cake plow. He recently completed taking 1170+ consecutive photos in 1170+ days. You can visit him at The BenSpark, The Wired Kayaker, Read To Me, Dad, Google is not God.
