Random Thoughts: Staying Focused
May 09
As bloggers it’s so very easy to get distracted from reading, reviewing and even blogging. I know, because I find myself getting distracted. All. The. Time. And while I don’t speak for all bloggers, or even any bloggers other than myself, I can’t imagine I’m the only one.
Just trying to keep up with the wealth of information that moves across our screens on Twitter is enough to distract us for hours a day. Checking our Facebook timelines for updates from publishers and authors or seeing what others in the blogosphere are talking about so that we don’t miss out on the latest and greatest can completely shift our focus away from the very reason we’re here in the first place – to read books and talk about them on our blogs.
And it’s just so easy to get caught up in the latest drama or get bogged down by the need to “keep up with the Jones’s.”
While some of this time is required – if, that is, you want your blog to have fresh content, be informative and up-to-date on all that is happening in the world of books and book blogging – and some of this time is needed – we can’t be reading and reviewing all the time – much of it is time better spent staying focused.
But it’s just so hard, isn’t it?
If we have very specific goals set for our blogs, then networking may be a very important part of what we do. But time spent reaching out to other bloggers, authors and publishers to develop relationships is very different than time spent griping about, oh… let’s say, movies on Twitter.
And while learning how we can improve our blogs by studying more established and/or successful ones than ours can be time well spent, any time spent as we try to swallow those sour grapes about someone who has achieved greater success than we have isn’t. And neither is time spent lamenting, “why not me.”
For those of us who are planners or are extremely organized, staying focused shouldn’t be as big of an issue. We have a plan. We stick to it. We get the job done. And even if we are distracted for a day or two… or more… we can easily get back on plan and refocus.
But for those of us who aren’t planners, who don’t think beyond our next post, getting distracted can be extremely detrimental. And once we’re distracted it can be even harder to get our focus back where it should be if we want to develop a “successful” blog.
While there is no set way to stay focused, keeping in mind our goals can be the best motivation to do so. Or if we haven’t set any goals, then perhaps coming up with a few can help us gain focus.
If our goal is to increase our follow count, then thinking up new ways to get followers – a new feature, hosting a giveaway, participating in a meme – might be a way to keep us on track. If our goal is to get more traffic to our site, then learning how SEO works or learning ways to market our blogs, could help keep us laser focused on our goals.
But if our goals are simply to enjoy what we’re doing, however we do it, and to make friends with other readers, bloggers and authors, then being distracted is probably the best way to achieve that goal. Because there’s no better way to make those friends than to be social and to be up-to-date on all the exciting news in the bookish community.
No matter what our ultimate goals are, if we want to be seen as consistent bloggers we have to – at least some of the time – have focus. We can’t be a book review blog if we don’t read and review books. We can’t be a promotional book blog if we don’t keep up with the latest news about books and promote those books on our blogs. We can’t be a giveaway book blog if we don’t offer up books for giveaway. And we can’t be seen as established book bloggers if we don’t consistently post on our blogs and keep at it for the duration.
Without focus our blogs won’t have a clear direction. They might not find their target audience. They might not develop an audience at all. Or they might lose the one they developed during those days when we were focused. And they might never grow to the level we want them to because we just can’t find our focus.
Blogging is work. As much of a hobby as it is because a majority of us don’t earn income from our blogs, it certainly doesn’t feel like a hobby. So distractions are often welcome from the thought, research, writing, editing, formatting, networking, marketing that we must do on a daily basis. But when those distractions take up more time than we spend on bettering our blogs, we may need to take a step back, gain some perspective and recommit ourselves to blogging.
Because if our problem has moved from simply staying focused to having lost focus all together, we may just need to take a day or two to step away from the social and give our blogs a little TLC.
As someone who isn’t a planner as far as my blog is concerned and who is easily distracted by whatever shines the brightest, I struggle with focus on a daily, and sometimes hourly, basis. But is it just me? Do you have a hard time remaining on track with so many fun distractions all around? Is Twitter more enemy than friend?
And what do you do to get yourself back on track? Or haven’t you figured that out quite yet?
I like this thought!;)))))))
Twitter definitely sucks me in big time. You think “I’ll just go check it really quick” and then an hour later you’re still there. For example, I’ve have The Immortal Rules staring at me for the past hour. Literally, the girl on the cover’s staring at me it seems lol. I’ve been on twitter, other blogs, goodreads this whole time and really only meant to do it for a minute and then get to reading.
What I tried doing this week is making a calendar on my Sunday Post so that followers know what to look for in the upcoming week…and so that I stay on track. It kind of forces me to keep up with things because I said I would do it. I also learned recently that on blogger you can schedule posts to go live at a certain time. I might start doing this so that I can make posts in advance on the weekend when I’m free. I agree that blogging doesn’t always feel like a hobby, but it definitely has it’s rewards. Even just my own reading experience has been enriched. I’ve gotten so many great book suggestions from the blogging community that I’m no longer at a loss for what to read next. This is a great post and definitely made me think. I have a “meme” that I do whenever I have a topic I’d like to discuss called Random Thoughts Thursday lol we should make it a real meme with more people.
I’ve had my Kindle fall asleep on the book I’m reading because my phone dings with a tweet and two hours later I haven’t gotten back to the book. Twitter is so dangerous!
Am checking out your Sunday Post when I’m done. I like that idea, though I’m one of those disorganized bloggers. It’s why I created My Reading Pile so at least I’d stay somewhat focused on the books I read each week. Aside from some of my weekly feature posts – Book Watch, Book Watch RTW and MRP – the other four days are always so random. I have no idea from week to week, unless I have a tour stop, what those other four days might contain. Sometimes a RT post, sometimes one of my other monthly features. Hopefully a review or two.
I knew about the scheduling of posts on blogger, though I never have posts planned ahead on those blogs so it doesn’t help me except for a matter of a couple hours. But it’s a great thing for the organized!
I love the bookish community and have purchased WAY too many books because of this community, but that’s not a bad thing.
And thanks! I try to be somewhat interesting with these Random Thoughts post topics, even though they are just so random.
Yeah, I’ve been doing these RT posts for about a year and a half now though I haven’t set them up as a meme as who’d want to ramble on endlessly about the topics I do? And oh, I just realized my 1.5 year blogoversary is tomorrow! Besides, I’m not very organized, LOL.
I often have too many random thoughts, though I can’t imagine making them a weekly feature as you have done as they actually come to me randomly. If I forced myself to think about something each week, it wouldn’t be so random, LOL! It would be thought out, planned, in which case I’d have no idea what I’d call them.
Oh I just checked out your weekly calendar – I WISH I had your organization. And your Random Thoughts Thursday post topic is really interesting – the new adult genre.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about staying focused.
I’m a huge planner and I still sometimes lose focus. Sometimes we need that little bit of a break, b/c you are right, blogging isn’t really a hobby its a job! Even if we do it for fun, its still a job to keep it all running smoothly and to keep the posts posted.
What I like to do in those cases is take the whole weekend off, I just did that this past weekend just to take a breather and now I’m back at it blogging away!
Great post, I love how much thought you put into this!
I like to think that I plan things out ahead of time, but I do get easily distracted. Sometimes I go on Goodreads and ,before I know it, A LOT of time has passed and I haven’t read anymore of the book I’m supposed to be reading! I’m trying to work on that, though, so we’ll see how it goes.
Oooooh I LOVE you so much!!!!
I just can’t *focus* to save my damn life dude!!!!!
I’m feeling ‘okay’ about it right now! Sometimes I REALLY let it get to me, because I feel like I’m letting EVERYONE down… when really I just expect WAY more out of myself- and no one else probably even cares!!
*sigh*
When you figure out how to keep focused… TELL ME!!
Wow! what a great post. you’re good!
I’m always distracted, mostly because I have ADD so it’s in my genetic nature to be distracted. Get me on my medication and I’m a focus machine! lol But because of this it’s taught me to push through when I’m not focus.
I kind of do a work & reward system. I push myself to study or review or even do some math problems and then I can chill for 10-15 minutes doing what I need to online or focus on the tv programming I’ve missed early on (thank you DVR! haha)
But lately, ADD or not, I’ve got finals so my focus is mostly study, flashcards, memorize, and repeat as necessary till friday, when my brains is going to fall out
Anyway, on the book side of things… because of my ADD, if a book cannot keep my attention, my brain starts kicking into gear and think of everything else, even in mid sentence. So then I have to re-read what I just read. This is a huge reason it can take me 2x’s as long to get a book done.
So due to my focus situation planning ahead is a MUST! I’ve already got book review outlines set up with the book info, the cover, etc… this way all the nitty gritty is out of the way and just have to focus on writing up the review and pasting it into my post. It’s some of the tricks I’ve learned in not getting disorganized, which I’m famous for in my daily life (i.e. – my bedroom! yikes!)
Anything social networking is my utter distraction. I visit one too many sites, so instead of just going on for an hour, I’m sometimes on for 5-6 hours, like yesterday! This happens all the time my medication dissipates from my system, so I have to keep a close eye and work on time management.
But because of my ADD, I do see aspects differently, yet in a more creative sense too. It’s taught me how to not over work myself, yet at the same time I’ve learned to work under pressure without having to flip out like a maniac. It’s blessing and a curse.
So I guess one way to avoid stuff is to just turn off the internet altogether… unplug from it by first shutting off the cell phone. I do it all the time (no reception at my house!) and then I unplug the airport. Disconnecting can in fact be very healthy. It was awesome last August when NY got hit hard with the hurricane. Had no electricity for almost a week. Finished “The Help” in that time frame and almost started another book.
The things one can accomplish with no distractions….
Gosh, I’ve been having a really, really hard time focusing lately. I was kinda forced to take some time off from the blog due to personal reasons, and did only like two posts within two weeks or so. Ever since then, I’ve found it hard to refocus and it’s not like I don’t love blogging, I really do. I have been reading quite a bit, but am having a tough time actually putting my thoughts down. Writing my review for Fugitives took me several weeks and it was rough. Anyway, though, I don’t want to complain.
I’m trying to get my groove back – maybe working on some covers for the Demon Eyes challenge will help, since it doesn’t involve having to write anything. *lol* Anyway, I love your post!!! 
I definitely have problems focusing. In fact, I keep saying I’m going to officially “launch” my blog (whatever that means, maybe post some reviews), but I keep getting distracted by wanting it to look perfect, and have everything ready.
I’ve tried to help with my natural tendency to procrastinate and get distracted by shiny things by stocking up reviews for older books, so that I can post them when I’m behind. I’ve also scheduled some meme posts, about two months out.
A few of the memes — It’s Monday! What Are You Reading and Sunday Summary — are going to be helpful for making me do some work. It’s kind of embarrassing to put the same books up every week, seeing how further behind I’m getting. So hopefully that will keep me from getting distracted too much.
I’ve had this focus problem, especially recently. It took me a while to figure out what exactly I wanted my blog to be, and now that I’ve decided I’ve been trying to make up for the lack of marketing and social aspects in my early blogging – and I somehow squeezed out the reading. I used to be a book-a-day girl, and now I’m finding it hard to manage 2 in a week. It’s definitely difficult to find a balance, and I think we all struggle with it all the time. Unfortunately the biggest problem for me is self-control, so I’ve had to buy an app that actively locks me away from either social media, or the internet altogether, for when I really BADLY need to focus. It really does help, and I’d recommend it to anybody who has the same problem.
Yes, I get distracted all of the time. I’m not much a social network person, but I get caught up spending a lot of time reading other blogs and sometimes reading the timelines on Twitter.
Great post!
I don’t think this was a random thought at all…BUT
Exactly…right now, I’m freaking out.
I thought I was getting the hang of things, posting reviews 1, 2 or 3 a week and wednesdays with Bookography and then Saturdays with MRP and sundays with Stacking the Shelves and in between the new feature I’m trying to maintain in the blog called ‘Cover Obsession’ BUT my life is really spontaneous, one day I’ll be at home and the next…not lol I think it has a lot to not having a job and both my parents having business of their own instead of an employment thing going on…so from out of nowhere we disappear and I don’t even have the time to post or say on my blog that I won’t be around for a certain period of time, so I guess it’s a good thing my blog is little and doesn’t have that many followers…I’d be in some serious trouble if it was…
Take this week for example…I do get distracted A LOT, specially on twitter…maybe that’s why I only ever try to be there at night when I’ve already thought and maybe done whatever I had thought to post on my blog…so then I can just relax and stalk you, I mean, stalk my twitter feed…
Back to this week-sorry T_T I have the concentration span of a pillow- I was going work on my Divergent review and had it written at LEAST by today(Friday) and I haven’t even written the tittle of the post, I thought I’d be able to post my Bookography and couldn’t because all of a sudden we have tons of things to do lol
and then today…mami’s day…and now I’ve gone like 3 days without posting anything and I’m thinking I’m back again to the random review post and the likes…I was really liking posting like that on the blog…random reviews and Kristina’s meme along with Tynga’s and later Mist & I made a meme out of your MRP posts which I have to ask…is it okay??? hehe I enver asked you if I could even do it T_T …
and now…I feel like I’ve taken 2 steps back from the 1 I had taken forward :/
I can only imagine the craziness that my blogoversary posts are going to be!
I think I need help on my ‘FOCUS’ thing :/
I would love to be able to plan. I do to an extent, but to be honest, before I started my blog, I didn’t really know what it would be like, and I just dove in. If I had known then how overwhelming it can get, I would have scheduled up like a months worth of posts before making my blog public, but I didn’t. Now I do find it a bit of a struggle sometimes. Twitter is one of those things that really helps and hurts you at the same time. I love twitter, I love my bloggy friends and authors, I love getting the word out there about my blog posts, but it can be a total time suck too. I spend hours just stalking twitter and chatting with people and wonder why it’s taking so long to finish a book. Great post!