NaBloPoMo – Day 6 – National Blog Posting Month – Quantity – Quality – Nothing At All?

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 22555 – 868

Here’s the haps:

Different people over time have made the comment, either in person or in the comments section of a post, that perhaps keeping a blogging schedule, especially a daily blogging schedule, is not a good idea. But over the years I have discovered that if I don’t have a deadline, I don’t get anything done. It’s not just blogging, it’s my whole life. If I know I have a deadline to meet I may procrastinate up until the goal is close but then, in a flurry of activity, I manage to do the thing. Sometimes I have deadlines imposed on me by outside forces and other times I must force it on myself. If it’s the latter then I have to make it something so severe in my own mind that I don’t realize that I can put it off a little longer. If the pressure is external I am likely to feel more obligated to do the thing.

This blog is a good example of my personality in general when it comes to time management. If I don’t feel the urgency to blog I can go for months and even years without making a post. Many of my newer readers have seen me go several weeks without posting. This practice does make it easy for someone to catch up if they want to but it also bores people and they drift away and stop following you.

So, while, as one person put it in a recent comment, it can be perceived that I care more about quantity than quality, in my specific case, if I don’t produce something, even mindless drivel, I wind up not producing anything at all. Whereas if I have forced a goal upon myself that gets me in a dither if I don’t complete it, I wind up creating something. Sometimes when I accidentally produce quality in amongst the stuff I give myself a gold-star moment but if I write nothing at all, or wait until I can craft something perfect, I become despondent and agitated and go into a funk that lasts very long periods of time and start to cycle downward instead. And while it is true that to produce posts that are just posting images of my sense of humor or old things I found in a folder somewhere is not, perhaps, quality work, I still have done something, which was better than nothing.

After NaBloPoMo will you see me again on a daily basis? That remains to be seen (like what I did there?), especially coming into this holiday season but I need goals and deadlines.

So, thank you all for coming by and looking at and reading my stuff and commenting. Here are a few memes that kind of fit. I would have done more…

25 Comments

  1. When I was in college I would start my papers fifteen minutes before the class when they were due. I never missed a deadline, but it did get stressful when the printer wasn’t working.

  2. So true. So true. “If I don’t have a deadline, I don’t get anything done.” I often feel that way too, even though there’s a competing sentiment in my mind against such a rush to complete a task. Handling our own writing schedule is like managing a chaotic team of 10 people. It’s not easy.

  3. Deadlines do seem to focus the mind – although a focussed mind is not always what is required – and, of course, the best part of meeting a deadline is the moment when you extend it…

  4. Since October I have a bit less work for the first time this year and thought I would get lots of blogging & writing done. Guess what? I think I got even less done … 🙁

  5. No bueno. A friend has been getting bad grades in school. When asked why? The reply was procrastination. They could get better grades if they tried but the type of work is their wellness so they are avoiding…. Not all procrastination is bad though…. You’re right☺️🤔

  6. I was going to write this comment a couple of days ago but decided it would have mor impact now. That’s not Procrastinating That’s Timing. It’s all in how you word it
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    Life’s a bitch! Laugh anyway

  7. I don’t deal with pressure well which is why I like to do things in advance of a deadline. However, I write things down in a day timer to make sure I get things done – otherwise, not much happens. I guess we’re all weird little creatures.

  8. Here I am, nearly a month late. ‘Nuff said.

    I started blogging with a weekly deadline, and it has worked for me. Some weeks get better writing than others, but I have gone almost 6.5 years without missing a deadline. My procrastination sounds like yours, so that weekly deadline has been crucial.

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