What To Do When You Don’t Have Anything To Say

Daily Blog Tips is running a community posting project about blogging mistakes.  I’ve decided to participate by writing this post on how I learned from my mistake of rushing posts when I didn’t have anything good to say because I was tired, not motivated or bloggerblocked.

I’ve alluded before that I think blogging is one of those things that require a lot of thought before you put the proverbial pen to the proverbial paper.  And, I’ve also posted about how to brainstorm when you are stuck.  But, what happens when you just can’t seem to focus with the task at hand–that is, write something insightful for your readers?

My suggestion would be to take some time out and read some material outside of your niche.  See if you can incorporate some connection between really diverse subjects and your niche.  Make it a game–go to the bookstore and randomly pick 10 diverse magazines off the magazine rack (e.g., flyfishing, hockey, stamp collecting, computers, trashy mag, politics, business, art design, photography, home decorating).

Go off the wall in your thinking on how you can connect the topic of a magazine with your niche.  Don’t leave the store until you’ve ticked off ten “connections.”  It’s not that hard when you think about the who-what-where-how-why things might be connected.  Focus on the target audience, the products (e.g., do they have similar manufacturing processes?), etc.

Whatever you do though, don’t post when you are not in the right frame of mind.  One of the biggest mistakes I made when I first began blogging was to rush a post that was half-baked because I was too tired, not motivated or just bloggerblocked.  When I did that, it showed.  My readers, I’m sure, would rather I had posted nothing than wasted their time with a half-baked post.  The result was a slow and gradual decline in readership–the single most important measure of a successful blog (in my opinion).