Habits and Routines

 

I like predictability. I like cold weather in the winter and warm weather in the Spring. I like to-do lists and routines and schedules and plans. I follow habits to the death because they are, or following them, is kind of comforting.

I’ve always been this way. Or, at least, ever since I was a kid. Yeah, I think it was sixth grade when I started writing down my day’s plans to do homework, eat dinner, read, write, clean room, in a red daily planner that my mom bought me from Walmart.

Throughout my life, my desire for routine and order has helped me in a lot of ways. It’s what made getting good grades in college very easy, for instance. It made being a teenager who didn’t have much of a life outside of my schoolwork feel less isolating, boring, “square.”

Yeah, my propensity for these things helped me until I became a mom. With Nya, I had to change. As much as I, in the beginning, wanted her to work on my schedule for feeding, pooping, and sleeping, she didn’t. So, I changed. And my whole approach to habits, schedules, and routines, as a result of her and motherhood changed, kind of.

When I started blogging in 2010, I posted every single weekday. Every.single.weekday. I didn’t prepare my posts the night before, I wrote them early in the morning, published them, and stressed out until I got my first comment.

It was insane. And while only blogging for hobby, I posted daily because it became a habit of mine. The first time I didn’t publish a post on a weekday was “bad” day for me. It was so bad that I wrote an excuse post about it, in which I hypothetically blamed my fish for not being able to post something.

After that post, I started posting less, on different days and at different times, depending on my mood. But then when, someone in describing my blog, said they loved everything I wrote but that I didn’t “post that often,” I felt guilty and got back into the habit of posting every other day, or at least three times a week. I liked this schedule, this habit of mine. But, recently,  it’s come to feel restricting. I hate feeling like I need to write something every other day or three days a week  just because I do that all of the time. I hate feeling guilty about this feeling like a job, sometimes. Because this isn’t my job. It’s fun. It’s creative. It’s for me.

So, going forward, I plan to make some changes about my posting schedule. Not that any of you will likely care, but for myself, so that I can have this in writing, I will say that I will be unpredictable. I will, sometimes, post every day of the week. Some days, I won’t post but two days a week. I will keep posting, because this is what I love. But, in terms of the days and times I post, well, that will be a toss up. So, that’s incentive that you keep coming back, right?

I know this sounds so dramatic, but really I wanted to say this because this blog matters to me. You all matter to me. I want to write my best here and what I truly feel inspired to write about because I value this space and you all.

I hope you understand. I will be on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram everyday, so please, come say “hello” to me there if I’ve been quiet on here. Seriously.

Thank you for understanding. We can still be friends, right???

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Are you a creature of habit, too? Do you have a blogging routine/schedule? If so, what’s your schedule?

 

Tagged as: blogging schedules, lessons learned