Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge the irony of this post. A blog about blogging is writing a blog post informing you about information overload.
Now, with that out of the way, we can tackle the topic at hand. What do you do when you’re a newbie blogger and there is SO MUCH information out there about how to blog? It can be downright paralysing and it can make it hard to know what to do next.
Information Overload
There are a few key steps to beating information overload:
Write
Writing your blog is the best way to blog. Sounds obvious, but it’s realy easy to forget that you’re not actually blogging if you’re not publishing posts. This should be your first goal. Whatever your perfect posting frequency is, stick to it as your number one goal.
Schedule Educational Time
Set yourself a defined time to read about blogging and keep up to date with the industry. If you have a specific period of time to do this in then you’re less likely to get distracted and overwhelmed. Keeping study time fairly short (say a maximum of three hours per week) will also make it easier for you to implement whatever you learn.
Set Your Blogging Goals
Are you aiming to maintain consistency? Release an eBook? Work with more brands? Whatever your goals are, knowing what they are will help you to avoid overwhelm. Do you have too many ideas? Guilty as charged. This post by Amanda Genther really helped me in terms of overall planning – really great advice to do only one major project per quarter.
How do you manage information overload? Did you find it hardest as a new blogger or as an established blogger?