Space … Silence … Solitude … [What I Need More of as a Blogger]

As I reflect upon the times when I’ve felt most “effective” as a blogger (and perhaps as a human), I think it’s times when I’ve built these three things into life.

Space

Perhaps it’s just me and my personality, but I find that if I don’t create space…

to reflect on life
to consider how I’m feeling
to analyze what I’ve experienced
to ponder priorities.

then I tend to allow the busyness of my life determine what I do, rather than letting what is important determine my actions.

I find that if I don’t create space, blogging either doesn’t happen, or it happens in a very ad hoc way without me really thinking clearly about the journey I want to take readers on.

Silence

Image copyright Tyler Olson – Fotolia.com

If I don’t create silence, I don’t notice the gold in the clutter of life.

I need to turn off what distracts me sometimes—Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, the Media, the iPhone—to truly hear what I need to hear.

I spend too much time broadcasting, and I need to learn to listen more. When I do listen, I find what I say is more useful to others.

Solitude

I spend a lot of time alone physically, but emotionally, in the work that I do online, I’m realizing that I’m not switching off from those around me.

This point is connected perhaps to the silence I mention above, but the realization that I’m having is that I need to build times of solitude into my life.

I need to learn how to disengage—if only for short periods of time—from the conversations, the requests, and the demands of readers, friends, and followers.

I need to do this not because these people are unimportant, but because if I don’t experience solitude, I’m not really in a position to be able to help anyone.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger