5 Ways I Manage a Job & a [Travel] Blog

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How I juggle a job (or two), a blog, and a life.

[  O N E  ]

Yeah, if I'm being honest, I don't manage it all that well. I've gone through stages of intense creation and then pits where I can't even manage to do the fun things like photo editing. I'm now at the point where the honeymoon is over, but I'm still dedicated to keeping my blogrelationship alive. I think the #1 issue I have faced is wanting to put in more time than my work hours have allowed. I contemplated giving up the gym, but then I realized that would be taking it too far. I now operate under the "do what you can, when you can.... as long as you actually do it."

[   T W O   ]

I'm a part of a few different blogger communities and in the beginning, I spent a lot of time comparing myself to the other blog/vloggers. That - was - dumb. Rookie move on my part. I'm new to this and working in a full time job - there is literally no comparing my baby site to the sites of people who have been working at it for years. I gave myself a good, strong reality slap and gave myself permission to let it fall to the wayside every once in a while. 

[   T H R E E   ]

I have this ratty notebook I keep in my purse for whenever an idea pops into my head. I don't trust myself to remember every little bit of inspiration I come across, so I have to write it down. I then plug each idea into the title of a blog draft, so that way they're all right there when I login.

[   F O U R   ]

I'm going to be really honest for a second: I blog when I shouldn't be. I take every last second of free time at work to work on posts or engagement. My computer at home is sickly and I'm really unable to do much more than type, so photo editing and formatting all needs to be done at the office. Ninety percent of the time, I'm not actually on the clock- but it happens very occasionally where I just need 2 minutes to publish/Tweet/Pin.

[   F I V E   ]

Travel blogging, and blogging in general, is a really crowded market. There is no way that everything I post is going to be 100% original- someone will have said it before. I do, however, focus on not allowing inspiration to become imitation; I have enough to say that I don't need to copy someone else's ideas. Articles like "10 Reasons to Travel as a Solo Female" are so numerous that I wonder why people would continue to create them-- but every writer offers a different perspective... so even though the topic may be the same the take-away will be different for each piece.

After my turbulent first few months with this blog, I had to set some boundaries for myself.

Things I will never do for blogging:

  1. Become that girl who is so busy that she is nose-to-phone for her entire commute.
  2. Let blogging take away from my enjoyment of my trips.
  3. Be ruled by view-count
  4. Measure my own success against another blogger's success
  5. Be anything but truthful- even if bearing the honest truth it sucks.
  • How do you maintain a work-blog-life balance?Here's how I manage a full-time job with a side of blog and life.
  • What roadblocks have you encountered on your blogging journey?
  • What type of goals have you set for yourself?