This week is the 10 year anniversary of Glenn Reynold's Instapundit.com which I have been reading daily for the last decade. How Glenn, a husband, father, constitutional law professor, author, interviewer and commentator can also put out the most successful aggregating blog for 10 years is beyond me, but he deserves some crazy kudos. That man is a god, no wonder they call him the blogfather!
Recently I read a report about the correlation between the hours spent watching television and life expectancy. You probably saw that article too. What I wonder is what is the correlation between time spent blogging and life expectancy? I would guess that is it is something similar. I can personally attest to a correlation between time spent at my computer and middle age spread....and so can my derriere.
Which brings me to my point of asking this question...
Is there a optimal amount of time that you can spend blogging before all hell breaks out on your body?
My guess is yes, but it depends on your lifestyle.
If you are an active person, an hour a day is probably alright. If you a working person, comme moi, who spends an average of 10 hours a day at the office in front of the computer, any amount of additional time spent blogging must be detrimental.
So what does a working person do? Stop blogging? Blog only on weekends? I don't really know the answer.
Blogging has opened up my world in many ways.
I've put Australia, Scotland, Wales, Belgium and the Pyrenees high on my list of places to visit...just because I've enjoyed all the posts by FF, Tabitha, Ruth, Greet and Dash. I couldn't have predicted this when I started BHB.
I've also learned a lot about my favorite subjects, history, art, literature, gardening and decoration through reading blogs.
And, being an anti-social person by nature who avoids social interaction whenever possible, I believe that I have a better understanding of people by reading about their lives and interests. More importantly, I've learned that there are people out there in the blogosphere that I would love to hang around with....so much for my being anti-social!
Blogging has also helped me to accomplish my primary goal of making people aware of the benefits of buying estate jewelry versus paying retail for new jewelry, and of course about Beladora.com. Let's face it, when you are starting a business and you don't have a budget for advertising or PR...blogging is one way to go. I look at it as the DIY of branding. But BHB has also co mingled some of my personal opinions with my brand, which is not what I set out to do. (Fortunately, I am in the process of upgrading the Beladora website with new code and such, and adding an actual Beladora blog to the site which will solve that issue.)
Blogging has certainly been a worthwhile experience, both personally and professionally, but I've decided to cut back on posting to one day a week.
I know that my general health, and my derriere, will thank me for it.