10 Guaranteed Ways to Never Run Out of Blog Post Ideas (#1)
“How do you come up with post ideas?”
A few weeks ago, I was with one of my dear blogging friends and she asked me this question. She went on to explain how she wants to blog more often, but she struggles to come with inspiration for what she should post.
Honestly, I’ve never really thought about the how behind coming up with ideas. In fact, I usually have many more ideas than I have space and time to write.
But her question really got me to thinking about what fuels my blogging inspiration. And as I’ve mulled over it the past few weeks, I came up with a number of things that I find help me to always have post ideas and inspiration.
Since this is a question I’ve been asked before, I thought I’d share my list with you all in hopes that it might spark some ideas for those of you who are feeling like you’re in a blogging slump. I had initially planned to share this as one post, but it got so long that I decided to break it up and just share one idea per week day for the next two weeks so that it was easier to read — and not some massively long and impossible-to-read-in-one-sitting post!
#1 Live Vibrantly {Offline}
A vibrant offline life will fuel your online creativity. Make sure you have a healthy balance of face-to-face interaction with friends, family fun {that you don’t blog or tweet about}, and media-free time blocks in your day.
I can’t tell you any hard and fast rules on this, because what is healthy for one person might be unhealthy for another. I can say, however, that if your brain is constantly trying to conjure up a blog post from every experience or if the only reason you ever plan a party or do an activity with your kids or bake anything is only so you can blog about it, you probably need to step back and re-evaluate.
One of the best decisions we made when I first started blogging was that I would take Sundays off from blogging/social media. I’ve found that I often have to unplug in order to recharge. Stepping away from the online noise once a week clears my head and helps me to remember what matters.
Real-Life Example #1: The Circus Post
Some of my best posts come as the result of getting offline and just living life. I’ll be in the middle of real-life and a post just comes and smacks me right between the eyes.
Such was the case with the post I wrote after we went to the circus. As soon as the whole episode happened, the analogy came to me.
I told Jesse about it as we were walking to the car and he thought it was a great idea for a blog post. So I emailed myself a few random sentences on my phone in the car on the way home and then wrote the post, Whining For a Shiny Plastic Toy, when I had time a few days later.
To be continued tomorrow…
How do you maintain a healthy balance between your online life & your offline life? I’d love to hear!
If you are struggling to find a healthy balance between your online and offline life, I highly recommend Sarah Mae’s new ebook, The Unwired Mom.
I read it recently and found that it was packed with great suggestions, practical tips, and a lot of motivation and inspiration to not become too consumed with online activities and miss the life to be lived and blessings to be had right in our own homes and communities.