Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I have blogged about simple minimalist living and trying to learn this blogging world for a while now. I started consistently blogging in October of last year (2011).   I was thinking back over the last couple months and all the work I have put into it and wanted to write up some stuff on it to share with you. This is the ‘behind the scenes’

What I have learned:

1. Anyone can do it – if you are interested I would love to help.  Check out my blogging tips page
2. Overwhelming – there is always something else I want to do with my blog or something else someone else says I should do.  There are great blogs out there and great advice that never ends.
3. Never perfect – just when I think I have a good post or a good add-on working I find other problems.
4. Hard to stick with – I haven’t had to much trouble coming up with things to write about but I am scared that I will.  I don’t always feel like writing.  Sometimes I feel like going to bed early or playing computer card games
5. So fun to connect with people – I love hearing from people who have been reading my blog in the comments or who e-mail me.  Other bloggers have said it as well, but truly meeting and talking to you is the funnest part of blogging.
6. Clarifying thoughts – lots of thoughts can float around in my head but to really make sense of them I need to write them out, move paragraphs around, re-write sentences, brainstorm the missing pieces.  The process is learning and clarifying and the record on the site helps me remember it.
7. Practice Makes Perfect – I need lots more practice to be perfect  but I have been learning more about writing, spelling, grammar and more by consistently blogging than I did in college.  ….probably just more proof  people learn what they want to learn better.  I have also learned about sticking through with a project.  So many self-growth things like exercise, reading, learning a new skill etc are hard to stick with.  Blogging is also for self-growth, but because it is being published there is more accountability.
8. Stats obsessed isn’t good - it is way to easy to become obsessed with stats.  I want to do it for the love of it but people coming and reading makes a bigger difference to me sometimes than it should.  I want to write and share who I am and what I believe for the audience that will benefit from it instead of trying to write generic stuff to try and please the biggest group of people.

Still trying to learn

1. Balance with life – I have talked about time management and technology management several times on my site.  I unplugged for a while and I have set several different schedules and goals for my blogging time.  …but I have been on and off executing them properly.  I will try and just be on my e-mail once a day but then I will have something I am looking or waiting for that gets me on several times….which then gets me back into bad habits.
2. Balance with learning, creating, networking – this is something I have been thinking on lately.  It is one thing to split off a specific amount of time for blogging but then how should it be spent?  Reading others work? Writing? Networking?  All three are important but balancing them is not something I have figured out yet.
3. Balance with perfection – how hard to I work on perfecting blog posts or website design?
4. Learning and growing personally or whole hog the blog as a business – Now that I have gotten started, should I really try and make a blog business (lots of work for a long time and still really needing luck and talent) or do I just do it for the fun of it?  I will say that so far I have made about $20-$25 blogging total. The ebooks make much better money, but just the blogging is harder to make money on unless you are trying to push products pretty hard… which I just don’t want to do.  (it is completely against the point of this website )

I will say it has been a huge growing experience personally just learning to be myself and voice my opinion.  I am usually way to concerned with what people think and find myself trying to tell people what they want to hear instead of what I actually think.  The blog has been a way to stretch and exercise who I really am.  Then, at the same time, it is super scary.  I am afraid that I will offend someone or that people won’t like the way I say things.  Just pushing publish on some posts is hard.

I want to thank you so much for coming and reading (if this is your first time by the site, you can be welcomed and thanked as well ).  

Also, I really wanted to ask you what you think on a few things?

1. A few months ago I switched themes.  What do you think?
2. I post on a posting schedule with several topics through the week.  What do you think of this?  Is there anything you would like to see more/less of?  Is it confusing with several topics all together on one blog?
3. Is there something else I could do/add to my site that would help support/encourage/motivate you in your simple living?
4. Anything else you would like to share?

My goal for the site is for Loving Simple Living  to be a little virtual space that is simple and refreshing.  I want it to be a place where true priorities and success can be cherished and developed, and where society’s and other’s expectations can be given second place without guilt.