Why I Quit the 30 Day Blog Challenge

So I really thought that I would last longer than three days in the blog challenge, and that I would put a post up about stopping the challenge sooner, but it is what it is. There are a few reasons that I decided to stop blogging everyday though. This also applies if you’re thinking of blogging regularly every day, and not just doing a 30 day blog challenge.

The main reason I stopped the blog challenge was because I was starting to not care about the posts that went up. The first few posts I already had ready, but after the third day I was thinking more about what I can shove on my blog to fill a space for the day, rather than trying to create something that actually had meaning. What happened was on one of the days I wrote a really long blog post about something personal to me that I might not post, but it helped me sort through things to write it anyway. The only thing is that it took a lot longer than I expected, and I didn’t finish it until late in the day. By that time if I wanted to put something on my blog I wouldn’t have time to make sure it was good. I would just be finding a fluff piece to throw up there. The fluff piece wouldn’t necessarily be bad, but I wouldn’t have the time to make something that I truly stood behind. And if I’m just throwing up fluff pieces on my blog, then what’s the point of doing a 30 day blog challenge? Or trying to blog every day for that matter? So I stopped.

Starting the 30 day blog challenge did help with creativity though. I found myself thinking of more posts that I could write. It also made me think about blogging more often, although I haven’t quite got into that habit yet. So it wasn’t all bad. I still like the premise behind the 30 day blog challenge, I just don’t like rushing to put out a post each day because I have to.

I also found with posting everyday there’s no time to really promote the post. I didn’t do too many tweets about them because I knew I would be doing another post the next day. Because the next post was coming right away, the post from the day before didn’t have time to breathe, and I felt like if I did too much promotion I’d be shoving my posts down people’s throats, and that’s the opposite reaction that the challenge was supposed to get. When you post something on your blog every day, people don’t have much of a chance to read the old posts, unless they visit your blog every day, which although some might, I’m guessing most won’t.

It’s good to have fresh content on your blog, but I think posting every day is too much, for me anyway. You might have a different opinion though. I’m sure there are people who post everyday on their blog and it works out very well for them. But they probably also have a large following. When you don’t have that many people and you have to work to promote each post, I think less frequent might be a little better.

What are your opinions on 30 day blog challenges, and posting everyday?

Photo Credit: Nicolas Raymond  Stop Sign Grunge via photopin (license)