How Do You Decide What To Post About?: a house log
Q: How do you decide what to post about every day? I am new to blogging and feeling a lot of pressure. I worry what I write will be boring. Do you ever worry about that? Do you have a checklist that you go through to see if something is good to write about? Do you ever worry that people will not like what you share? Do you ever skip a post if you think it will be poorly received? Do you try to pace things out in a strategic way? – Nina M.
A: Aw, I am sorry that you feel any pressure at all, Nina. Figuring out what to post about sounds like it could be complicated, but to us the key is not to over-think it. When we began this whole blogging thing back in 2007, no one was reading (seriously we could hear crickets) so the pressure was pleasant and low. Sometimes we chatted about big stuff (like our four month kitchen renovation) and sometimes it was small stuff (like a baseboard-related conversation, discovering old wallpaper, or someone accidentally selling our washer).
Slowly our journal grew to what it is today, and so did our commitment to sticking to what got us here: blogging about whatever’s going on in our lives (big or small – random, housey, or otherwise) like it is our job. Because it in fact is our job. Yup, from weird dreams to Hands-on haircuts and fairly much everything else, it all has a place in our weird little slice of the internet. So our advice in a nutshell would be to chat about whatever you are genuinely excited to share and the majority of your readers will hopefully connect with your authenticity and feel your excitement right through their computer screen.
And you know I am glad to be that hyper little cheerleader on your shoulder shouting high-pitched borderline-annoying things like: “you can do it!” and “go get ’em!” – so here is my humble advice in a nutshell:
- Find a pace that works for you.
- Learn what topics you like to tackle.
- Look for unconscious clues along the way.
- Skip any post that you are not excited about.
- Nothing is too small if you are psyched to post about it.
- Try sharing more of yourself, no matter how random.
- Relax, it is only blogging.
- Do. Your. Thang.
- You cannot win ’em all.
- A glad blogger = glad readers.
Allow me to do what I do best and elaborate the heck outta those:
#1. Find a pace that works for you. It is likely one of the biggest “discoveries” that you will make along the way. Do not worry, it’ll happen. Figuring out a pace that works for you will do two things: it’ll assist your readers understand what to expect (thereby hopefully reducing your fear of the unknown as a new blogger) and you will not feel rushed or bored (two things that can swiftly kill a journal). We typically share about 2-3 projects a week along with a smorgasbord of other random house/family related stuff. You can see from our monthly round-ups that although some weeks are busier than others, at the end of each month we are consistently surprised at how much we have done. Sometimes the projects are big and sometimes they are simply small updates. That simply tends to be the Hands-on way – you ebb and you flow. But hey, that is real life (with real budget constraints, snafus, & timeline challenges) so do not get discouraged! This pointer is likely one of the most essential ones since it can easily determine the longevity of your journal (our pace is likely the only reason we have been able to journal/Hands-on non-stop for the past 5 years without burning out).
#2. Learn what topics you like to tackle. Then give yourself free reign in all of those areas (no fear allowed). In the past five years of this journal we have been all over the place, which is in fact how we like it. And in all of that time, we have only renovated one bathroom and two kitchens along with building one patio and one deck, so it is hardly major work that is going on at all times. Most of the time we are simply noodling or making small/affordable tweaks (painting something, making Hands-on art, window shopping, sharing budget blooms, buying/thrifting something, doing small upgrades, rearranging furniture, re-organizing something, sharing Dude Get On That Already & Pinterest Challenges, etc). And sometimes we do full weeks of posts on a certain theme, like our wedding or our blogiversary. Heck, we have even had an whole week devoted to organizing! Simply chat about whatever you are loving or doing.
#3. Look for unconscious clues along the way. If we look at our monthly round-ups for the last 1.5 years, we notice that we typically have the same smattering of big and small projects going on each month. There are rarely months with all large things or all small things. We do not consciously plan it that way, but that simply seems to be what works for us. I think if you journal for a little while, the right pace for you will hopefully make itself clear.
#4. Skip any post that you are not excited about. If it feels like work and you are not psyched to share it, simply let it go. We certainly do things around the house that we decide not to journal about. For example, we do not consistently feel like blogging about re-organizing our drawers every time we do it – so we might skip that if we do not feel like writing it up. That being said, sometimes posts are hard to write (for example, this personal one about my aunt’s passing) but I in fact truly hoped to write that to honor her memory and for Clara to look back on. It was hard, but it was worth it. So the posts that feel pesky, annoying, and not-worth-your-trouble are the ones I’d in fact consider skipping.
#5. Nothing is too small if you are psyched to post about it. Try to have a no holds barred / no rules policy if you are excited to share something (people can tell when you are holding back and blogging can be a lot less satisfying if you are). We enjoy that nothing is too big or too small to chat about with you folks. Thank goodness. I think if there were rules we likely would have checked out about 4.5 years ago. Sometimes we do something truly small and we are so excited by the difference it makes in our home/life that we will share a swift little post about it. And sometimes those posts in fact get the majority of our readers the most excited (so if we were to leave them out we’d never know that 200 folks would comment about how they liked a compact/free clipboard project that we shared, while fewer people commented about some much more “hardcore” deck demo that we posted a week later).
#6. Try sharing more of yourself, no matter how random. Occasionally we chat about random things like running and breastfeeding. Sure, we wonder how the heck they’ll go over before hitting publish for a second – but then we simply say “whatever!” and click the button. My breastfeeding post in fact got over 1,000 comments and John’s post about running earned nearly 500! We never know what will be a hit, so we simply share whatever’s going on that we think is lively – big or small, housey or random, kid-focused or grown-up related. Simply try to let go of the pressure that you put on yourself (I know, that is easier said than done) and you will be a happier, more keen blogger. Sometimes it is hard to remember that you are not decorating your house or blogging for the whole world, but in our opinion, the blogs where people decorate their house and journal for themselves are the ones that are the most compelling and lively to read. So that might be our biggest pointer.
#7. Relax, it is only blogging. Personal home blogging (and nearly any other type of blogging, in fact) is loosey-goosey in a strong way – whether it is your full time job or simply a hobby. Either way, the goal is to be real and share “yourself and the way you live” – whatever that might be. We truly believe it is why we have enjoyed doing it fairly much nonstop since 2007 (with no more than a few days off in a row). It is certainly our job and we are hugely devoted to it, but it was born from a passion, so we gotta keep that passion going. If we only hoped to talk about step by step walkthroughs every day we’d hire a staff of people to churn out seven projects a week or start a business-y website without “us” in it – but we are simply not into that. That is why we call this our Hands-on diary, and not an e-zine or a home improvement database. It is simply life through our lens. Our little rose colored Hands-on glasses, if you will. Or our Photoshop plastic wrapped glasses…
#8. Do. Your. Thang. The truth is that every post that you write will likely be enjoyed by some folks and some people will simply scroll on by or click over to another journal that happens to catch their eye a bit more that day. Heck, that is how we read blogs (skimming or skipping things that are not our style and stopping to soak up the posts that call our name). I think getting comfortable with that is truly one of the keys to blogging, since it is impossible to even attempt to make every last post appeal to every last person who stops in (you whole journal will end up being so generic/safe due to Trying-To-Please-Everyone Syndrome or it’ll be so infrequently updated since your standards for posts will be impossibly high). So simply do your thing! That is hopefully why people read your journal – for what YOU bring to the table. Even if it is photos of yourself in airbrushed jeans that make your butt wink.
#9. You cannot win ’em all. If there is one thing we have learned in five years of doing this, it is that no matter how hard you try, you cannot please everyone. In fact trying to please everyone can lead to a slow painful journal death. There is simply consistently going to be someone who wants you to go slower so they can keep up or faster so they are more entertained, or to post about more giant projects since they want to see something major while someone else might want more small/free projects since their budget is lower. One person’s least go-to post will be someone else’s go-to. Heck, we have even gotten requests for more family/Burger/Clara stuff within days of getting requests for less of it. Everyone is distinct, so you simply have to “do you” as $herdog likes to say (third person $herdog = jackpot).
Let us get mathy for a second. Typically once every 10,000 comments or so we get someone saying they are not into a certain post (here is a post about how we deal with criticism in case that helps). Thankfully when you do the math, that works out to less than .01% of comments being in that vein. Those odds are not that bad, right? By sharing your life with the internet at large, there is so much encouragement and good that comes from it. And while there are certainly a quite small percentage of people who might take the time to say “this post was so boring” or “I think you are running out of things to do” – simply know that someone has been sporadically saying that to us for years. Yet we are still here blogging our pants off, following the exact same “formula” that we consistently have, and gratefully soaking up words of appreciation and encouragement from the vast majority of our readers.
#10. A glad blogger = glad readers. They can typically sense when you are upset or nervous – and your journal is a lot more magnetic when you are simply being your glad-go-lucky self. So throw caution into the wind and journal to your little heart’s content! When in doubt, try picturing an imaginary bumper sticker that says:
I like that Burger weaseled his way in there. Such a ham. Anyway, that is my brain dump. I hope it helps at least one or two of you out there who might be starting a journal or struggling with what to post about. And I’d enjoy to hear from you folks on the subject of post subjects! Any advice for Nina? Is there anyone else out there who feels pressure before clicking that “publish” button? Do you have a mental checklist that you go through before you write about something or simply share whatever’s banging around in your head? Tell $herdog all about it.
Update – Some of the most frequent requests that we get are for info about professionally blogging (how we made our site, how we grew our following, how we make money, etc) so we shared all of the details about how we began a journal, grew our traffic, and turned it into a full time job.
