Blog!
I especially appreciate the holiday season and any understood vacation days that our country celebrates because it gives me an opportunity to set aside some specific and intentional time to review a number of things about my blog.
And for some reason I feel more motivated during a break in my typical schedule to do a few things that I probably hold off on doing during the week. Funny how that works, right?
But here are 10 things that I do during a long break (like Thanksgiving and Christmas) for my blog:
- Review traffic patterns to a greater depth. I look for outliers and fringe traffic days. I study the “why” and the “how” as it relates to those numbers.
- I update any WordPress plugins that may need updating. What does this mean? It means that I don’t update the moment a new update appears in my dashboard! I read up on the changes, see if anyone has had any significant upgrade issues, and test it on a demo server.
- I prune my categories and migrate posts to other categories that I wasn’t fully sold on when I published.
- I review comments that I had marked out as “actionable” and draft starter posts.
- I review and re-evaluate my yearly goals to see if I’m on track. I admit defeat for some and celebrate victories when appropriate.
- I blog as little as possible and instead draft more.
- I test and install new plugins and/or 3rd party systems and applications to see potential benefit. Not as many people pay attention to changes during the holidays so I can get away with more! Any extra development is prioritized during holidays and breaks.
- I spend more time reading other people’s blogs and commenting on their properties and spend any excess time when available to respond on my own. I feel this is a healthy and worthwhile thing to do and helps me stay more connected with other bloggers.
- I prune my RSS Feeds that I subscribe to and spend time curating.
- I do a thorough clean up of my databases and spend time optimizing my systems for performance. “Spring cleaning” happens more than just in the spring time!
What are some things that you get to do when you’ve got a bit more time to do it, especially on vacations and the holidays? Love to hear it!
These are great tips! I’ve enjoyed your presentations, style, and passion the few times I have seen you. Keep up the great work:-)
Sure thing!
Sounds like a fun holiday break!
And for some reason I am more motivated on Holiday breaks as well!
It’s like you get all motivated and stuff…!
I just bought standard theme on Friday and will be re-launching my blog in the coming weeks. I should do a few of these things before getting it off the ground. Thanks for the tips.
Sweet! Let me know when the relaunch is done!
Number 4 sounds a good one!
For me I will most likely draft articles, backup my WordPress database, scout around for any new worthwhile plugins and comment on other blogs.
Sweet! Draft away! What’s getting going these days?
For this past Thanksgiving break… I honestly just tried to take a break and do less digital for a few days. Now I’m getting back into the groove here on Sunday night and reading up on a few RSS feeds + drafting a few articles and preparing for the week overall.
Ah. You had a good break then…? Awesome!
Indeed. Great Thanksgiving with family and friends. So much to be thankful for. : )
seriously.
I’m with Daniel on this one. I did nothing but hang out with my family over the Thanksgiving break. I did read each day (an actual book) but that was it. About the closest thing I did to work was nearly buying a 42″ LCD TV for $400 on Black Friday. How’s that work, you say? I don’t know either. But, alas, I resisted the temptation.
I love #2 and # 7. These are great tasks to complete when traffic is lower than usual.
sweet! and… i like how you add the copyright symbol to your name.
You gotta distinguish a name like Dave somehow, right?
i suppose you are right!
Definitely need to take advantage of the free time to work on #3 next holiday. Got a lot of blog-related work planned for the Christmas break. Working full time with 2 kids and getting an MBA taps out my schedule.
you’re telling me….
I always seem to come up with great blog post ideas when spending time with my family…
Could you elaborate on item #1?
Do you try to keep your categories to a minimum (or under a certain number)?
i do rich keyword searches over my traffic. i’ll do some more posts on this. already planned.!
yes. less than 8.
I would love to see a blog post sometime about #10.
ah. that might be a good one. noted!
Hey great list of tips John! I’m finding that #9 applies to me the most right now. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to read as much as I would like. Thanks for sharing!
all about content production right now?
That, and I’m trying to spend more time getting my self-hosted blog up and running…
hmmmmmm. doh! who ware you with?