Blogging - The Great Time User

I came across a blog called Adsense Tracker written by a young woman from Iowa. She caught my eye not only because of her blog, but also because she listed her favorite books as 'anything by Stephen King" who happens to be a favorite of mine as well...but I am digressing...

The young lady's blog is slightly misnamed because I couldn't find much about tracking adsense exactly, but she does have some interesting posts. One that I found quite interesting was this one from January 2008 where she asked, How Does Anyone Do This? meaning, how does anyone make money blogging and keep up the pace necessary to maintain a blog, or two or three or a hundred...

It's a good question, and elicts some interesting answers from other bloggers in her comments. It's amazing how many people are out there trying to make something of this whole blogging thing, especially when you relate it to how many are actually making money from blogging. It's also interesting to learn how much time it takes to manage a blog or several blogs. Of course I have quite a bit of experience with managing multiple blogs myself, with over 50 some on the go. It got me to thinking about how much time I spend at this.

I start every evening around 7:00 right after I get home from work and have supper. A quick nap for about 45 minutes and I am at the computer, starting my nights work. I blog until about midnight, some nights past midnight before hitting the sack. Back up at 6 a.m. to check my stats etc, before heading out the door to my day job.

The weekends are another matter entirely, blogging consumes most of my time from Friday night until Sunday night. Friday nights my blogging goes until way past midnight, and Saturday things start again around 10 in the morning, running into the wee hours of the night. (I do take the occasional break, but not too many) Sundays are just like Saturdays only I usually quit around midnight.

I refuse to add up the hours I spend trying to make money online, or trying to get readers. (not all my blogs are for making money, a couple are just for the sake of writing) The reason I refuse to add up the hours is that would mean that I would then calculate how much I am making, and then reduce it to an hourly wage...at that point I would probably start to cry...smash my computer and go get a second job as a greeter at Walmart or something, undoubtly far more lucrative, and not so many hours....

The thing about it is, I wouldn't like a job at Walmart or anywhere else for that matter. I am too independent. I sell my soul everyday from 8:30-4:30 that's enough of that. At night and on the weekends, I want to do things I like to do, and blogging has become one of them. Unfortunately, it has become the only thing I like to do, mainly because I have no time left to do anything else....

Would I change it? Nope, not likely. I keep telling myself I need to re-organize, get some semblance of a schedule and stick to it, perhaps even free up some time for other things. I also have considered collapsing some of the blogs that I don't write to frequently, but something always stops me. For one thing, I hope to retire in a few years and then I will have more time for this....might need those extra blogs to keep me busy....