8 Ways To Beat The Monday Morning Blogging Blues

July 10, 2011 by Daniel Sharkov|

This week’s article is a guest post by Jill Shearer. I’m certain m any can relate to the “blogging blues” Jill talks about. Hopefully the next paragraphs will help you get over it!

Oh, hello Monday. You’re just as ugly as you were last week. You mock me with your blank page and my mind is feeling just as blank. Why do you do this to me every week?

Whether you work from home or an office, Mondays are never going to be the favorite day of the week. When you’re a blogger, the day can inspire a whole lot of panic when you think of empty blogging spots and what you can do to fill them. Instead of tackling the problem head-on, you’ll find yourself plotzing around with mindless chores, checking Facebook or Tweeting and trying not to whine too much, anything to take your mind away from the fact you need blogging topics and you’re coming up empty.

I feel your pain. Those Monday Morning Blogging Blues are brutal, and the bad thing is they come up every damned week. The pressure can be intense, and by the time you’re done wrestling with your brain cells, every one of them feels like it’s on fire and you’ve pulled chunks of hair from your scalp. And still, you’ve got nothing.

Presenting eight ways to beat the Monday morning blogging blues:

1. Don’t wait for Monday to bite.

Outsmart Monday by setting another day of the week to brainstorm a list of ideas for topics. Pick Innocuous Tuesday, or Willing Wednesday. Monday has enough teeth to chew you up; remove the teeth and take some of the pressure off.

2. Brainstorming without the thunder and lightning.

Start with a blank sheet of paper and a pen – you know, one of those round, cylindrical things with the ink in them? Sometimes divorcing yourself from a computer screen can do wonderful things with your brain. List every idea that comes to mind, no matter how far-fetched it might seem. You never know when a chance phrase or sentence will spark something.

3. Peruse the news.

Use Google to search the web on your particular subject, but more than that, click on the “News” part of the menu on the left-hand side of your search. This will give you the newest stories to hit the web, some of which won’t show up in a standard search. Go one better – set up Google Email alerts for certain search terms to have the results delivered straight to your inbox.

4. Haunt the comments section.

I’m sure you have a list of particular blogs you visit regularly, and if you don’t, you should. Check out the most popular posts and don’t just read the article – read the comments. What are people saying? What information are they looking for? This could be fodder for your next blog posting.

5. Use social media to get the party started.

How about posting a poll on Facebook for suggestions on what people on your list would like to know more about? Check out related hashtags on Twitter to see what people are talking about; check the trending topics. You can even post a poll on your blog or website asking for feedback. People love to give their opinion – you just have to give them a chance to express it.

6. Relate topics to events in your life.

You don’t have to get real personal here, but are you a baseball fan? Do you love golf? Relate lessons you’ve learned from your hobbies or experiences both online and offline to good business practices. For instance, have you encountered good customer service? What made it so good? If it was horrible, what made it so bad? These are the types of things you can blog about as object lessons for others, and the added benefit is it makes you more real and more relatable as a person.

7. Offer up spots for guest posters.

This is a win/win scenario for both of you. It allows you to take a break, fosters goodwill and peace on earth, and presents a different viewpoint to your readers. Okay, I might be exaggerating about the peace on earth, but the rest is true enough. Think of it as cross-pollinating a garden.

8. Consult someone outside “the biz”.

Sometimes even the best of us can suffer from tunnel vision. Break the block and take some friends out to lunch for a lively discussion of life in general and your job as a blogger in particular. Listen to what others have to say, and get a viewpoint from the outside. Not only will you feel recharged, you’ll have a great meal and a business expense you can write off later.

You have to feed the machine in order to keep going. Think outside the box and keep a pen and notebook handy no matter where you go. Inspiration is everywhere, if you relax a bit and invite it in.

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