The First Burnout (Diaries of a Blogging Noob)

Hi friends, hope we’re keeping well.

I’ll cut straight to the point-I’m experiencing some burnout from blogging. This is the first time I’ve experienced this in months, as I’ve been pretty much blogging consistently since around March I think.

And as you would expect, it’s not a pleasant feeling.

What’s frustrating is that I can pinpoint exactly why I’m experiencing burnout, and yet I still don’t do much about it.

Below are some of the reasons why I’m getting exhausted from writing and blogging. This post will mostly be reflective and self-analysing, so feel free to watch along at how a blogging noob is currently facing these dilemmas for either your own entertainment or curiosity🙂

🤕Each Post Takes Effort🤕

One of the key reasons I’ve identified for this burnout is simply how much effort and friction I need to face when making a single post.

I’ve already tried making shorter posts than normal, yet the problem is still persevering.

I think the combination of trying to write my best, while also adding in all the aesthetics (headings, emojis, dividers, bolding and underlining, post banners, tags, excerpts) is just getting more and more cumbersome to do every week.

I know when I say all this out loud I seem like the laziest person on planet Earth (which is still partially true), but it’s genuinely one of the biggest problems I’ve identified in my blogging routine, that’s responsible for this burnout.

Even for the blog banners/images: it takes an annoying amount of time to either make one myself on Canva, or search for a free image on unsplash or pexels.

How to overcome this?

Stop caring about the aesthetics as much (i.e reduce the friction). Cut the posts even shorter. Write about much more casual topics.

Why is this still not optimal?

At the end of the day, I still want to (try) write quality blog posts, in order to improve the overall website and deliver more value to people. Shorter, low effort posts completely goes against that, which is one of my current dilemmas. Do I sacrifice quality in order to conquer this temporary burnout?

🏫College & Lack of Motivation🏫

I know I know, that’s such a cop out answer for burnout.

But the truth of the matter is, my first few weeks in college have been unexpectedly overwhelming. Like, the workload and amount of material that requires understanding given to us has been insane compared to secondary school (not that I’m complaining🙃).

And while I’m already doing my best to stay afloat, writing a few paragraphs for a blog post has honestly become a disappointingly low priority. If I’m being honest, I want to do my best and engage with my college course since I genuinely find it interesting, more than I want to foster my blog right now.

And also for some strange reason, I just can’t seem to balance college with blogging, which is exactly what I did when in the second half of my final year in secondary school (which was arguably much more intense).

It’s absolutely not that I don’t have enough time, because I do. I have plenty of free 15 minute intervals scattered throughout the day, where I can write a few sentences of post material. The problem is lack of motivation. I feel like my desire to engage with college has drained my motivation to keep up with blogging, and so every time I could be blogging, I inevitably spend time on Instagram, Reddit, or YouTube.

How to overcome this?

Dunno. The best solution that I currently see is to simply wait a few more months. Spend a few more weeks settling into college, find the right balance of work and free time.

Even now, my college timetable is going to experience another huge change since next week marks the start of in person teaching again, which means a dramatic reduction of online classes (and thus completely changing my timetable).

But yeah, I’ll probably just have to wait and settle in for a few more months, before I try blog consistently again. Thinking back to my secondary school days, I only began to blog because I felt comfortable with my schedule, and because I knew I could take on another hobby during that time.

(🧪Lack of Results🧪?)

Nah never mind, I spur-of-the-moment thought of this reason for lacking motivation to blog, but truth be told it’s genuinely not 😂

It still blows my mind I have 10+ followers on this blog and 50+ total views (basically that I’m not talking completely into a void), so right now results and statistics aren’t a huge issue for me🙃

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Going Forward

I’ll do my best to still upload a post or two every week for sure, but I don’t expect this style of blogging to keep continuing.

As for this burnout I’m currently facing, I’m fully optimistic that this is just temporary, and that I’m only feeling overwhelmed right now due to difficulty settling into college.

The study help saga and mental model mondays might be on hold for now, as I might start transitioning into writing more spontaneous posts, just so this process can be as fun as possible.

In conclusion, I’m just going to have to patiently wait for this burnout to pass. Nothing much else I can really do🙃

Cool, thanks for reading this random mess of reflections if you did, and I’ll hopefully see you again soon. Stay safe