My friend, Noreen Kelly, pointed me to Bly's Theory of Blogging:
I am obsessed with not wasting time and being as productive as I can.
After all, my income is directly linked to my ability to produce quality work at a rapid rate.
This November will mark the 3-year anniversary of the launch of this blog, and the experience has led me to Bly’s Theory of Blogging and Personal Productivity, which states:
“Personal productivity is inversely proportional to time spent blogging.”
He then goes on to say that spending more than 10 minutes a day is "way too much time reading and writing on blogs."
I have heard variations on this one before. It is true that blogging (and reading) takes time. And sometimes I spend what seems like a lot of time doing those things. If I were to measure everything by the yardstick of productivity-as-making-money, then I could be spending more time elsewhere.
However, blogging and similar pursuits are not about productivity in that sense. There are a wide variety of reasons that I invest myself in this sphere. I'm sure you can come up with your own list, but here are a quick few from my perspective:
- Keep up with news in my business area.
- Participate in conversations related to my business.
- Put me out into the world to demonstrate my expertise.
- Explore news avenues of thinking in topics related to my work.
- Keep up with news from and about my clients.
- Keep up with news from my friends and colleagues.
- Keep up with general news and developments in my varied interests.
- Oh, and it is fun!
I can't even write a post like this in ten minutes.