It used to happen everyday of my life. I would turn on my computer, jump over to my favorite site, and read something that was perfectly mind-numbing.

 

I would think to myself “another sixty seconds of my life is gone.”

That was a serious problem. Article after article would produce nothing but meaningless rhetoric in my head as I searched for valuable tidbits of insight and imagination. The consumption of cliché material and creatively draining bad articles eventually turned into a crises, IT HAPPENED TO MY BLOGGING TOO!

One second I was writing what I lovingly thought to be comparable between Shakespeare and Oliver Stone (I only wish), the next I was finding my “inner author” producing mindless ranting that resembled dialogue from Beavis and Butthead.

Something had to change.

I looked at my view of the world and examined the foundation I had to work with. As a professional, I basically have three highly valuable resources in life: time, energy, and wisdom.

Time is represented by the available hours I have each week allocated to your profession. Energy is how much effort I have to offer before my battery runs dry. Wisdom is the insightful usage of my experience and the ability to apply it to new situations.

Needless to say, wasting all three of my highly valuable resources was destroying my work day. 

So I dusted off my trusty notebook and detailed some very basic tools for recovering my “lost youth” from the endless days of bad blogging I had endured. I had to take action to save my blogging soul.

Ideas to rescue you from bad blogging 

Destroy writer’s block. You can read more ideas on brain-storming here and here, but the point of the idea is to move forward. The easiest way to do this for me is to randomly select an article from one of my favorite authors and see if I can raise the bar. Challenging myself to write something more inspiring than someone I respect is a daunting goal, but the usual outcome is that I create an article worthy of the respect I have given them.

Buy an egg timer. The strange thing about writing is it takes however long you have to do it. This is actually true of most work. Give yourself fifteen minutes to write an article and then walk away from the computer. Do not give yourself sixteen or seventeen. Write hard and write fast. Speak from your experience and gut, and use personal metaphors to expand on your ideas.

Take your blogging seriously. Go ahead and throw out a few humorous comments here and there, then set your sights on writing an article. Don’t browse around the internet and allow yourself to be distracted. Keep focused.

Ask for ideas. If you fail to get an idea yourself… turn on your instant messenger or pick up the phone and ask one of your colleagues to give you a topic. When they give you one, do it. Do not talk yourself out of writing on a topic you don’t like, use it as a chance to educate yourself on something new (and perhaps even educate someone else on the same issue.)

Drink coffee. Make a cup of coffee and make it as suitable to your liking as you can. Even if you don’t like coffee, drink some anyways. Take a moment to blame me for forcing the vile stuff down your throat. Be brutal- detail exactly why you don’t like the taste, was it because your brother-in-law tried poisoning you with it at the last family Christmas?

Harass a friend. Select one of those friends at random off your blog list and chew into their latest idea. Start some controversy. Keep it fun and light-hearted. Poke, poke, and poke again. Complain that they used the wrong spelling of a word for the sixty-third time. An exchange of "friendly fire" can often lead to your next great idea. 

Google yourself. Open google.com and put your name in there. Hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button.  When I do it my Jobster.com profile appears. Think about what that is saying. Could I need a new job? No, I love my job. Should I write about social networking? Maybe. Should I choose someone on my friends list to write an article about? That could be fun.

I’m stopping at seven.

Why? Because you don’t need to force things. One of the best things you can do for your blogging voice is to encourage it to be louder, but don’t beat it into submission. Write until it doesn’t feel right, then stop.

If you really have something more to say, there is always an option to add a second portion to your article.