Blogging

Since my kids are grown, and out of the house, my husband works second shift, and I have wireless in my home, this is how I do it:  When I am home in the evening, I sit on my couch watching tv.  BUT, I have my laptop, and am working on AR, my website, and emails, as I watch tv.  The one bad thing, is that usually the computer activities soak up my attention and even though the tv is on, I miss a lot of the show....Like the bachelor....maybe I know who gets the ax, or should I say who gets a rose...I don't really remember or know why!

I also have a rule, that I can't check in on AR, until I have no other tasks that need attention!  Once I get going here, it is hard to stop!  Good luck to you figuring it out...

Oh by the way, I do manage to sell, check out my latest post:http://activerain.com/blogsview/935408/Our-Market-is-Finally-Hopping-8-accepted-offers-in-2-weeks

That's a good question. I feel like I will never get to the point where it's all second nature. Every time I think I am making headway it changes on me. I think everyone refers to it as (upgrades).

Sometimes I do feel like I don't get any work done :)  I do sit on the couch with my laptop while watching t.v, and I also miss most of the show I'm trying to watch while multi-tasking.

Jackie, I've found making my updates to all of these sites as part of my daily routine to be very helpful. Just consolodate your status updates to one site. Ping is terrific as have linked Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to Ping to update my status on all three sites at once. www.ping.fm

I take about 20 minutes each morning to update my status on the sites, read comments, status updates by others and email/reply as needed. I'll update status throughout the date using Ping and change my photo on Facebook a couple times a week.

AR is a little more challenging for me. I'm not looking for business through AR as much as terrific resource for professionals in our industry. That aspect which is the core of AR is invaluable! I log on every day or two, check the groups I subscribe to and blog once or twice a week.

If you make these sites part of your daily tasks (i.e. time block), it's not very time consuming. Hope that helps!

I dutifully do most of my blog reading from 6-7am when my older son is getting ready for school. I also have specific timeblocks set aside each day that I set aside to blog and do other Twittering, Facebooking, etc. All my internet work for the most part is very second nature and it's because I have set up links to the various sites I post to in my bookmark toolbar. I work my way through each of them every day. And yes, I do still have time to sell :-) But you have to remember that we are all doing this for the long term good of our business. You can't just plant a seed and come back 6 months later to harvest...you have to cultivate and nurture the seed to a seedling, and then a plant and so forth. That is how I view all my time on AR or other places...it is nurturing of business and professional development I do every day by reading what the rest of you have to say.

I don't watch TV. :)  I get my news from the internet, and Active Rain is my night-time entertainment.  I recently joined Facebook at the request of a friend, but I haven't gone there more than twice a week maybe (for the last 2 wks).  Fun to see what people from high school are up to these days, but I don't want Facebook to become a real time sucker.  Balance in everything...not that I've arrived.  :)

Hi Jackie,

 Your blog intrigued me and I started reading the comments and Kimberly's post regarding ping.com and I've already signed up. Thanks for starting the conversation.

Lisa

Hi Jackie. I think this is something a lot of people have to find balance in. I try to get about 10 or so minutes in the morning at home before going to the office and then later at night. Sometimes I spend much more time researching too late into the night and on the weekends if I'm up early. Usually I'm usually too busy in the day and at the office. I want to stay up with Active Rain, Facebook, blogging, etc, but I really don't want it to take away too much time. Balance in everything.

One time saver that I recently started using was Google alerts.  Typing in subjects pertinent to the topics I blog on allowed me to find news and information that I would have never found before AS IT HIT THE WEB! 

While blogging and social networking take time and can be addictive, they have had a tremendous impact on our home page rankings, our public image in our farm area, and overall web traffic to our sites.

I completely agree that there are too many things to be taken care of if you want to keep up with technology. I wonder how people were successful without doing any of these things in the earlier times.

Jackie, you can't let all this blogging and social media stuff get in the way of working with clients.  You need to be consistent with it in order for it to benefit you in the long run, but remember that clients will always come first.  I typically schedule my time in the late evening to blog, comment, add to my website, and check up on facebook, etc.  I try to limit each day to 1 hr, but no more than 2 hrs.  If I am not too busy during the day, since I work from home, I can get a lot of this accomplished while everyone else is out of the house.  You just need to find a system that works for you.

Good question!  Sounds like setting time limits is a great idea.  What did we do before computers?

If we only had more hours in the day. I struggle with this all the time. I need to be more organized and i am going to check out ping.fm that Kimberly spoke about! Thanks for the post.