Let’s Talk Bookish is a bookish meme created by Rukky @ Eternity Books where bloggers write posts discussing the topic of the week each Friday! Now it’s run by Aria @Book Nook Bits. Here are the other prompts of September.

This week I won’t be talking about queer books. The shock! But the issue of how to balance my blogging and my life is very important and dear to me.

Bookish Thoughts

Actually, I should say: blogging, working, and living – since my blog is not my actual job but a hobby of mine. One, who takes quite some time without a financial benefit to it.

Therefore whenever time or energy resources are getting short, blogging is going to be the first thing to be cut down for the time being. That’s what happened these past months and what probably will happen again in the future.

So, how can I make sure to achieve the best possible balance between my blogging life and all the other responsibilities I face?

The first and most important step was my book blogging BuJo – which I will feature in a post soon. I want to work with it a little bit before so I can tell you more about it than a simple “so this is a thing I’m doing right now”.

Before I had that book blogging BuJo I was always trying to remember publication dates, the status and number of my ARCs, ideas I had and so many more things. I know you might be wondering why I didn’t simply use the calendar on my smartphone.

Because I hate planning digitally with a passion. The resentment I felt towards eBooks is still very strong in all things regarding digital management. Hell, I even depend on a BuJo-style notebook for work to function at my best, even though we plan things with Outlook and a ticketing system.

The Queer’s Planning

Anyway. For me, it works best if I plan the month’s posts and tasks ahead. That way I can stick to deadlines and I know exactly what order I need to follow as well as what to work on if there is an open time block. Like right now. I finished my home office working day and even though I spend most of the time writing advertising content my brain’s not dead yet. So one look at my time table tells me the best way to spend this unexpected blogging time is to work on next week’s let’s talk bookish post.

I try to fit in a little bit of blogging time after finishing work. If I went into the office that might mean checking my emails and socials while being on the train, if I work from home, it could be spent writing – or if I’m brain dead doing some behind-the-scenes things or research.

I do block a certain amount of time for certain task anyway – usually on the weekends – but if I end up finishing the planned task before that I either take the time off or spend it doing the next thing on my to-do list.

This way of being flexible in a fixed or planned way is how I work best and I can make sure to get done what I want to do while also focusing on recharging time.

How do you (try to) balance blogging with everything else you have to/want to do?