Burning Out and Rebooting

Blogging is hard. Not in an exasperated little kid tone of voice, but it is time and thought consuming. Kudos to those that are able to blog every day, or every other day. I don't know how they do it, but also wonder if they are doing it because they have something to say or think they should have something to say.

Blogger burnout. It's a real thing. I've been doing this blog for the past 7 or 8 years and, well, there's always that period of burn out. It's also part of the reason I'm launching a new blog - well, moving this one - to jspepper.tv. Maybe it'll get the fire lit under me and I'll finish those 8 or so posts I've started, and maybe do more videos (hence, the .tv stuff - plus I'm jspepper on everything and I couldn't get .com).

So what got me thinking about this? Well, Clever Girls Collective. They're working with HP on ROI and the Reboot - and, well, their reboot is a contest on what gets people moving to reboot themselves and their teams, and how HP technology can help with that. You can see all the information here and get the rules here. And, yes, the full disclosure is that they pinged me with their normal emails, someone pinged me separately and they'll compensate me for the post. How's about that for a reboot?

But the reboot is serious. Think about it in a team setting: when the team is worked hard, and coming close to burning out, what do you do as a boss? We used to do team dinners, and got cool gifts, and the client would also send his/her appreciation and we knew we did good work. That helped - a bit, and sometimes a lot (hey, I have shoes from it).

For me, the reboot and preventing burning out comes from a life/work balance. It's my yoga, my working out at Equinox, the various classes. It's the ability to walk away from the computer, go to the gym, and then come back a bit refreshed. That works for the work stuff. For the blogging, it's going to events and meeting like-minded people that share the enthusiasm - or it's talking to friends in the space via email, and getting fired up to do something about it. And then taking that fire and running with it and writing. Yah, that's the part that trips me up - that and the ability to just short form it on Twitter.

So if you're interested in a get-away to Napa Valley for 6, tell HP your reboot story.
Comments
2 comments
  1. Great post! I am currently a student studying PR at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. It is constantly drilled into us students about how well written pieces are key. I am in totally agreement with you that a lot of us, even communicators, have sub par writing skills. Why is this? I think the educational system needs to realize that the age of social media is upon us, and has been for a while. In between text language and the care-free writing on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the generation that grew up with those mediums seem to think writing properly just doesn't matter anymore. I am glad I was able to have a mentor who took me aside and tell me, "Chris, as a communicator you must write well in every forum." I think this must be stressed to everyone at a young age. Even more so with the dominance of social media.

    I will leave saying this:

    I agree with your following quote.Twitter was not originally made to get out a news story. It was made for you to get a taste, so later on you can communicate on what is going on.

    "But, maybe, just maybe Twitter's limitation to 140 characters is just not enough to disseminate news, even with links to a blog or page that is, well, I guess it'd be a press release huh?"

    I am new to the blogosphere, and would love to have someone like you who has been blogging for many years follow me. I look forward to reading more of your post.

    ~Take Care- Chris

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  2. That was really good post, well written and particularly interesting when speaking about the reboot.
    Looking at today's media and seeing how important the blog has become in studying the tone of voice and range of topics which are discussed.

    www.loquar.com

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