Is Blogging a Total Waste of Your Time?
The answer is a big YES. I don’t mean to mislead you by using this title. Of course, I want it to be interesting, but not misleading in any way. Allow me to discuss in this post the reasons why I think that blogging is not as good or profitable as we all think it is.
Are You Blogging to Make Money Online?
I would like to make it clear first that it is my assumption that you are looking for ways to make a profit online. Perhaps this is because you cannot stand your office job anymore and you are now desperate to try your luck working from home. Or it could also be that you are searching for a way to earn even just a bit more money to prepare for some major purchase. Whatever your reason is, I hope you realize that you are wasting your time if you think blogging can help you achieve your financial goals.
Meanwhile, if you are blogging because you think it is a perfect way of helping people out or you find it a great outlet for your creativity, then by all means you should keep blogging. My point here is that money is not the only way we can measure the importance of blogging.
How Could Blogging Be a Waste of Time?
Perhaps you are still puzzled by the title of this post. Well, all I wanted to say is that blogging can cause you to lose your focus, which is to achieve your goal. As a matter of fact, you may not be aware that you have been too focused on blogging that you have totally forgotten about making money.
So you must be even more confused now, aren’t you? Alright, let me explain.
There are just so many ways you could use the internet to make a lot of money, and one of them is blogging. Are you even aware that blogging is actually not the best means of making money online? Blogging requires that you spend a lot of time thinking of what to write instead of actually writing. Plus, it doesn’t instantly result in a profit on your part. The thing that has made blogging so popular over the years is its accessibility.
I actually have this feeling that if people use the time they spend for creating articles on making an e-book instead, they could earn much more. Apart from writing e-books, they could also try to learn how to become successful affiliate marketers. Of course I am not in the position to say that this is certain, but it is my genuine opinion.
The American Belief
In America, children grow up having the belief that they can be anything they want to be. I can even remember all those American movies where the main character would start with nothing and end up with everything he could ever wish for. This is inspiring, indeed, but it’s all baloney.
You may not like what I just said there and you may even think I’m too harsh. But I hope you understand how I feel about it because I know for a fact that I cannot be everything that I want to be. In my case, for instance, no matter how much I want to play pro basketball, I can’t because I’m too short! I cannot be a pilot either, because of my poor eyesight. And how on earth can I be a physicist if I failed all my college math courses?
Sure you could say that I just need more practice to be better at math, and I would agree with you. But you have to realize also that I may as well do something else that I know I am good at. There are many other ways I could put my natural skills and talents to use, am I right? For me, this is a better plan.
It is not my intention at all to argue about hard work and natural talent. What I know is that you need to work hard enough to deserve to be successful. But then again, there are some people I know who don’t work as hard as I do, and yet are so many times more successful than I am.
Think You Excel at Blogging?
Now the real question is if you think you are good at blogging. Do you feel that your writing has continuously improved overtime? Or are you stuck and desperate, decided that you will not get any better at blogging? One way you can find the answers to these questions is to look into the number of people visiting your site and subscribing to it. You should also check if your backlinks and comments are increasing. If not, then you should take a second look at the strategy you are using. Are you just wasting your time blogging? Is blogging becoming a hindrance to something that you could be so much better at?
The Point Here is That You’re Getting Distracted
My intention here is not to discourage you from blogging. In fact, I would like to offer you ways you could be more successful in what you clearly love to do. I want you to help others while you are making money. And the last thing I want for you is to get distracted. So what kind of distraction am I talking about?
Being distracted from your main goal. Your primary goal is to earn money online to improve your way of living. However, blogging may not be the perfect means to do that. Blogging is popular, simple, and readily available, and thus, it could be a distraction. It could be stopping you from doing what you really excel at.
Being distracted from blogging. When you’re done reading this post, it is likely that you will be distracted from blogging. What I mean is that the negative ideas in this post could discourage you from blogging. Of course, I hope it won’t happen to you.
What I have been meaning to say is that blogging becomes a waste of time if you are distracted by it and if you are distracted when doing it.
Is There Anything I Can Do, Aside from Blogging?
So if you don’t want to be blogging for the rest of your life, is there any other way you could make money online? Of course! YES. For instance, you could:
– Run websites about whatever it is you know a lot about
– Produce e-books based on your own field of expertise
– Become an affiliate marketer
– Create an iPhone app
– Make instructional videos on YouTube
– Accept article writing tasks
– and so many other things…
There are way too many opportunities to make money online that are waiting for you. If blogging is the opportunity you can make the most of, then by all means engage in it. But if there is something else that you can do while having fun and earning money, then it’s probably worth giving a try.
Opportunity Cost Matters
In economics, opportunity cost is the thing you have to give up when you choose one thing over another. If, for instance, you choose to go to the beach on a Sunday, well that would mean you cannot have fun in the snow at the same time. This is what opportunity cost is.
Say you spend an hour every night blogging after work, you are definitely missing out on something else. What could it be? Time with the family? Time to sleep? Time for exercise? Is it all worth it?
In all the things you choose to engage in or do, there is an opportunity cost, which makes it so important that you determine if blogging is causing you to just waste your time. The bottom-line here is that you should keep yourself from getting distracted in anything that you want to do.
So now, do you think you are also wasting your time blogging? Or is there something else that is wasting your time?