Ever get that feeling there’s something you should be doing, but keep putting off?
Well, right now, I’m ignoring the fact I should be getting offline, winding down and watching a bit of TV before going to bed. Instead, I’m writing a blog post.
But that’s not the kind of thing I’m talking about. How many times have you read a blogging tip that makes you nod and agree, and you plan to do it… you just never get around to it?
This Post is All About Commenting
I think I do a pretty good job of replying to comments on my blog. But I know for a fact, I don’t do a particularly good job of commenting on other blogs.
Some of you seem happy to comment here whether I visit your blog or not. And in some ways, this is fair – just because one person shows an interest in a blog, does not mean the author of the blog they’re interested in will have an interest in the commenter’s blog, too.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying it’s OK to take and not give anything back. I just don’t have an interest in every topic out there.
The Harsh Reality
I really don’t know where the time goes sometimes. At the weekend, I try to pack in as much as I can, and most of the time it works out well. However, the weekday evenings disappear quickly.
I don’t always have time to write blog posts or use social media, let alone do anything else. The harsh reality is that blogging takes up a lot of time – and I don’t always have a lot of time.
But I want to start commenting more. The first step is acknowledging there’s something you want to work on. The next step is taking action.
Time For a Blogging Challenge
If I set myself a target of writing one comment every day, I’d probably fail after a week or two – or I’d have to force a few comments just to keep the quota up.
So instead, I’ve set myself a much more ambitious goal, with a milestone that’s further into the future. My goal is to write 500 comments by the end of 2012. And they can’t be pointless comments where I just say “Nice post”. They have to be thoughtful comments.
Mid-Year Resolutions
As the name suggests, New Year Resolutions tend to come around at the turn of the year. On New Year’s Eve, some people declare they will do something crazy, then forget about it fairly quickly. On New Year’s Day, I imagine there are a few people who declare they’ve never drinking again.
I gave up alcohol in April 2011 – notice that it wasn’t in January. I’ve stuck to it. I’m also well past my goal to watch 52 movies by the end of 2012 – so far I’ve watched 75, although I haven’t watched any since 24 June. Here are the movies I’ve watched in 2012.
This particular goal is what I call a mid-year resolution. It’s something I choose to do in the middle of the year (although it’s not exactly the middle). Mainly because I can set myself a big goal that I might achieve by the end of the year. If you give yourself too much time – such as a whole year – it feels like you’ve got all the time in the world. And then you simply don’t bother.
Discussion
What do you keep putting off? Why do you keep putting it off? And what are you going to do about it?
Commenting seems to be one among one problems too, Ben
Right now, I have about 50 blogs in my Google Reader – every day, I comment on new items from these blogs (Not all blogs publish every day, so by the end of the day, I try to keep about 10 unread items, so I can read next day even if they – blog owners – didn’t publish anything).
One thing blog commenting takes is lot of time and effort – but once we establish the active relationship, the blog author will be willing to share and comment on our content (even if we didn’t ask them
).
Good luck on the challenge, Ben. I also love taking blogging challenge – the last commenting challenge I tried was trying to leave 100 comments a day for 1 week – I never succeed, got close to 50 on a day. The hardest part was finding the blogs.
By the way, I just discovered an awesome tool called RescueTime that will show us how much time we spend on each activity/program/website. I came upon it from Lisa through her guest post at Logallot. So far, it is an awesome tool. You should try it, I think it will help you in the challenge.
Hi Jeevan
I’m now trying out RescueTime (thanks for the pointer and the mention of Lisa’s post) so I can see where I’m spending my time. I’m going to install it at work too – I will probably get some very interesting figures as I’m on the computer a lot.
Thanks for the good luck – I’m making a start already. Replying to the comments on my blog doesn’t count towards the 500 though – I thought that might be cheating.
No mention, Ben
Rescue time, so far awesome. Not only does it show me how I spend my time, but also motivates me (Reminds me there is someone watching – Myself as a supervisor – so I need to get things done).
Yeah, I had several temptations to include my own replies in the comment count for commenting challenge
RescueTime also has a very well run Twitter account – if you mention them they seem to notice, and they’re very responsive
I think I’m delusional when it comes to being organized on my computer. I’ve been online for so many years and have no excuse for how some of my files have gotten scattered. A few weeks ago I we had two new disk drives installed so we can once again get some things stored on them rather than on the hard disk. It’s not that I don’t know how to go about all this, it’s taking the time to do it. In the end though, I refuse to get the guilts for not getting everything done. “Real life is what happens when…” you are trying to do anything on the computer.
Hi Carol
Time is precious for me – it disappears faster than I’m able to use it effectively. That’s why I started using RescueTime, to find out my main time drains. I probably know most of them -trying to do too many things at once doesn’t help for a start – I don’t think RescueTime will help with that one unfortunately.
Ben, that is very doable. I just did the math and it comes to 3 comments per day. I try to hit 10 but boy it’s not always easy! But hearing 500 makes it sound like a lot. I’m in ad sales during the day and when we get goals they seem high until you break them down by week or day. Love to hear if you make it!
Glad you and Jeeven are trying out Recue Time.
Hi Lisa
Thanks for the support. I agree with breaking things down into smaller targets – sometimes this works well for me. However, I seem to get on better with chipping away at a big task than having to do a little of something every week. I get bored if I do the same stuff every week. I think this is a big reason why I love my job (I’m a full-time web developer) 
Ben, I really can sympathize with you. We all love comments, but we would love them even more if they just came without our having to give anything in return!
But not so with the web.
When someone contributes on your site regularly and you are not moved to go over to their site for a look-see (even if they blog about UFO’s
), and drop a note to say ‘I was here’, there is a relationship problem.
One-sided relationships do not last – unless we have the popularity of a Darren Rowse – because they defy the meaning of the root word, ‘relate’, which means “to respond especially favorably”.
All the best on this challenge.
On The Record: I’m in! 1 done – 499 to go…
Hi Yeremi
Great to see you’re joining me. Good luck 
I really struggle with time – I’m currently working through a list of every post on my blog, updating the images, updating links, revising some of the content, making the formatting consistent, and making a few SEO changes. This is taking forever, and I’m doing it on top of writing new posts, reading/replying to other people’s posts, replying to comments here, posting on social networks, and so on. So much to do and so little time…
In general, when I need to do something I put it into the scheduler with the alarm and then I follow that course throughout the day.
When it comes to blog commenting, truthfully it just comes naturally since I follow so many blogs and often check titles on those blogs that have CommentLuv so I can follow those back to meeting new people. I usually have a time of the day, really late at night, where I’ll spend anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour on reading and commenting on blogs, not necessarily because it’s a strategy but because that’s when I’m primed to learn new stuff. I compile a lot of knowledge on a daily basis, which probably explains why I keep forgetting people’s names. lol
By the way, which of the two notifications below am I really supposed to click to receive notification of comments via email?
Hi Mitch
I just tested in another browser while logged out, and saw the two identical “reply notification” checkboxes. I see why that is confusing! 
It’s because I originally had a plugin to subscribe to comments that get posted after yours (but not as a reply). Then I installed a plugin that notifies you of replies to your comment. I’ve disabled the first plugin so it should be clearer. Thanks for pointing that out!
Hey Ben,
I can clearly hear you. Blog commenting is a BIG time eater, but it still pays off. As a blogger I can’t see how I can go without commenting on other blogs. I used to do commenting vigorously, but now I can’t do that much. I simply don’t have the time since I have other projects and more responsibilities with my blogs to take care of. Not that I am not interested in reading other blogs and interacting with the others in the blogosophere. I’m just getting busier.
BUT I really push myself hard to keep up with commenting for two reasons:
(i) I love to voice out my opinion in the blogosphere
(ii) I love to connect with new people
By the way, how are you going to keep track of those 500 comments you are going to make? I mean, how would you know if you have achieved your goal by the end of the year? Even if you maintain an excel sheet of comment links you wouldn’t know if they’re all approved!
Anyways good luck
Cheers,
Jane.
Hi Jane
Thanks for the reassurance that I’m not the only one who finds commenting very time consuming. We can’t comment everywhere, all of the time, but maintaining a presence is important. I see so many bloggers doing exactly that, and I feel I need to the same, but have had difficulties finding the time. Now, I want to make time to do it, which is why I set this challenge for myself.
I’m keeping track of the comments in Excel, and I’ve made the assumption that most comments will be approved. I think if I put in the effort to write a good comment but it wasn’t approved, it should still count, as I’ve put in the time to write the comment. However, I’ll keep an eye on it and revisit those posts in the future. Some of the blogs auto-approve my comment either because I’ve commented before, or because the moderation settings are fairly relaxed. Although I’m not saying “everyone will always approve my comments” as I guess there are a few who might not, it is quite rare for me to come across a blogger who wouldn’t accept a constructive comment on their blog. If I disagree with the post, I’ll still be civil in my reply
Generally, I think most bloggers only usually reject spam, or comments that don’t add anything to the discussion (such as “nice post” from someone using keywords in the name field). But I could be wrong.
I’ve decided that while I will count my first comment on a post as one comment, if the author replies and I post a subsequent reply to them on the same post, I won’t count the follow-up as a second comment.
Hi Ben, commenting is very time consuming as well as trying to find and post interesting ‘let the reader know we are still here’ social media fodder… I try and comment when I have found a great post to share on Facebook and Twitter, I read it and if I decide I want to share it I leave a comment. This is ok, I can fit a few in but trying to do loads is a nightmare. You are so right blogging, is more labour intensive than the usual wage slave day job, but a lot more rewarding.
Andi
Hi Andi
I know exactly what you mean. At the moment I’m getting behind with this challenge and several other things I’d like to be doing, as I’ve been working on a mass cleanup of this blog and it takes a long time to update 200+ posts even with relatively small changes. When I’ve finished, I will be aiming to comment more regularly than I have done recently. Completing a project is a huge achievement – getting back to the smaller, regular tasks such as commenting will be a nice change 
And although commenting is time consuming, it’s not as time consuming as the cleanup I’ve been doing 