It happens every single year: Sometime between mid-July and mid-August, my posting rate drops considerably. You can almost set your calendars to it. I struggle with this a bit, as my contributions to this and other blogs are pretty important to me, but year after year, I find myself falling into the same pattern: One post per week- maybe two - is about all I seem to manage.
Possible reasons for this annual phenomenon:
1. Summer: The days are long. The sun is warm. I spend as much time outside as I can, which in my world means running and cycling for hours on end at a pretty high level of exertion. When I finally drag my salty tired body home, the last thing I want to do is spend more energy thinking about writing a post, much less reading and writing. My priorities are (not necessarily in that order) food, drink, shower, rest, QT with the family.
In the winter, when it is way too cold and dark for me to go ride my bike for three hours after work, I come home energized and ready to write 30,000 word daily.
2. Frenchness: The French take the summer off. I am French. The slowdown usually hits the week leading to Bastille Day. Draw your own conclusions.
3. Creative cycles and summer writing projects: My need to write shifts genres cyclically. I go through extremely prolific blogging periods. I also go through very creative periods. While the two often overlap, there are times in the year when they are diametrically opposed. This is such a time. Do I want to write? Yes. Am I writing? Yes. Does this writing have anything to do with the brandbuilder blog? Nope.
4. Blogging self doubt: Some people occasionally take my posts out of context and take offense to them. It usually happens in the warmer months for whatever reason. Believe it or not, that doesn’t make my day, especially when I didn’t mean anything by the posts in question. An hefty daily dose of hate mail from people whose feelings I didn’t mean to hurt makes me want to take a step back and take a break for a few weeks.
5. Summer movies. Batman. Ironman. Hulk. WallE. Hellboy. Mummy. Not all good, but all must be attended and watched. This takes time and neurons.
6. W.O.R.K. Traveling in July and almost every week in August + Working so much I don’t have a minute to myself during the day. Nuff said.
7. Kids are out of school. I do stuff with them. It’s fun. Blogging can wait.
8. Yard work. House work. (Currently revamping the front yard and back yards. Redoing the living room. Looking at new carpet. Painting rooms on the horizon.) Projects abound. I need a gardner and a contractor. (I really don’t have time for this stuff… and don’t enjoy it all that much.)
9. Photo shoots. Love them. Hate them. Either way, they take up a lot of time and energy. Going back to shooting only for myself as soon as humanly possible.
10. Maybe there’s just less going on. Less to talk and write about – at least in the marketing and brand develpment worlds this time of year.
11. Le Tour de France. (Add the Olympiads this year for a full summer of TV sports.)
Whatever the reasons may be (all of the above,) no worries, the slowdown you may have noticed recently is normal. It happens every year. Enjoy the light blogging over the next few weeks, read lessof what I have to say and go experience the world more. (Yes, out there in the sun with big wide open skies and fresh air, not inside a climate-controled room with artificial light.) The BrandBuilder will be there when you get back.
I hear ya, Olivier. Blogging has taken a back seat for me too. Hope you are doing well.
Your BLT attendance is down too.
I have rounds of insomnia during this time of year…
Great marketing/branding/society/humanature stuff on your blog.
Evan, I tried to attend last week but found a locked door and an empty building. Had to relocate my BLT to another downtown location. I’ll try again this week. Are you guys going to be there this time?
Mendy, yeah things are going well. I’m sure I’ll see you guys at the Greenville Sprint Tri.
IDHK, my sleep patterns have been completely out of whack for the last week. I don’t know what is going on. I usually sleep like a log, but not lately. Is there a thing with the Earth’s magnetic fields this time of year? Is the giant hedron particle collider screwing up my superstrings? What gives? At anyrate, I hear ya on the insomnia thing.
“10. Maybe there’s just less going on. Less to talk and write about – at least in the marketing and brand develpment worlds this time of year.”
Well, if I may throw my 2 cents in here. You had a great post about the Microsoft Conference a little while ago, would love to hear more about what was going on there and what Microsoft is planning for the future.
Salam, the short of it is this: Much more “in the cloud” computing, more robust and functional apps (including mobile apps), more licensing options/flexibility, more meshable interfaces (blending lifestyle apps with business apps), and big evolutionary leaps in collaboration tools, for starters.
I will be talking more about it on the Sherpa blog soon.
Microsoft definitely has some pretty exciting stuff in the works.
well, having recently been in France, perhaps your body is used to the sun being out until 10:30pm at this time of year..! my wife and I were surprised to find ourselves eating a sunset dinner… at 10 at night.
Hmm…. guess this explains the severe lack of frequent videos and posts lately, in 2009. snicker…. come back TBB.
I just re-read that. It’s amazing how it hits every year on the same week. You can set your calendar to it.