on life, ambitions, and dreams

NaBloPoMo Goals and Milestones

Sailor Hipster Girl on a Fixie Bicycle

Today is the last day of November which means that all of the men who grew ‘staches for Movember can finally shave, we all flip our calendars and freak out about the goals we have left to meet in 2011, and it is the end of National Blog Posting Month. This is my second year at posting one blog post every day for the month of November and – woah – what a month it’s been!

Goals and Milestones

On November 1st I made six goals for myself to keep this month. Here’s how I did:

1. Post at least one blog every single day

By the time I publish my recap, I’ll have published 27 blog posts in a month with 30 days. I skipped three days; one was because I was out with friends and forgot and two were because it was the first week of my new job and I was tired.

This weekend I read Om Malik’s list of lessons he learned from ten years of blogging and he shared something Doc Searls said: “Blog if you have something to say and respect your reader’s time. If you respect their time, they are going to give you some time of their day.” And while there are a few blog posts I wrote this month that I categorize as “throw away” posts (meaning that I could have gone without writing them because I was too exhausted from life, uninspired, was unwilling to write, or had plain and simple writer’s block), every single post that I wrote and published went live before midnight and that’s an awesome accomplishment.

2. Stick to the content calendar

Who was I kidding when I wrote this? My blog is the place where I can write about “life according to Laura,” and this life says that content calendars are great, but mostly irrelevant for whatever I’m feeling right here and right now.

Screw that.

Okay, okay, so I probably stuck with the content calendar 30% of the time, like today and this recap. I’ve had this recap blog post planned for an entire month

3. Be fearless

Yep, did that, but not without hesitation.

4. Increase traffic

I totally nailed this goal and my traffic for the month of November 2011 was up 56% from November 2010. I’m proud of achieving this goal.

5. No epic blog posts

I made sure not to write or publish any “epic” blog posts this year. Epic blog posts are essays or articles that could honestly be a senior-level college thesis. They include a very strong point of view and research to back that up. And they take a lot of thought to write and a lot of time to edit. Epic blog posts should not be cranked out in 2-4 hours, but days or weeks.

While I technically didn’t write any epic blog posts this year, there were three blog posts that were about timely subjects and I wrote them a day or two in advance. The problem, you see, is that NaBloPoMo isn’t about writing everyday, it’s about posting every day. So there were a few nights where I cranked out that day’s post, published it, and went straight to writing the next one. That was a little hard, but it sure was fun to relax and not write the next night.

Small victories 🙂

Oh, and the best part about not writing epic blog posts is I’ve been listening – to what you’re responding to in my posts, to what other bloggers are writing and asking about – and I’ve put all of those ideas in a queue and I’m very excited to dive deeply into those topics. So get ready.

6. Read one new blog every single day

I’ve been reading a lot this month, but I haven’t been commenting as much as I wanted to. Why? I quit my job and started another one. Oh, and I’ve been blogging. A lot. So suck it. It happens.

Milestones and big announcements

Bragging rights

Blogs I had the most fun writing

  • Happy Thanksgiving Eve – I had the most fun writing this post and telling you not to listen to every other blogger and Tweet during Thanksgiving (Okay, ‘fess up, who stayed online all weekend?)
  • Picturing My True Identity – Because who doesn’t love sharing photos of themselves from high school?
  • That Blog Post About my Cats – Even though cats may rule the Internet, being a cat lady is still does not. This was one of the most creative posts I wrote and, let’s be honest here, I have cats, two of them, and they’re pretty awesome.

So long, NaBloPoMo, we’ll meet again!

I had fun this month. And while I really think that the 2010 NaBloPoMo experiment was my breakout year, I kicked ass this year and I’m emerging from the 2011 NaBloPoMo season as a better writer who is pretty damn good at blogging. And as a result, I know you and myself a lot better. Thank you for being with me on this journey.

What’s next? Not a new blog post on Thursday, December 1st, but you will see a new post this weekend.

Stay tuned boys and girls. And thank you for being here with me.

Photo Credit: Lorena Cupcake

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7 Responses

  1. Congrats on completing your NaBloPoMo! A great achievement. I am thinking of doing something similar… but I know I won’t have time next November, for sure haha (I will probably be in law school). Maybe I should do it sometime in the next few months, just for fun 🙂

    1. Thanks, Akhila! November is a funky month for blogging, for one thing, there’s Thanksgiving weekend.

      Just pick a month and try it out. But, yeah, don’t wait until your first quarter of law school 🙂

  2. Great job. Gold stars and virtual high fives! Thanks for always inspiring me & allowing me the grace to stumble with this process. I think next year I’ll be in a better place to actually not flake & plan on stepping up my blog game for the rest of year so it’s easy peasy for 2012!

    1. Thanks, Melinda, writing with you throughout the past year has made me a stronger writer and it’s something I miss — here’s to a less ‘eventful’ 2012 and more writing!

  3. Crikes that is one diesel, productive month! What’s next on your agenda?

    I think that’s a pretty solid exercise too, getting in the habit of DOING stuff rather than collecting, constantly reading, or planning on doing stuff.  PS my friends have gotta shave their staches… it’s looking pretty molestache-like at this point.  Thank god Dec. has arrived, now I won’t have to apologize for my homeless friends in the bar haha.

  4. Awesome. Not an easy task to crank out posts every single day. What I’ve had to learn (and re-learn) and then re-learn again is that blog posts do not need to be epic, perfectly crafted and articulated masterpieces. I had a video post last week talking about this, but essentially, when you’re concerned about perfection, you often end up with nothing. 

    Cheers to what sounds like a great month!

  5. Congrats, Laura. Keep it up! 🙂 I’m starting to comment on blogs a bit more and you’re one of my go-to places. 🙂 Have fun on the East coast! PS. I’m waiting for you to crush it on 4sq… 

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