Ask The Readers: What Would You Do If Time Didn’t Matter?

This week I wanted to encourage a fun exercise with some pretty concrete benefits. I’d like you to answer the question:

What would you do if you had unlimited time to blog/run your website? How would you reach your goals as quickly as possible?

The purpose of this exercise is to get us thinking about what we’d do if time wasn’t an issue. Throughout the answers to last week’s question — where are the holes in your leaky bucket? — there was a pervasive sense of readers feeling that they never had enough time to do what they wanted to do.

By taking away the issue of time constraints, it will interesting to see what actions people would focus on and what route to success they’d take. You might also start to think about extra projects you’d like to start, if you had more time.

As you might have guessed, the greatest benefit of this exercise is that it will start to get you thinking about how you use time, and what you might be able to achieve if you used it differently.

I don’t want to be seen as implying that the only thing stopping you from achieving your success is the way you use time. There is only so much time we can afford to dedicate to our site without sacrificing other things. Instead, I’d like you to think about small improvements, and actions you might consider swapping for more effective ones.

You’ll find my answer in the comments section after I publish this post.

The question once more:

What would I do if I had unlimited time to blog/run my website? How would you reach your goals as quickly as possible?

I’ll also be picking out another favorite commenter this week. Here’s a quick summary of what I’ll be looking for:

• A useful and insightful answer — something others can learn from.
• Engagement with other commenters and reflection on their answers.
• Active participation in the discussion.

What I won’t be taking into consideration:

• Names, identities and affiliations. I’ll be judging by comments alone.

* * *

Last week’s discussion of our weaknesses and areas in need of improvement seemed to be a useful exercise for many. I think the conversation with many of us determined to plug up some of those holes!

Last week’s most valuable commenter was Paidtwice (who blogs about getting out of debt). Her insights highlighted something I believe is really important: sometimes the problem lies not in having a lack of time, but in the way we use it.

For me, my biggest hole is working on anything other than content on my blog. I spend a lot of time writing content and publishing content. I spend next to no time on all the other aspects of a blog – making it look pretty and functional, adding plugins that enhance the reader’s experience, creating sidebars that flow, etc etc etc etc. Running a blog is a lot more than just content, and sometimes (all the time) I seem to forget that.

She goes into the running — alongside previous winners — to win a one-month featured link in the sidebar. Congrats!