Blogging | How to Plan A Scheduled Blog Break

I don't know how many of you noticed that I haven't been posting on Elle Ay Esse: Personal + Lifestyle Blog at all lately. The truth is that I haven't had time. I wish I had taken the time to schedule my blogs break but I didn't and now I am facing all kinds of challenges with coming back when I am finally ready to carve out some time to post. Take it from me personally when I say that if I could go back and schedule a long break for myself, I would leap at the opportunity.

Sadly I can't go back and change my unscheduled blogging break, but I can give you all a guide on how to plan one for yourself.

Blogging is hard. And sometimes life happens. When it does, be prepared by scheduling a blogging break the easy way.

So if you're considering taking a blogging break or don't want to be caught unprepared, get clicky with it and let's go!

1 | Draft An Explanation:

The trick to any blogging break is to at very least make it look scheduled, whether or not it actually is. Create a post draft that you keep just for the occasion that states you will be absent for a period of time. Trust me when I say that it is far easier to have a vague reason already written up than to have to come back later and post why you've been gone for over a month with no signs of life anywhere.

Now, if you already know that you will be gone for a time, you can list the why's and how's and expectations of when you will return. But if this winds up being a spur of the moment, you'll be grateful you had this draft. Keep it simple but make it clear that you will be away from your blog and posts will be sparse if happening at all. Try something like:

"I'm sorry to do this to you dear readers but a family emergency has come up and I will be away from this happy place of mine for awhile while I deal with the issues arising. I hope to be back and in top blogging form as soon as possible but in the meantime, here is some recommended reading!"

Then list some of your previous posts, links to where else you write on the web or even some other blogs that you think your readers will enjoy.

2 | Change Your Blog Comments Settings:

A lot of bloggers have their comments set to be approved or moderated first. If you don't or you have your blog set to not see comments unless you are on your blogs dashboard, you will want to enable your comment settings to send you an email whenever people do leave a comment so that you aren't out of the loop.

Even if you can't find time due to circumstances beyond your control, if you are going to have comments enabled, you need to make time, even once a week, to reply.

However, if you know that replying to comments won't be possible, it may be a good idea to temporarily turn comments off entirely until you get things settled.

3 | Ask For Guest Posts - The Free Kind

I will just about guarantee that if something is going on in your life that you know you will not be able to be anywhere near your blog for a time, the blogging tribe and network you have built will happily come trough for you. Simply reach out to your network or in Facebook groups you belong to, and ask for other bloggers to help you by writing guest posts. You can invite them to your blog as authors via email and they can post as needed or wanted and it will take the pressure off of you.

4 | Evaluate Your Break

If you happen to be taking a week or two for a family vacation or you had a mild family situation that needed your time and energy you may be able to completely discount this next piece of advice. But if you have bailed on your blog for a length of time and are actually able to post but can''t seem to bring yourself to do so for other, maybe more personal, reasons then it is time to evaluate this break you have taken.

Are you struggling to come back after a death in the family?

Are you having trouble putting the same spring in your blogging step?

Has the wind been completely taken from your content sails?

Really think about the last time you posted something of value to your readers that you also genuinely enjoyed reading. If you know you won't be blogging again in the enforceable future, maybe it is time to simply say good-bye.

For me, with my personal + lifestyle blog, I loved posting. I loved sharing my world and my life with my readers and I was generating quite a lot of traffic. Enough for me to go ahead and start adding some AdSense ads into the mix. But then I stopped. No real reason why I stopped, I just so busy with my client work, writing eBook and writing right here on this blog that I just didn't have time to schedule six posts a week.

Out of fear that I would lose my blogging edge here on this blog, which is not only my pride and joy but also my full time job where I actually earn a very real income, I let the weeks pass without a post on the blog or the blogs social media. Now I am in transition. Should I even keep my lifestyle blog? The jury is still out.

5 | Ask For Support:

Take to your social media and share a bit about what is going on with you in your life and why it has caused you to take a major blogging break. No matter what has happened, I will just about 100% guarantee that even if you aren't blogging, you are logging into Facebook or Twitter daily.

So get on there, you're probably there anyway, and ask your readers for support during this time you won't be blogging. Trust me, it will help your readers to remain faithful to you if you are at very least talking to them on social media to help them understand why you aren't blogging.

And you never know who may have once been in your situation. You may even land yourself a new OBFF (Online Best Friend). I have one very dear friend on Facebook that I have never met in real life. We've been friends through three of my children's birth and two weddings (hers and mine). She is someone I once met while doing research for a college class I was in and we have been OBFF's ever since.