Creating the Right Blogging Environment

This is a guest post submitted by Mr. Ajeet Khurana. If you want to write a guest post on this blog, please contact me. Many bloggers have great intentions to knock out a killer blog. Many give up before they reach their goal. Some reasons include marketing the blog and quality of the content. However, a more fundamental facet that deeply impacts everything else is the workspace.

The workspace includes the position of the monitor, keyboard, and mouse, but also lighting, posture, the comfort of your chair, and miscellaneous items that inspire you. I will provide some recommendations and you decide which to implement. Without addressing these elements your blogging will suffer and you are more likely to go the way of the dinosaur.

Where?

A common mistake is to make yourself a prime target for those with good intentions, who would suck your blogging time out from under your nose. Your family understands your need to blog, but they believe their needs are more important to you, even if these are mere whims.

Try setting up in a private corner in the home or behind a door you can lock and hang a sign outside. This will only deter them for a brief time, so be prepared.

You could set up in a coffee shop, but try to look busy so others won’t strike up a conversation and if a friend comes in for a latte and sees you they will likely let you be. This means you should not look around, even if you are thinking through an issue. Keep typing or pick up your pen and furiously write on your paper.

When?

I choose the early mornings or very late nights after everyone’s gone to bed, because I know my brain is most productive during these times. No one who knows me expects anything aside from a “Hi!” out of me in the afternoon, and the evening is for family and friends. You will have to judge the best time for you. Try setting a schedule and making others around you aware of it.

How?

Environmental factors often are the culprits for sluggishness. If your posture is bad from too few breaks or too little exercise or the sunlight is glaring on your monitor through the window, your performance will suffer. Consider also the distance and height of your keyboard and mouse. If these are not parallel to the ground and at a natural distance equal to the length of your forearm your wrists will weaken quicker. Keep your chair uncomfortable though or you might drift off into dreamland.

The Real Desktop

We are all guilty of fidgeting more over our virtual desktop and getting it to look just right than over the desktop on which the keyboard and mouse, and perhaps the monitor, sit. The more disaster there is on your desk, the lower your esteem. Some claim they feel like they are really working when there is more mess, but a margin of tidiness goes a long way toward lifting the spirits. At least protect certain spaces for your coffee cup, pens, and scratch paper. Everything else can go to hell if you prefer.

So, how’s your working environment?

The author, Ajeet Khurana, is a professor, published author, investor and above all a blogger. He has recently immersed himself into his tech blog, and is also incubating another one called TechnoTropis.