What can Yoga teach you about Blogging? Stretching, breathing, and posing may not seem like the guidelines for getting out good quality posts week after week. Yoga is something for active people, not bloggers spending an average of 9.5 hours a day parked in front of their computer screens.
However, whether as full-on practitioners or single class drop-in types, bloggers will find that yoga has a great deal to teach them about the blogging process.
1. Shut Out The Outside World
One of the first steps in yoga is to make a conscious barrier between yourself and the outside world. It’s over there, and while you are in a yoga room you are here, in this moment, with nothing to distract you or pull you away from the session at hand.
Shut down or disable anything that you don’t need for your current post. That includes email, Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging software, and the 17 non-essential tabs you’ve got open in your browser, along with your phone. It is simply this moment and this task, right now, with nothing else in existence as far as you’re concerned.
2. Center Your Thoughts
Another key part of yoga practice is centering your thoughts. You are supposed to focus on your breathing and clear your mind. When, as a blogger, was the last time you felt like your mind was clear?
The dozen tasks that need done today, the piles of laundry, the empty fridge, and all the worries and cares of the world have a tendency to crowd in. This crowding of the mind makes it difficult to focus and be creative. You can’t put together the right words, and you can’t keep yourself on task and motivated to get a single post finished.
By taking a page from the yoga books and clearing your mind as you sit down to work, you can bring out the creative juice that you need to finish your posts. There are different methods you can use.
One of my favorites is setting aside a block of time to focus only on a specific task. 1 hour blocks followed by 10-15 minute breaks work great. Whether there is a focus word that works for you, a meditative tactic, or a ritual that signals work beginning, centering your thoughts will free your mind to deliver good work.
3. Form Matters
Form matters in yoga, and is a central path to moving beyond basic beginner status to the big league. Working out the little details to ensure that the foundational skills and positions are solid is the only way to successfully continue on to more advanced practice.
Whilst blogging doesn’t stop you from skipping ahead, those who pay attention to the basics of good blogging will find themselves rewarded as they progress.
Grammar points, written structure, and cohesive idea presentation didn’t die with English class. Attractive layouts and solid blog platform architecture pay back the time investment with no broken links or down pages. Care for the basic forms that support the craft, and you’ll find that you feel more confident, capable, and in control when it comes to your blogging activities.
4. Results Come From Repetition
A final lesson to be learned from yoga is that results come from repetition. In the blogging world, this means building up posting routines, interacting with readers as a habit, and establishing a consistent voice.
While each may feel like a struggle at first, with repetition it will become second nature to post regularly, respond to comments and reader inquiries, and hit the right tone time and time again. Do a good day’s blogging – and then do it again. Like the yoga guru, you will find that results accumulate in direct proportion to the effort you put in.
Guest author Collin Elder is a tech blogger at MyPhoneDeals.co.uk. Collin blogs on the latest smartphones, gadgets, and developments in the UK phone market. Image credits to sxc.hu. You can also share your blogging tips and write guest articles.