Balancing Content, Polish & Study

Balancing Content, Polish & Study: "

After having had another week off work to get myself back into the swing of things after a hectic two weeks in Florida, it’s back to work today! Whilst re-familiarising myself with where I was in my software project I noticed a small dilemma that also relates to blogging or pretty much any other online activity.

The Meaty Content

With any work there is always some kind of activity which is the most important ‘meat’ of the work. For a piece of software its developing the features of that software, for a blog it’s writing the posts, for an ebook business its writing the content of the book and so on. This activity is always something to spend a lot of time on because without it, you have no business.

Software that doesn’t do anything is not software, a blog with no posts is just a dead blog and a book with no words is, well, non existent :-) For any kind of business its important that you figure out what the meaty content is and prioritise your work around that. Often this work is harder to do than other stuff and so it can be easy to procrastinate and avoid it by keeping yourself busy with other less important work. However there is a time and a place for that too.

Adding the Polish

If you’ve ever started a blog, did you fall into the trap of spending an age fidding with your theme and plugins before actually getting any posts written? This is a common pitfall and is really just a way of procrastinating. However saying that, the polish to any business is still a necessary activity in the vast majority of cases.

Whilst a blog, software or ebook doesn’t really need to look good in order to do its job, it really does help – especially if you plan to make money from what you are producing. I don’t think there’s any doubt that this polish work needs to get done, the question is when should you do it?

It’s this question in my software project that prompted me to write this post today. Before I stopped work for my holiday I had completed the functionality of a specific chunk of work which I was pleased with. It works but it doesn’t look pretty. I am not done though as I still have another couple of important features to implement so I have the dilemma – do I continue working on those new features which need to get done before I can release or do I stop and polish up what I have done already?

With any work that is somewhat ongoing such as web software or a blog, you’ll soon find that you’re never really done with the content so it can be hard to know when to polish. If the work is more finite such as a book then the decision is clearer – you can get the first draft of your book written before you even think about polishing it up.

What I’ve decided to do is alternate to some extent. Now that I’ve completed a major chunk of work I’ll take a break from development to add some polish but I won’t try and do everything as that can be a never-ending job in itself. Once I’ve added a little polish I’ll develop another specific feature and then stop to polish and so on. For a blogger I would suggest concentrating on post content for the most part but setting aside some time every now and then to just polish things up the blog and keep doing this on a regular basis.

Keeping up Your Skills

With most online businesses there is some kind of learning curve at the beginning and then there is ongoing study. Obviously if you are starting something you have never done before then you need to invest in a period of study before you can really get any work done at all. In my case, I needed to learn the PHP language and a few web technologies – this took much longer than I anticipated.

If you’re starting a blog you might want to learn about blogging first but with anything like this, there is usually an inexhaustible supply of free information out there and its easy to get so caught up in the reading and studying that you never actually get anything done. I remember when I first started this business 2 years ago, and I broke down where my time was going I realised I was doing this very thing.

On the other hand, another mistake that people make is that they learn what they need to get started but then they just stop learning. This is a mistake, especially with an online business, because things change – technology changes, new sites, tools and trends come and go, and if you don’t keep up you’ll find yourself left behind. It’s always a good idea to keep yourself up to date using whatever sources are relevant to your work whether that’s a few blogs, an industry magazine (PHP Architect magazine and some blogs in my case), podcasts or whatever.

Balancing It All Out

Personally I find that the meaty content work is the hardest, and requires the most concentration and enthusiasm. It’s not easy for me to start developing something new and challenging at 4pm on a Friday afternoon but I can quite easily catch up on a few blogs at that time. There’s always some work that’s easier than others and always some times or days when you are more or less motivated than others.

Always set aside time for your most important work and do that work when you are at your best but also allow time for other work so that you don’t neglect the other little details.

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