3 Important Lessons I Learned From A “Surprise Break”

by Ishan on July 7, 2010 · 6 comments

A break is refreshing! After all, it's great to live without tension of writing and managing!

But what if you are forced to take a break! It will not feel that good!

This week, something similar happened to me. I went to my aunt's home. I had lots of plans ready! A new place means new ideas and I was more than willing to catch these ideas and turn them into full fledged posts.

After reaching there and having some rest, here's what I went through:

Opened my Dell Studio 1457 Laptop(see How a Laptop makes me A Better Blogger).
Plugged in my USB modem.
Switched it on.
Started XP Mode in Windows 7(long story, Tata Indicom, my ISP forgot to update drivers! Huh)
Almost jumped off the chair to find that there was no signal.

Well, aunt's house is behind a big hill! So, the coverage for ISP was really week there. Then I tried to connect via my phone only to find that Aircel(phone operator) has blocked everything via port 80 except Google!

After trying and testing everything(I even did a full round of house carrying laptop in hands expecting signal to show up somewhere!), it was clear that this was a forced break.

So, I picked up the only choice I had, staying offline for 3 days!

This small break told me a lot of lessons. Here are the 3 most important ones.

Always Keep Drafts Ready: Drafts are life savers in such times. Having 3-4 drafts can help a lot and bring peace of mind. I had 3 drafts ready which were published on Tuesday, Thursday and Wednesday. Without these, my commitment of putting Blogging With Success on afterburners(see How To Put Your Blog On Afterburners) a weak would have fallen flat on face in first week!
Give A Trusted Friend An Admin Or Editor Level Account: Having a friend with an admin or editor account will help you to schedule or publish any "ready" posts in case of emergencies. I didn't need it as I had Shirley to manage the publishing. But if you find yourself in this kind of situation, friend will be a life saver.
Write Down Ideas In A Notebook: Always keep a notebook in which you can write down the ideas as they approach. I had a notebook with me and guess what, I wrote 15 ideas for new posts in it(and 3 of these are BIG, watch out next few weeks!)

Have you ever been forced to take such a break? What did you do?

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About Author

Hi, I am a young Blogger from India. I am very passionate about blogging and also co-founder of Blogging With Success. I write about general blogging tips and WordPress. You can read other posts by me here.If you need help, feel free to contact anytime!

{ 5 comments }

Stan Young July 21, 2010

Hey Ishan

Great Post. I am new to blogging I like the photo. I think you raise some good issues it can be very useful to take a break to contemplate new ideas for bolgs. I havent struck the problem of no internet signal but havent been any where remote.

Sometimes I suffer from writters block and I usually just take a break and come back to it at a latter time. I always keep a small recorder handy to capture ideas I have for blogs, I find it quick and easy to gather a source of inspirational topics.

I am in a internet coaching program where I have an adminstrator to help out with remote account access. Look forward to reading more of your blogs.Thanks

Ishan July 21, 2010: Hello Stan,

Having a recorder for recording idea seems a great idea. I use notebook but you gave me a great idea of using the phone for recording ideas. Many Pro Bloggers advice to write as you would talk and a recorded idea can help a lot.

I am reading your latest post and it is really inspiring!

Thanks for commenting!

Dia July 12, 2010

Nice lessons Ishan, thanks for sharing

Paul Tech July 10, 2010

I agree with your third point. As a blogger, sometimes we hit a writer's block or don't know what to write, but there are times when ideas come gushing forth. It is good to keep a notebook around to jot down these ideas and elaborate on them later.

Jean Sarauer July 8, 2010

I loved hearing your story and it sure got me thinking about how I need to plan ahead more! I have had some surprise breaks due to family things popping up and an internet connection issue. I do my drafts on Google docs, which is great overall but not at all good when there is no internet I need to get a backup plan!