Blog Changes: Time to Get Back to Basics

How’s everyone doing? Are you used to your new normal yet? I’m talking about what’s new and what’s changing around here…

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There’s no doubt that everyone is on tenterhooks right now. Everything is uncertain, and times are hard – and probably going to get harder. We all have to adapt and change.

Since lockdown began I’ve been doing some long hard thinking about what my future holds for me, and where I see myself in six months, a year, two/five/ten years from now.

In a bid to pull myself out of the slight rut and feeling-a-bit-sorry-for-myself state I’d got myself into, I had to brainstorm BIG TIME. Who knows what the blogging industry will be like post-Covid? No one knows.

But change is inevitable, and adaptation is vital, so I’ve made a few decisions that’ll hopefully make my life a bit easier as well as keep my readers entertained now and after lockdown life.

Don’t panic though – I’m not going anywhere or becoming a food blogger overnight! Let me explain…

 

The good news (and the bad)

Excuse the excessive use of the word “basic” here, but basically I’m going back to basics. In order to do that I need to make some basic changes.

When I started my blog back in 2011, it was purely a hobby that had me posting my outfits (mostly what I wore to work) two or three times a week. I posted several times consistently for ages because I enjoyed it. And it’s not that I don’t enjoy it anymore – far from it – but things are very different now.

Nine years later, I’m writing to a schedule of weekly outfit posts plus link up, a weekly ShareAllLinkUp where I can be talking about anything from blogging to thoughts on ageing and monthly posts about great links I’ve found online, bloggers I’m featuring and so on. Not to mention the social media that’s intrinsically linked to a blog – and expected these days. On top of all that it’s my career, and has been for seven years, so I’m in a permanent state of “Where’s my next paid campaign coming from?”, finding relevant affiliate links, and working towards securing those paid campaigns and maximising my affiliate income.

As you can probably imagine, coronavirus has blown the “career” part out of the water. Almost all of the campaigns I’d normally be doing have either been postponed till the autumn/indefinitely or just not materialised whatsoever.

So I have a bit of good news and a bit of bad news… shall I get the bad news out of the way first?

The bad news is that I’ve decided to put the link ups on hold for the time being. (I’m so sorry!) I’ve been running the #iwillwearwhatilike weekly linkups for the best part of five years now, and the hashtag has been used over 40,000 times on Instagram (wowsers). It feels great to have started something that people everywhere have connected with, and I thank everyone who’s linked up so religiously.

But I need a break from the added pressure of getting the link up out every Tuesday as well as all the extra admin it brings, as well as taking and editing fabulous outfit photos. I sometimes struggle to get it done on time, and taking that pressure off would be a huge relief for the next few months.

The same goes for the Thursday/Friday ShareAllLinkUp. This I’ve REALLY struggled to keep up with in recent months with late posting times or missed weeks.

The good news is that I do intend to bring them back once a little more normality has returned. I’m not promising anything, but right now I definitely don’t want to give them up altogether. They’ll hopefully be back when the time is right.

 

Getting back to basics

So as the title of the post suggests, I want to get back to the basics of what this blog was about when I first started. No pressure to post to a particular schedule – I mean, I originally ran a blog alongside a full time job so producing some much more stripped-back posts now should be perfectly doable! I’d like to post some no-frills outfit posts. No-frills beauty or makeup posts. A before and after of my redecorated bedroom, that sort of thing. Things that won’t take me all day (or two days) to shoot, edit and write.

I had intended to do this when I wrote a few months back about writing shorter posts (which just about all of you were in favour of), but it never really happened – I think – because I didn’t change my schedule to allow them to happen, and to happen naturally. Taking away the pressure of a schedule will hopefully allow them to flow.

I need the extra time to maybe find a new skill (or two), to earn some extra money somewhere and somehow. I don’t know what will happen over the next few months, or next few years even. I need to find a back-up plan. At the moment all the campaigns have dried up and I need to be proactive.

I know that a lot of bloggers are abandoning link ups, but I promise they will return if it’s feasible for me to do so. By cutting out the admin that they inevitably require I might be able to feel freer about what I’m doing and find that spark that I feel I’ve been lacking lately… finding your mojo during a time like this – where you know that you and everyone reading is having a hard time – is difficult. But I realised that sticking rigidly to a schedule that I set up during very different times just isn’t relevant anymore.

 

The common thread that links us

Everyone’s schedules are out of whack right now. People are either totally bored (oh, to know what that’s like…), run off their feet working from home and/or managing kids, homeschooling and a household, or working flat out to provide essential health care and services to all of us.

I won’t ever talk about how “this is what you should be doing with all the free time you have” because a lot of you have no free time whatsoever, and I feel that articles that start that way are a little insensitive.

Then again, some of you have a ton of free time. We’re all in different positions financially, emotionally, socially and professionally, but the common thread we have is that we’re in it together. We must support each other – no matter what our personal situations – and be understanding and non-judgemental towards everyone.

The blog will simply be stripped back, find its heart and soul again, and hopefully I’ll still be able to make a career out of it once we’re living in a post-Covid world.

If the lack of schedule or link ups here just isn’t your bag, then apologies – and no hard feelings if you’re no longer interested. But I hope you’ll stick around for a while as you never know, it could be a whole NEW AND IMPROVED Not Dressed As Lamb… why not give it a chance?

 

Stay home, stay safe XOXO

 

P.S. If there’s anything you’d like me to cover or write about, please don’t hesitate to make suggestions, I’m all ears!