A few of you have mentioned in the comments that staying committed to blogging isn’t the biggest challenge, but that time management is. While family and work will always come first, it’s important to spend time on the activities you like and hobbies you want to nurture. Here’s a few things that have helped me keep on track:

If you have yourself on a blogging schedule, or if you want to get yourself on one,make an appointment with yourself. Add a note to your Google Calendar, iCal, or even on your phone to go off 1 hour, 30 minutes, and 15 minutes before you want to get down to writing. If you think that you’re likely to metaphorically hit the snooze button, consider making an editorial calendar, listing the topics you want to cover and when. This will allow you to plan in advance, rather than sitting down to a blank screen and starting from scratch. I personally keep a sticky note open with post ideas and have been toying with adding “events,” or planned posts, to my calendar. I may not be running a top-notch magazine, but why not learn from the pros?

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. It’s good to create small goals for yourself and gradually increase them. Write 100 words for this blog post, 150 for the next. Spend five minutes typing up an article and gradually build to 30 minutes (or learn to squeeze more into the time you have, a la I’ve got 30 minutes to write this post). If I don’t have a lot of time to write, I check my favorite news sites for interesting articles and use Press This to share the link. This lets me add a few words for my own interpretation, without taking up a ton of time. When you do sit down to write write, do yourself a favor and turn everything off. That means having nothing open but your post page. If you have trouble doing this, try an app like Isolator that allows you to hide everything but the program you’re using.

Ultimately, time management is about making the commitment to blog each time you sit down to write (or you hear your calendar go off). No matter how many steps you take to remind your self, you have to actually do it. Excuses are easy, and many are valid, so it helps to be accountable to someone. And if you can’t beat them, join them — why not make blogging a family activity? Or turn it into agame among friends?