Quantity vs Quality

I recently attended a training on Liberating Structures. These are simple tools that can be used in meetings/large group events to accomplish more in less time. One of the Liberating Structures is called Wicked Questions. These are questions you ask that seem contradictory. For me, the Wicked Question as it relates to this blog is “How can I maintain a semi-regular posting schedule so that there is new content for the readers while still only publishing posts that I believe are interesting to my audience and of the quality that I want?”

I realize that this may not seem like that difficult to others, but as someone who previously blogged on a set schedule, putting up posts no matter what, I am struggling with this.

If I still had my pet blog, there would be a post about the dogs’ relationship to furniture. Junebug walks through the empty space in a bookshelf to get to a bed, but she always walks around the couch. Larry will walk around that same bookshelf, but treats the couch as a hurdle to be jumped at all times. It is cute. It would be content. But there is not a lot of substance to it.

If I still had my personal finance blog, I would be writing about how expensive this summer has been. Every time I turn around, it seems like we are spending another $1,500. I will probably do a big comprehensive post once the old house is on the market (or sold), but if I were still writing the PF blog, this would be the main generator of weekly content.

I did not/do not intend for Dear Alien Anthropologists to become a parenting blog, mostly because I do not want to be limited. I started this blog so that I could write about anything that seemed interesting to me, not just one subject. At the same time, the posts that get the most interest, and honestly, are probably the best written, are the ones about parenting, probably because I cannot not be emotional about the subject.

But honestly, I hope there is not something for me to be hugely passionate about each week, because that level of emotion is exhausting. But I do want to try and put up at least one post a week. Which means I need to try and figure out that balance between new content and posts that I think will be interesting to those of you that read this.

I also do not want to try and throttle content. I do not want to finish a book, write the book review, and then schedule that for next week, just to make sure I have something to put up. Book reviews should go up when the book is finished (or soon after), not to maintain a schedule.

I hope as readers you are willing to go through this struggle with me. I cannot promise that every post I put up will resonate with every one of you. Some (like this one, even) may be pretty boring to some. I accept that. The one promise I will give you is that I will think about every post I create. There will be a reason I have decided to post it.

It might be because I love looking at houses and so do a lot of my friends. It might be to try and give insight into how my “process” works. It might be because I just made another epic parenting mistake. And sometimes it might just be that my dogs really are adorable and funny, or that I actually enjoy talking about finances. But the reason will not ever be content for contents sake.