Category Archives: blog

Is it time to stop writing this blog?

By Kate Davis | Published: January 21, 2011

As often happens at the start of the new year I’m thinking about my commitments and what I want to achieve during the next twelve months; one activity that has been frequently on my mind is this blog.  I’m approaching my fourth anniversary, but starting to question whether I should continue.

The statistics

There is nothing great about my posting trend; in fact if the trend continues I will be writing a negative number of posts this year. Even taking into account that several of my posts in 2007 and 2008 were copies of book reviews I’d previously written or journal extracts, there is still a definite decline which, perhaps not surprisingly,  started about the time I announced my pregnancy in 2008.

Interestingly though, the visitors to my site are starting to increase, despite this reduction in new posts. I haven’t discovered the reason for this yet, but maybe my site is improving its search engine ranking or perhaps it is all down to the interest in labelling keyboard keys (my most popular posts).

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A new look

By Kate Davis | Published: September 12, 2010

It is widely recognised that content is the most important aspect of a blog, however it is the look that is first noticed; and just like with people, first impressions do count. So unless all your readers use a feed reader they will gain thoughts about your site from the first few moments of visiting. Now I have to admit I didn’t really like my theme, but stuck with it until I could develop a new one; I just didn’t think it would take three years.

The reasons for wanting a new theme

Original wordpress themeI read it was important when starting a blog to pick a theme with the structure you like and not to spend time changing it too often so you concentrate on writing content. Therefore I picked my previous one because it had a three piece sidebar (a wide sidebar on the top and two narrow ones underneath). However, over time I found myself using the top section more and more and realised that the structure was no longer working for me.

I also thought the navigation was difficult. I had previously introduced a tabbed widget to include more information in the sidebar e.g. recent posts, top commentors, but think this actually hid the information more! Then there was also the minor details of the dark background and the standard header.

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39 keyboard key purchases

By Kate Davis | Published: August 21, 2010

Every month one of my most popular posts is Ask advice: how to label keyboard keys so in response to this interest I’ve put together a list of different keyboard key related items you can buy.

Clothing

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Life lesson from losing my blog for a week

By Kate Davis | Published: March 19, 2010

I’ve been wanting to change my hosting company for some time and after a year or so, I eventually signed up with a new hosting company, 5quid host.

However, I didn’t move my blog. The main reasons were the impact of moving the url away from my ISP and thinking it would be better to move this blog when I’d decided on its own domain. But the biggest reason was procrastination; it appeared to be such a big task, so instead I started planning.

Then life gave me a wake up call. My ISP’s server went down. Unfortunately as the engineers looked into it, they discovered bigger problems and ended up upgrading the servers with a different version of php and once they were running again, my blog was no longer accessible. I tried a few tweaks, but still nothing.

I had two options. Get my ISP working, or finally move everything to my new host. I decided it made most sense to spend the time moving. It isn’t something I’ve done before, but I had a vague idea of what to do so off I started. I had some errors, warning messages and moments when I almost gave up and started begging people to help me. However, after two days my site is workiGoogle analytics showing impact of server going downng again, but its had its impact.

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Revelations about my blogging (or lack of)

By Kate Davis | Published: February 26, 2010

You may not be able to tell, but I miss writing my blog. Several times a week I have ideas for posts, but they just don’t get written. About a week a go I had two revelations about why I seem to have this block and I wanted to share them.

Caught up in ‘blogging’

I started writing this blog to keep a record of things I don’t write in my journal, such as organisation techniques and working towards goals, while at the same time practising my writing skills. I also hoped that people would share ideas and comments, and I’ve been delighted that people have been so helpful as I’ve learnt a lot from comments, for instance when I was wondering what to buy for our new baby.

However 2 things happened that have slowed me down:

  1. I started reading blogs about blogging and got caught up in all the things I ‘should’ be doing
  2. I wanted a new theme as my current one is the one I used when I started my blog 3 years ago. I’m not a coder but have worked on personalising a theme, however because of 1 I’ve been trying to introduce additional features such as slick advertising to ‘make money’. This explains why I’ve been working on this theme for over a year!
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Reviewing the spam on my blog

By Kate Davis | Published: December 15, 2009

You may have noticed there has been a lot of spam comments on my blog recently. I’m sorry I haven’t got into action earlier to deal with it.

I have found the spam interesting for two reasons; firstly I seem to get more spam the less active I am (although that could also indicate I’m not upgrading my anti spam plugins). Secondly, reading how the style of spam comments has changed to try and get round these plugins such as Akismet. The comments containing long lists of url now go straight into my spam folder, but the new style of responding to the post topic are still getting through.

However, there are still comments that stand out as they are not related to the post. I’ve been reviewing the comments during my lunch hour and some of these random comments have broken the monotony of the task and made me smile. Here are my favourites:

Using processes to aid efficiency – Gold plating of combustion contacting engine parts, would it increase the efficiency of the engine? ?

Don’t forget maintenance actions – Hi,Friction, moving a lot causes heat (internal energy) to build up in your body. Also small muscle movements can help circulate blood which also heats through friction.

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What you want to read

By Kate Davis | Published: July 3, 2009

Almost three weeks ago, I put out a poll asking what you wanted to read on this blog, I’m delighted that some of you spent the time to complete it. As you can see from the chart below, the results were fairly even.

Survey results: what you want to read on the blog

Its great that you want to read more about goal identification and achievement because I am keen to write about this topic as I think it keeps me focussed on what I’m trying to achieve. I’m usually happy to talk about productivity especially as it’s what I originally started this blog for, plus I believe if I’m more productive I will achieve my goals more quickly. These are the two topics I was hoping you would want to read about :-)

Dealing with work is a tricky topic for me to write about at the moment as I’m on maternity leave, however I will be returning to work before the end of the year. Its going to be interesting returning to work after 12 months away and I hope to have some good observations to write about.

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Blog to discovery 2008 review (and other stats)

By Kate Davis | Published: February 17, 2009

Although I only wrote posts for the first 8 months of 2008 I still thought I would benefit from undertaking a review of what I achieved, particularly in comparison to 2007.  I wrote 61, averaging about 5 a month, this is almost half the posts of 2007.   I’ve had over 19,000 visits (15,900 unique) and over 38,800 page views, all of which are double or almost double 2007).

Outside of my blog, my weight started at 67.2kg, increased to 91.8kg on the day I gave birth and was down to 78.4kg at the end of the year (about the weight I was at 5 month pregnant).

Most read posts in 2008

  1. How I successfully plan my day
  2. 15 different types of journals to keep
  3. Day planner download files

The most commented posts

  1. Ask advice: new baby – what do we need to buy, make or know (18)
  2. Developing my mission statement (14)
  3. My favourite books of 2007 (13)

Greatest number of comment (thank you)

  1. Feli (9)
  2. Megan @ Order2Disorder (8)
  3. @Stephen (5)

Greatest number of referrals

  1. Get Everything Done forum
  2. Getting Things Done forum
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In the last month (August 2008)

By Kate Davis | Published: August 18, 2008

Its been a great month for my rss subscribers as I’ve passed the next milestone and reached the 200 mark. Okay, I admit I’m currently at 188, but in the last 30 days there were 4 days over 200 reaching a high of 207. So thank you again readers.

The most read posts in the last month were:

  1. 13 tips to successful hotdesking
  2. 15 different types of journals to keep
  3. How I successfully plan my day
  4. Day planner download files
  5. Developing my mission statement

The search terms used to find my site that seem the most loosely connected were

  • hairdressing appointment templates
  • how to organise ebay
  • I got nail varnish on my laptop
  • referrals old english letter nail sticker

Again the largest referrer to the site has been my livejournal blog, which is even more bizarre than last month because I haven’t posted to it recently; there has also been referrals from quite a few other livejournal blogs so it seems that something is going on there, but I don’t know what. The next biggest referrer was Mark Forster’s website where I have commented in the forums, although again not recently.

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In the last month (July 2008)

By Kate Davis | Published: July 22, 2008

I have posted slightly more frequently in the last month, but it isn’t up to the level I would like, but you all know my excuse now and hopefully you understand. I am getting back on track though, so hopefully the trend over the last few months will continue and you will see a few more posts. However, despite my lack of posting the number of subscribers is holding steady and I am getting close to 200 mark, which I find amazing, so thank you to everyone who reads my blog (please let me know if there are things you would like me to write about that I haven’t covered recently).

My most read posts were:

  1. 13 tips to successful hotdesking
  2. How I successfully plan my day
  3. Day planner download files
  4. Ask advice: how to label keyboard keys
  5. 15 different types of journals to keep

The search terms I found most interesting were

  • b & q bookshelves
  • note stuff wallpaper
  • rugby team in a discovery 3
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  • About

    My name is Kate Davis and I'm working towards a happier and successful life and this blog follows my journey. I work almost full time as an environmental consultant and project manager and I'm the mother to a beautiful two year daughter.

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