The extroverted, wide powers of blogging aren’t known until you have your own blog. When I started few years ago, it was just for money. Gradually I started noticing changes in me and I discovered there are money things a blog could fetch except money. I started getting amazing feedback, appreciating my work, suggesting improved ways, and discussions on many varied topics. It enhanced my writing skills incredibly and transformed the way I live my life.

This isn’t one of the following six reasons but blogging is an implausible way to let others know who you really are, your perspective, and your individuality. However, there are many bloggers today, who lack the spirit of blogging. They aren’t quite successful because they blog just for money. To succeed as a blogger, it’s important to have a passion and being genuine. If people don’t find this, it’s not a blog post that you are writing. If you’re a blogging, do it for a reason. I didn’t have any initially, but I do have now. Not one, six of them.

1. Confidence

   

   It isn’t a blog if your presence cannot be felt in it. Not a single guy would want to read your post if you just blurt out facts. They want to know who you are and what do you think about it. Blogging is all about revealing yourself, not just facts.

   When I started, I was the same boring blogger with mundane, uninteresting posts. However, I transformed the way I write and started revealing my unique self to the readers and unpredictably, I got astonishing and awe-inspiring feedback. Gradually, people stated liking what I have to say about facts and not just to know the facts. This improved my confidence tremendously. Even if I am wrong or unethical, I write because I am a blogger not a news reporter.

2. Network

   The number of people dwelling in this world outnumbers the count of topic for blogs. Hence, you will always have few people sharing your interests. This results in feedback, discussion, and conversations. Through blogging, you have to power to reach every corner of the world. However, this is not possible until you put your efforts into it. You need to endorse your blog, find strategies, and make them reach to every individual.

   Slowly but surely, you start expanding your reach and know more people than ever. You discuss, chat, and share values & emotions with them. You enlarge your network and reachablity, and eventually grow.

3. Opportunities

   Blogging is no more a part-time business. The world now has numerous bloggers earning millions of dollars with blogging as a career. There are several jobs and businesses seeking the right blogger that can cater to their needs. You could be the one earning those millions and the only way to do it is being good at it.

   Stop writing for money and about money. Think about a topic that interests you except money. Whatever it is, write about it passionately. Don’t be an introvert or be ashamed about it. Be blunt, be frank, be honest, and be yourself.

4. Clarity

   Maybe you know much about the topic you are writing. However, blogging helps you to be clearer about it. This happens because you start researching about it. You discuss with people from around the world and who are smarter than you in your selected category. This way, you get clearer and achieve expertise. But this is possible only if you are passionate about it.

5. Self Improvement

   

   Blogging brings overall self development. If you are an effective, zealous blogger, you will be or become creative, patient, disciplined, focused, and smarter. These are just few of the vast variety of skills that you acquire being a blogger.

   And yes, you will definitely succeed and achieve recognition but only if you are persistent and buoyant. Succeeding as a blogger cannot happen overnight. You need to be patient when you get discouraged; when you don’t feel like writing; when you get awful and unpleasant comments. Just keep going with whatever you have. You will feel you are wasting time and achieving nothing. Just then, hold, don’t quit. You are improving yourself as a writer, blogger, and as a human.

6. Value

   A genuine blogger is someone who adds value to everything he/she writes. Select a topic that you are passionate about and deliver true feelings and emotions about it. Tell everyone, through your blog, what you deeply, sincerely feel about it. That’s it. You are adding value to it. There are people waiting for you to share your emotion on a topic because they can’t. They want to feel better by reading something that they could feel and relate with. That’s blogging.

These are enough reasons, true and genuine, for anyone to start blogging with passion. What are waiting for? Some extraordinary day or time? Some magical moment? Stop thinking! Now is the time because you have the reason.

No, I am not aggravated by all the finance blog post on the internet. I personally love them and honestly, I have benefited by many blog post. However, today I am talking about the bloggers who still haven’t understood the significance of personal finance blogging and how to write them.

Cluttered Blogs

While writing personal finance blogs, bloggers need to understand that readers seek a precise piece of information, an unambiguous direction, or a personal viewpoint on the subject. Many articles today are cluttered with junk information or repetition. Recently I read an article about managing finance during retirement and I found that every paragraph had the same message. It’s quite exasperating. Why don’t they write a shorter one rather that repeating the same message over and over again? Bloggers should remember that the people reading their post are the ones facing financial crises or searching ways to make optimum utilization of the available funds. They are already facing problems.

No responses to comments

If someone has taken up the responsibility to start a blog, he/she should be courteous enough to reply to the comments received to the posts.

Recently I came across a very though provoking personal finance blog post that dememded appreciation and a discussion. It was I of the few I sincerely like. So, with much dedication and concentration, I posted a long response and subscribed to the comments RSS feed to make sure I don’t miss the blogger’s response. Predictably, the response never came. Why do they do this? Such an irresponsible behavior makes the reader feel ignored. I, as a reader, promised never to comment on any posts because it’s quite infuriating not to receive a response.

The vagueness

Again, people reading personal finance blog posts are not seeking entertainment. They need guidance, accurate information and updates, acknowledgement, and some sincerity. Sometimes (actually many times), I start reading the post because the title is quite attractive. However, there are two things that I generally and sadly find under such titles. First, a long introduction before coming to the point which is not at all needed. Second, there is no information in the article. Some bloggers just talk around the topic and conclude.

Reading Complexity

Some bloggers find it quite exciting to decorate their posts with bright background and brighter font. What is it, some weird web designing contest? Readers are attracted to posts that provide quality information or at least a pleasurable read and not by attractive colors. It isn’t an advertisement banner, it is a blog post.

I understand it’s important to use financial terminologies while writing a personal finance blog post. However, it seems that some posts are written by a highly educated finance professor especially for his few students in a financially-coded language that should not be understood by other. Please try to keep it simple. Internet is a platform that avails the ease to share the information globally. You cannot know, by any means, who will be reading your posts. Avoid jargons and use simple English. Is it that difficult to manage?

Self-centeredness

Most of the bloggers today do not understand that a blog post is not a one-way propagation tool. It’s is okay to provide personal touches and personal experience occasionally. Some blogs a found were full of me, my, myself, and I. This will frustrate the reader. An effective way of blogging is addressing the reader. They wouldn’t be interest in reading a story that mentions how you spent a boring night in a local restaurant, unless you are a celebrity.

To avoid such irksome mistakes while writing a personal finance blog post or on any other topic, please read it twice or thrice before posting it.

Intrinsically, there is nothing erroneous about working. In fact, it’s quite appreciative if you love your work and find it stimulating, motivating, and gratifying. These reasons are enough to keep you busy with inexhaustible work for most of the hours of your day.

However, there comes a time in your hectic life when you realize there is something more than work that needs your attention. You realize resting is essential, and the pressure of work is beginning to become a major issue. It’s time to sit back and explore a different approach when work starts affecting your relationships, cheerfulness, and fitness.

I can’t really fling a readymade expedient on your table nor would you want me to. However, I am sure you can derive some help in your exploration from the below mentioned steps.

1. Why do you achieve your work targets?

   No, I ain’t saying you don’t have to. It’s perfectly normal to achieve it and quite natural to be proud about it. However, it shouldn’t be the only focus of your life. When was the last time you listed down a ‘to do list’ for your family? When was a last time you thought about doing something about your hobby, passion, or something you love?

   If working hard is your passion, that’s great. But, there has to be something more. Something that you love other than work. There would be a hobby, maybe you haven’t started it yet, but you love thinking about it. Or maybe you love being with a family member or a friend.

   I wouldn’t buy it if you say “I don’t love anything except work”. This happens only when you act being a workaholic, not a real one because a human, workaholic or not, has some desires, hidden passions, or simply likings.

   Take a pen and paper, and start jotting down 5 things that makes you happy. Remember, none of them should involve your office work and at least one of them gotta be a person. Do it. Don’t you need a balanced life?

   Start giving some time to these 5 things. You can start by sparing just few minutes to each of them out of your busy 24 hours.

2. Are you a workaholic?

   The answer to this question is yes when you literally dream about it every night in your sleep. And you think about it in while you are awake, all the hours.

   

   If you are one of these workaholics, consider these three points.

   First, set a deadline and follow it. For instance, decide not to work after 6 pm. Inform your office staff not to call after 6 and avoid working from home.

   Second, this deadline means no even checking emails about work. Turn off you mobile phone and even your personal computer. And please, don’t take those heaps of paper when you are out with your wife and kids.

   Third, do something. Don’t just sit home and think about work. Join and gym and work out every evening. If you are a lucky single, go for a date. Spend some time listening to your kid or take him to a café or zoo. Think about a hobby, generate passion and spend some time developing it. There is so much to do. It just needs your ‘Yes, I will do it’ to initiate.

3. Just relax

   Minimize your stock-market window and explore ways to relax and fight stress. Search for one and I am sure your search engine will pop thousands of them.

   Select any couple of them to start with. Make sure you involve one physical activity. You can opt to walk, jog, swim, or do anything. But do it. Spend some time doing it every day, at least 10-15 minutes.

4. Feel good about what you do

   Working twenty hours a day is not a way of living. Accept that anything in access is harmful. You need a balance, professional-personal balance. You are motivated to experience the contentment of achieving work targets. Now is the time to motivate yourself to experience the pleasure of relaxation, being fit, meditation, quality time spent with your family, a smile on your loved one’s face. These are real pleasures of your life.

You won’t enjoy relaxing when you first do it. It takes time to adjust, to alter your lifestyle, to de-stress. A transformation cannot happen in a day, nor will you feel happy about it. But you have to do it, from small steps to big ones, from negative to positive, from happiness to contentment, from workaholic to a human.

5pm is an online application that helps you to manage your work. You can schedule work for the day and then check regularly to see how you are doing. The best part about 5pm is that it is very simple and user friendly but has plenty of advanced features. You don’t need any infrastructure or any perplexing gadgets to use 5pm. Just get an account through your web browser and you are ready to go. If you are the kind of person who likes to make most of your time then 5pm is surely what you are looking for.

Some of the features include:

Integration with e-mail:
5pm email integration interacts with your email account in both ways. You can send emails to the tool about the projects that need to be taken care of. You can attach files, add messages, assign teams, create tasks and all you have to do is to send e-mails.

Support for languages:
English is the default language for 5pm but the tool supports about a dozen languages. Popular languages like German, Portuguese, German, Italian, etc. are all supported and there are more languages coming in!

Desktop widget for time tracking:
This lets you keep a track of your projects from your desktop. It works on PC, Linux, MAC platforms and the best part is you don’t have to pay extra for this feature.

Timeline view:
Tired of those boring notes written on your diary for deadlines of projects? 5pm gives you a graphical representation of your due dates for projects and also notifies if your projects are overdue. 5pm Timeline is something that is good to look and will also make you work faster.

Mobile edition:
Mobile edition of the tool has the same intuitive and simple interface. It is free for all 5pm users and you can access it from the same URL as the web version. The mobile version was tested on Palm Pre/WebOS, BlackBerry Bold, Windows Mobile, Android and iPhone.

Great customer service:
If you need any assistance just drop an email and the 5pm technical team will get back to you in no time.

The above are only some of the many features that 5pm has to offer. The tool is simple, easy to use and very effective. It doesn’t have any intimidating features that will scare the newbies away. It is a great way to manage a lot of people who are located in different parts of the world. You can access it from your computer or from your mobile phone. No matter where you go, you can never be too far away from 5pm! It is much faster than what other tools of this type have to offer. Adding files and notes will not take more than a few seconds, so you won’t spend much time in managing.

If you are still skeptical you can get a free 14 day trial to check out the product. You don’t need a credit card, setup application or any kind of commitment. If you like 5pm, it is yours for a subscription fee which starts at $18.