A New York Times article entitled "Hooked on the Web" quoted mental health specialists as believing that a full 6 to 10% of Internet users suffer an unhealthy addiction to the Internet and, get this, they are ready to offer addiction recovery services. Kid you not, there are mental health professionals willing and able to make a buck off your blogging addiction. So far, I have seen the addiction labeled everything from IAD, Internet Addiction Disorder to BAD( Blog Addiction Disorder). This is a MasterCard commercial waiting to happen. Priceless, huh?

So, in the spirit of "helping" the poor, pathetic blog addicted souls reading this post, here is my blogging addiction enabler post: 12 Step Program to Managing Your Addiction. Because after all, you wouldnt want to just up and quit blogging. Nobody wants to be considered a quitter, do they?

The 12 Step Program to Managing a Blogging Addiction

1. Admit you have an addiction. Common signs of addiction include: having more "Internet Buddies" than real life friends, communicating with your spouse via comments on your blog and others, keeping your blackberry handy at all times in case you have an idea for a post... 

1. Decide youre not a quitter and will manage your addiction by being a functioning blogger. Yes, this means you cant forget to feed the cat or husband because your writing an article, you still have to clean the house and close deals even when an angry commenter is wrecking havoc in your post.

Read also: Top 5 secrets to successful blogs

1. Select a high quality drug, I mean, blog dealer. Get a good RSS reader so you dont have to scour the net to read all your favorite blogs. Get all new blog posts delivered right to your feed reader or email. This will save you a considerable amount of time. Using an RSS reader will help you increase your knowledge base, provide you with topics for future blog posts and decrease the amount of time you spend aimlessly surfing the Net. Feed readers I like: Thunderbird, RSSBandit, GoogleReader and NetVibes.

1. Schedule 30-45 minutes a day to research, write, and publish a blog post. Dont waste time by spreading out your work out over many hours. Commit to yourself that you will focus for one hour and write a quality post then publish it on your own blog and/or ActiveRain.

Read also: How to plan your blog to increase traffic

1. Promote your posts time effectively. Same thing, commit to yourself that you will spend time commenting on other blogs and syndicating your post to Digg, Real Estate Voices and/or other social news sites.

Read also: How to boost traffic in less than 1 hour per day

1. Spend one hour per week planning your blog articles, it will save you time later. Losing sleep because you dont know what to write about? Check out this awesome article on FamousAgents 106 Content Ideas for the Realtor who has Nothing to Write About.

Read also: 7 Day Plan to Blog Success

1. Network for blog vacation days. Work on developing relationships with other popular blogmasters in the industry, like Greg Swann, Pat Kitano, and Joel Burslem or ones in your local area (perhaps your local golf club or chamber of commerce has a blog) and see if they would be interested in being a guest host on your blog. This 1. will help you attract new readers and 2. give you a much needed vacation form blogging. 

1. Podcast, baby. Nothing saves time better than interviewing someone else and publishing the podcast. Its a fast, cheap, and easy way to create and publish content that care about. I always keep at least 3 podcasts on hand at any one time so if I need a blogging break, I can push one of those out. 

Read also: How Realtors can use Podcasts

Read also: How to create a Podcast

1. Hold a contest. Need 2 days worth of posts without much effort. Announce a contest on a Monday and then announce a winner on a Friday. Huge time saver right there. Check out my Funniest Real Estate Story Contest, for which I will announce the winner on Friday. When you announce a winner, always offer them a special logo that they can put on their site to show they are a winner. It will help drive traffic back to your site and people like to be winners. Its literally a win-win situation!

1. Break up a long blog into a multi-part series. About to write a thesis on How to Price Your Home Competitively? Take that single topic and break it up into a few blog posts and publish it over a number of days. This is a page from Charles Dickens and it works. Did you know that A Tale of Two Cities along with many other of his works were first published as installments in magazines? Made him a household name! So, what will it do for you? It will keep traffic coming back to your blog for more information on their favorite topic and break up long posts into digestible pieces for people to implement. And, yes, I do see the irony here, I never do this. I, on the other hand, am pathetically prolific.

1. Review something. Such a simple post. Take 10 minutes to write a review of a product, service or town project. People like reviews and they can spark controversy. If there is a new restaurant in your town- check it out and write a review. 

1. Make amends. Now that you have the tools to manage your blog addiction, do what other recovered addicts do- apologize to those you have hurt. If you have a wife, Im sure she would accept your apology if it were accompanies by a small blue box from Tiffanys.
   

Just for fun: Blogger's Anonymous

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