Results Only Blogging Environment

Sometime last year Best Buy received a lot of buzz for changing their work policy to what they called ROWE: Results Only Work Environment. Instead of requiring certain hours from their employees throughout the week, their success was measured by their results.

Besides the fact that the next generation of working adults is (probably) going to demand exactly this philosophy (or even a more extreme version), this is the mindset that bloggers should have.

Switch out the words Best Buy employees with bloggers and you’ll see what I mean:

In practical terms, ROWE lets Best Buy employees get up and leave in the middle of the workday to attend a matinee or Little League game. Workers pulling into the company’s headquarters at 2 p.m. aren’t considered late. Nor are those pulling out at 2 p.m. seen as leaving early. There are no schedules. No mandatory meetings. In short, work is no longer a place where you go, but something you do. As long as the work gets done and get’s done well, it’s okay to take conference calls while you hunt, collaborate from your lakeside cabin, or log on after dinner so you can spend the afternoon with your kid. – JDBliss

Are you enjoying a ROBE (Results Only Blogging Environment) or are you under the impression that you need to spend lots of time hunched in front of a screen to have any sort of effect?

Use the following exercise to try and determine where the results are coming from in your blogging life, and where nothing but work is coming from:

• Log your time. Keep track of what you do, throughout your blogging time. If you spend half your time writing and the other half commenting on other blogs, write that down. If you spend a lot of time redesigning your blog or using social bookmarking sites, write that down.
• Keep track of achievements. When was the last time something great happened with your blog? Why did that happen?
• Cross reference. Check your log with your list of achievements. Which things that you did had direct impact on the achievements you saw?
• Rank according to impact. Now you should be able to form a list of the most beneficial things you’ve done at your blog to see good results. Using this you can prioritize your time and, if needed, cut out certain aspects which only add to your work and not to your results.

You would be surprised how effective this sort of self evaluation can be. I went through this process myself (analyzing only a few months worth of blogging efforts, across both personal and professional blogs) and ended up with the following list of priorities. I’ve found that by doing these things I’ve seen the most impact across all of my blogs:

1. Writing solid, informative, and creative content.
2. Offering information that wasn’t available elsewhere (conference notes, for example).
3. Reviewing content or creations by others (WordPress themes, plugins, and tutorials, for example).
4. Contributing as a guest blogger.
5. Responding to comments on my own blogs.
6. Commenting on other blogs, especially to take part in a conversation.

And this is only a beginning list. I suggest keeping track of all milestones, as you accomplish them, and regularly taking a look at what is bringing in the best results for your efforts. A results only blogger will be much happier than a hard working blogger, if only for the amount of time that will inevitably be saved.