I struggled with the concept of not checking things repeatedly. In fact, you could say I checked things so frequent that I was wasting my life away doing it! The people that mentored me always told me, “Stop checking! It doesn’t do you any good.” And its true! It doesn’t do you any good.
Why isn’t it good?
1. You’re wasting time.
You’ll be astonished at how much time you can waste just checking ANYTHING repeatedly. Lets take for example, your blog! I find myself amazed after I calculate how much time I spend looking at statistics for my blog. Statistics like traffic, amount of time spent, bounce rate, etc. They are all fun to look at and looking at those stats rise definitely make me happier but what is it really doing? Its just giving me an illusion of making me happy! That’s it! My stats won’t raise if I check it more often and if I check it at the end of the day its not like the stats will be lowered.
I’m wasting valuable time that I can be dedicating to other aspects of my blog. I could be writing quality posts, I could be finding neat plugins that will help both my users and I, maybe, I can even learn how to code PHP and make super plugins for everyone! This is only for blogging. Imagine how much time you can waste if you have other things to look at like the stock markets as well! The possibilities are endless!
2. You’re making yourself anxious and giving yourself unneeded stress.
When you check your statistics or whatever every few minutes, you will give yourself a goal for the statistic. For example, you might be at 1,280 visitors for the day and there’s only a few minutes until the end of the day and you want to get to 1,300.
Giving yourself stress and making yourself work usually is a good thing, but when you are making yourself work just because you want to beat a record or something, it is considered “unneeded stress.” You’re not going to lose an arm if you don’t get the extra 20. Just try harder tomorrow since traffic won’t disappear in one day. If you will never reach 1,280 visitors in a day again because 99% of the visitors are from a 1 day social media boost, then you should focus on how to raise the general amount of your visitors instead of relying on temporary boosts of traffic to help your blog. Don’t be mesmerized by “temporary numbers.”
3. You’re not accomplishing anything. If you are accomplishing anything, its taking you extra time.
Unless checking statistics is a HUGE part of your business like you are a stock broker and need to check the stocks every 3 seconds, this rule applies to you. When you check your statistics, you turn on the application to view the statistics and then you skim the numbers and you close it. Done for 3 minutes! What can you get done in 3 minutes? You can’t possibly do anything that will impact your blog a lot in 3 minutes. If you plan on writing a meaningful comment, it takes longer than 3 minutes.
So instead of spending your time in little chunks of 3 minute blocks, why not consolidate them and spend you time in a long 1 hour block? Then you won’t have scattered spots of free time throughout your day. You can check your stats, write a blog post, write comments and possibly even have time to look for plugins in an hour! Then, when you’re done everything, you have the rest of the day to do meaningful activities like hobbies or go out and meet new people that might help you in whichever activity you’re doing!
After I Stopped Checking Statistics
I made the mistake of checking statistics every few seconds. I ended up with a day filled with scattered “free time” spots and no ideas on what to do during those “free time” spots.
When I changed this habit and consolidated the time and sat down every evening with my blog just to work on it, I in turn got more productive and was able to get more done. My other activities could be worked on since they had lots of consolidated time to be worked on and my blog could be worked on as well since it has the consolidated time as well!
What are you going to do with your time?
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This post brought to you by Trevor Blank
Trevor is a guest author from Striking Towards the Top - Striking Up (currently down).
Trevor has written 1 awesome article(s) for Kikolani.
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If you are blogging for fun that stats shouldn’t play a big role, but if you serious in monetizing and seeing how well you are doing with SEO, STATS are a must!!!
Frank Js last blog post..How to Unfollow who are not Following you
No one should check their stats that much. Once a day or once a week is fine. When checking your stats you should know what you looking for and what each of the stats mean.
Deneil Merritts last blog post..Flashback Monday – Recap Of Last Week Posts, Blog Updates, Resources, & Latest News
I decided to stop checking stats recently, andI’m enjoying blogging more than I have in a long time, which means my blog posts are better (for a while there, I was forcing myself to post at least every other day, to keep the stats up, and quality definitely suffered) which means, presumably that people will be more likely to return to the blog and to tell other people about it–and the stats I don’t check will go up…
YogaforCynicss last blog post..Weather Report Suite
I have to admit I read the initial article at which point I decided to put checking stats on hold for a while, that lasted until Fathers Day when I had waaaaaay too much free time and jumped into my stats.
I was certainly much more productive not checking stats, I need to get back into the habit at which point I will use the free time to try and finish off a few projects that have been hanging around too long.
Extreme Johns last blog post..Links for 2009-06-21 [del.icio.us]
A couple of weeks ago, I made a decision to check my stats less. I have found more time to write posts. I have also found time to write on several of my other blogs that I have been neglecting.
Tycoon Bloggers last blog post..Top 10 Blog Designs
Trevor, I’ve never checked as frequently as you but I do spend too much time obsessing over things like this. I’ve done much better at letting things go, but I still have a ways to go.
“I’m wasting valuable time that I can be dedicating to other aspects of my blog. I could be writing quality posts, I could be finding neat plugins that will help both my users and I, maybe, I can even learn how to code PHP and make super plugins for everyone! This is only for blogging. Imagine how much time you can waste if you have other things to look at like the stock markets as well! The possibilities are endless!”
Yes! And that applies to many other useless activities as well. Thanks.
Stephen – Rat Race Traps last blog post..Well-Being is Better Than Happiness
I don’t check my statistics all that often, but I do waste time checking my emails to see if anyone has left a comment. Even though every comment brings an exhilarating thrill it’s probably not worth the amount of time going back and forth. I really have to learn to cut that out. Thanks for the post as it really brought this to my attention.
Sire@ WassupBlogs last blog post..Helium Helping Writers Fulfill Their Dreams
Hey Trevor, you’re touching on a very real truth for bloggers/site owners – We check our stats way too much! I know I’m guilty of that one. Recently I started to limit checking it to just a few times a day (my target is once a day), and it’s allowing me to focus much more on the important tasks, such as writing articles. That’s far more productive than checking stats, for sure!
Celes | CelestineChua.coms last blog post..Dealing With Energy Vampires
i have decided not to check stats more and waste my precious time, it is better to utilized my time.
Trevor, I agree with you. It’s better to spend the time on improving the blog via posting, reading other blogs, and improving his/her knowledge about the blogging world. That said, it’s good to check them once for example per month to see how things are going but again I am with the quality over the quanity.
Thanks kristi for this excellent guest post.
Hichams last blog post..Nepeta and Felis Catus
Woah. Thanks for all of the replies everyone =)
@Frank J
Couldn’t say it better myself.
@Deneil Merritt
It sounds like you control yourself well. Great job! =D
@YogaforCynics
Awesome! That’s what i’ve been telling myself too. I’ve also noticed that I even forget to check stats sometimes! It doesn’t matter =)
@Extreme John
Definitely! Your projects demand more attention then your stats!
@Tycoon Blogger
Congratulations!
@Stephen – Rat Race Trap
Glad you liked my post! Keep trying and moving forward. Every little step in your journey counts!
@Sire@ WassupBlog
Can’t you check for new posts using your dashboard? I found that a much more convenient way for me.
@Celes | CelestineChua.com
Great! I hope the change in productivity for you is getting you more visitors.
@gadgets
Yup!
@Hicham
Cool. Quality over quantity. Thanks for agreeing =)
I could but you must remember that I have quite a few blogs and it’s so much easier checking the emails than to load up each dashboard. Either way I got to stop walking into the office to see how things are going.
Sire@ WassupBlogs last blog post..Helium Helping Writers Fulfill Their Dreams
Ah, I see =) Good luck.
I am actually in the process of writing my own analytics program, mostly because I think it will move faster and give me more of the data I need than Google Analytics. So, with that said, I have been checking stats a lot more recently.
In general though, I think you are absolutely correct that in the long run getting too hung up on how many visitors you have each hour is not in your best interests. I too have fell into this loop though…
Steves last blog post..What is Psoriatic Arthritis?
@Steve
Amazing! Be sure to release your analytic program! Many people might need it as well!
Stats are a must to assess your performance and moreover they give you motivation to work hard. I think it is one of the important part in building your blog.
Prasanth Chandras last blog post..Zamzar – Free Online File Convertor for Images, Documents, Audio and Video Formats
Very fantastic and realistic post. It teach us where we are going in blogging. We must observe our work, time and goal. Which we have decide before start a blog. thanks for a lesson.
@Frank J — you are right I am agree with you, that is has not a big role if you are blogging for fun. But if you are blogging for online marketing it has a big role.
Have stop being a Statistics-stalker for quite some times now, and couldn’t be happier with it. ^^ I prefer to do it less frequently, but still in a regular basis to monitor necessary changes to my blog. Thanks for stressing the points.
@wchingya
social media/blogging
Ching Yas last blog post..Family & Blogging — Who Comes First?
But it’s just so damn pleasant! I love looking at my statistics. it’s like a kind looking at his people at work – observing the fruits of your labour is extremely nice.
Checking a few times a day is out of the question for me, that’s just way to much. Maybe checking once a week or every second week is more acceptable, but you right in that it wastes time and in this day and age, time is priceless.
I have read many posts describing how to put widgets on your site to display your stats, I find that serves no real purpose. So you can see how many visitors you had today, how many page views, etc. So what? What do you do with that info then and there? Nothing at all.
George Serradinhos last blog post..Serradinho’s 1st Guest Post
#2 point is very much true for me. I keep checking stats and put a target in my mind by end of day today. it should reach so and so figure.
Nice post. Need to stop checking statistics alot
Nihars last blog post..Download Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 Trial
Hi Trevor,
I check my stats everyday! First I log into my Adsense and then my Analytics. I enjoy doing this but unlike you I don’t do it many times in a day. You are correct to say that would be a waste of time.
bbrian017s last blog post..My First Official Blog in Advance Article
I think that checking your stats once or twice a day is enough, and probably the maximum. I’ve been pretty good about this for myself and I only end up checking every couple days. The truth is that it really doesn’t matter how often you check because your goal should always be trying to do the best that you can. And checking more often won’t make you succeed more.
I have an obsession with checking stats and I know it is very unproductive task but I cant help it. I wonder if there is a self group for this?
Florida Personalss last blog post..Google FriendConnect Personals Community
i think for blogging states is very important as well as know that what going on in my blog So that statics is very important, but i seen many people doing blogging just for fun but i am not here for fun nice post!!!
SEO Companys last blog post..Improve your Title Tags for Higher Rankings
You are right. Statistics can be very exhaustive for bloggers. Because of this, I compare the results only once weekly. What to check? It is a huge list. But a few to name. Google Analytics traffic keywords, Google Webmastertools to get SEO positions, Adsense, Chitika, CJ, Amazon etc. earnings.
I check my statistics every day and really is not necessary, once a week would be great, I’m wasting time when I could improve the content of the site, thanks for the tips.
Estofadoss last blog post..Poltronas
In blogging it’s very important thing know states of your blog fresh content give more help for increasing royalty visitors in your blog….
Wonderful post! I have the same “problem” and tend to waste to much time to check statistics. I don´t know why, I guess I am just to curious
I am going to try to reduce the statistics check a bit after reading this post!
cheers,
Thomas
Thomas Web PM´s last blog ..The 15 Worst User Experience Design Mistakes Ever
Thanks for covering this. I was beginning to think I was the only person who obsessively checks stats. Now I see I’m not alone. Support group, anyone?
Mike B. Fisher´s last blog ..Regrettable User Experience: too much information