Overwhelmed!

Recently I made a few changes to my blog that frequent visitors may have noticed. It was suggested to me by several bloggy friends that I should have a button that others could put on their blogs to link to me. Sort of a log or brand. I made one, and had it in the upper right hand corner for 2 weeks. I also added buttons from those who originally made the suggestion, as well as other blogs I visit regularly that have their own buttons. Suddenly, my blog visually overwhelmed me! There were WAY too many images for me to deal with and they were distracting me from reading the post. However, since it was readers who suggested it, I kept everything up. For 2 weeks. Meanwhile, I was still trying to get a handle on this whole following business. I had blogs to which I subscribed, blogs I followed, and some on my blog roll. How did I decide what went where? If someone followed me, I followed them, and the same with the blog roll. If they did both I picked one. I moved my subscriptions into blogs I follow to bring it down to 2 things to check on. I found I wasn't visiting most of the blogs I follow after just a few days. I figured I needed to give it time to get used to. Following must be great if everyone was doing it, right?

So now I'm checking in daily with SITS, Blog Around the World, and All Mediocre, to which I belong. Then I'm checking in on everyone on my blog roll who has posted within the last 2 days, and trying to remember the blogs that I follow. I wanted to visit those who follow me to see who they are and what we have in common. If they are following me, they must have found something about me that they like, so I'll probably like them, too! Which has been true with every one of them! I know I'm not obliged to do all of this visiting/commenting, but I have read comments on other blogs when someone has been left off a blog roll or not received comments in a while from a particular visitor, and I didn't want to hurt any one's feelings. So far I've only had 2 negative experiences in blog land and I saw neither one coming, so I sure wasn't going to do some thing I knew in advance would hurt feelings!

Then I found Blogging Without Obligation and Blog Guilt Free. The philosophies of these 2 groups are very similar. We shouldn't feel obliged to blog every day or participate in every meme, carnival, or tag game. I don't feel obliged to post daily, but I do feel obliged to visit so many people! So I modified the concept toward my visits. I would still visit, and of course leave comments when I'm there, but I just can't get to everyone every day and I have to pick and choose for various reasons each day. I felt so much better that I had made a decision, and I knew how to streamline and organize things for myself. I took down my button and the buttons to every other blog, unless I'm required to have it up, such as SITS. Visually, I was much happier with my blog. I added all of the button blogs to my blog roll, as well as the blogs I follow. For me, the blog roll is like a list of bookmarks. I have them listed by most recent post, so it's easy for me to know what I haven't read, and it gives others the chance to visit these blogs that I enjoy. If I kept using only the following feature others wouldn't know the other blogs I like and it could decrease traffic to them.

This doesn't mean I won't post buttons anymore. If I'm participating in a particular carnival or swap, of course I'll advertise it. I also am cutting down on my visiting and trying not to feel obligated to visit everyone every day. I thought about it, do I talk to my real world friends and see them every day? So no one should be insulted that I no longer follow them or have removed their button. It just makes my computer time more efficient, and that makes me more relaxed!

I know everyone understands what I'm talking about and will tell me to do what works best for me. I just wanted to explain the change if you had noticed and wondered.