Brief re-introduction
On April 27, 2026, I celebrated The New Leaf Journal’s sixth birthday by announcing a project: I would publish six articles featuring the “wisdom” I have collected from my six years of running this humble online writing magazine. I not only promised six articles, but I also set an ambitious schedule. Beginning with May 2, 2026, I would publish one blogging “wisdom” article every five days, with the last one going live on May 27. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I would invariably find myself pressed for time on at least one of them. I am starting this third article on the evening of May 11, 2026. While that does not leave me with as much time as I may have liked, it does lead into one of the six topics I had planned. In today’s blogging wisdom post, I will – with the help of some incisive articles and blog posts from around the web – write about keeping a sort of “blogging” schedule and/or routine while avoiding the phenomenon that is colloquially referred to as “burnout.”
My own experience
I have erred on the “prolific” side of publishing frequency since launching The New Leaf Journal back on April 27, 2020. In addition to my introductory birthday article, you can read my milestone posts for our 100th, 500th, and 999th articles. However, the amount of time I spend on The New Leaf Journal fluctuates depending on a variety of factors.I always have something to write, but having a topic and having the motivation or time to put the work into turning the topic into a complete article are different things. There has never been a time when I came close to closing up shop, but I have had occasional periods when I have not posted as frequently, usually due to some combination of not feeling well or work (my day job has me sitting, reading, and typing at the same computer I produce almost all of my New Leaf Journal articles).
I highlight my own output for two reasons. Firstly, whatever advice I have about writing routines and avoiding burnout is coming from the perspective of someone who has been, at a minimum, better than average on both counts. Secondly, while my enthusiasm for working on the New Leaf Journal ebbs and flows, I have never experienced “burnout” or ever felt like abandoning the project.
The potential danger of strict blogging schedules
I used to follow NFL and college football closely back when I was a student (especially in high school). While I no longer follow either closely, I am still somewhat up to date on goings on from afar. Not too long ago, I came across a talented football writer/blogger by the name of Robbie Marriage. Mr. Marriage writes lengthy essays, primarily (but not exclusively) about past NFL seasons. He examines the seasons using advanced play-by-play statistics and his own impressions, bringing stats and the narrative of a passionate football fan together. I particularly enjoy his articles covering seasons I followed and remember (primarily focusing on the 2000s), but I always take the time to sit and read what he writes and learn something new. For some time, Mr. Marriage was publishing these lengthy, carefully researched essays, on a near-weekly basis. Then, on November 10, 2025, he published a letter to readers titled The End of My SPP Obligation, with “SPP” standing for Sports Passion Project.
Mr. Marriage switched from talking about football to talking about himself. He described a moment which triggered an epiphany:
[A] couple months ago … I visited my parents for the first time in a while. My sister still lives in my hometown and has a beautiful new baby boy, so came over to see me. I love kids, so spent a long time enjoying my time with both of them, but once play time was over, I went to grab my computer, and began to type out some listicle of some kind. I forget which it was. She asked what I was doing. I told her, and then she asked me ‘do you ever give yourself a rest from your computer?’
He then explained the effect that simple question from his sister had on him:
This proved a powerful moment for me, because just as many words as I say on my Sports Passion Project, I say in real life. I’m a talkative human. I’ve got an answer foreverything, and yet, all it took was this one yes/no question to leave me completely speechless. I had no answer to it.
While I knew that Mr. Marriage spent a great deal of time studying the NFL to publish his articles, I did not know what he does for his proverbial day-job. He explained that he was, at publication time, a 25-year old working toward his PhD in economics, and that he had started Sports Passion Project, along with an ambitious publication schedule, back when he was just 19. (I had assumed he was closer to my age than to his high school days.) Mr. Marriage initially thought he could balance publishing weekly on Sports Passion Project with his professional obligations, but reality intervened. His sister expressed her concern about how much time he was spending on his computer and his direct supervisor noted with concern that the quality of Mr. Marriage’s academic work was declining. This caused Mr. Marriage to re-assess:
I’m not going to guarantee a post every Monday any longer. I’m not going to post most days on Notes and elsewhere any longer. SPP is going to continue on much more of an ad hoc basis moving forward. When I have something to say, I will say it, but on days and weeks where I have nothing to say, I will not say anything, and I will make no apology beyond this one.
Fortunately, after several months away, Mr. Marriage returned after a brief hiatus, renaming his project Gridiron Deep Dive and presenting a new publication schedule.
My impression from reading is that Mr. Marriage found trouble (so to speak) because he had “promised” a certain schedule for publishing articles and then held himself to that schedule, even when his real-life (so to speak again) obligations and responsibilities changed. Over time, the combination of academic and blog obligations weighed him down. His academic/professional work suffered and, while his passion for football and sharing his love of football did not wane, he found himself facing tight, self-imposed deadlines, which one must suspect sapped much of the fun from his work.
Regular readers of The Newsletter Leaf Journal and my month-end review posts may have noticed that I have, in the past, stated that I would publish one article or another and either published it later than I had hoped or perhaps not at all (there are some long-pending projects out there). These days, I have learned to resist the temptation to call my shot or make guarantees. Like Mr. Marriage, I have a job, which takes time and energy and sometimes makes it impractical or undesirable for me to tackle one New Leaf Journal project or another on a tight schedule. Also like Mr. Marriage, I do not have paying subscribers or customers, so there is no contractual obligation for us to publish an article on a date certain. For bloggers and writers in our circumstances, I am inclined to recommend against setting harsh, inflexible deadlines that may not take into account real-world circumstances and obligations. In addition to the potential for burning oneself out or rendering the prospect of running a blog or website a chore when, as I opined in my opening “wisdom” essay, it should bring benefits, the quality of one’s online writing output may also suffer if he or she prioritizes arbitrary deadlines over giving each article the time it deserves in light of his or her own life circumstances. The question of deadlines may be more complicated for bloggers or writers who have a paying audience. In those cases, I would recommend setting a realistic and conservative blogging and writing schedule in light of one’s own life circumstances, and maintaining some degree of flexibility if the blog or writing project is not one’s day-job.
Mr. Marriage touched on a second, non-burnout case against harsh deadlines. His sister’s question for him, “do you ever give yourself a rest from your computer?” is pertinent outside of the burnout context. In my first blogging wisdom post, I opined that one benefit of writing online is engaging with the world as a writer. Many of my ideas for articles come from actually living life, whether reading interesting articles and blog posts around the web, paying attention to the world around me when I am outside, talking to friends, or spending time interrogating my own thoughts. On the subject of getting away from the computer, I quote from my Attending to Surroundings and Thoughts on Walks essay:
I recommended walking as good in and of itself (a proper end, unlike ill-defined productivity), and suggested that walkers take time to attend to their surroundings, enjoy their company (if not walking solo), glean a sense of the season, and take a few nice photographs of their surroundings. There is a place for company, or Socrates would not have done so much walking and talking.
Good writing requires clear thinking, but the writer needs things to think about. Spending all of one’s time staring at a screen limits the universe of ideas one has to draw from. That would be especially dangerous for a “variety hour” writer like me, but I dare say it is also dangerous for a more topic-focused writer like Mr. Marriage. Someone who writes long, detail-oriented essays about football when he is not working toward a PhD in economics could benefit from taking some time away from screens (including watching game tape) to rest, reflect, and think of new ideas and angles to approach football analysis while living life. I quote again from my walking essay:
Are ideas on walks more likely to come from listening to pre-recorded audio or appreciating the world around you, vying for your attention, either on your own or with company? … [T]here are things worth noticing around us so long as we take the time to look outside of ourselves and see them.
The most interesting bloggers observe the world around them and do things in the world. Blogging is not an end in and of itselfbut the process of converting interesting ideas gleaned from experience into internet writing. If the time one spends on blogging detracts too meaningfully from the time he or she spends outside or doing non-blogging things, his or her website/blog and ability to benefit from the process of blogging will be harmed as a result. As I argued in An Essay on Productivity, Production, and Productive Leisure, leisure can be productive in its own way.
The danger of no blogging schedules
While I would advise against holding oneself to an arbitrary blogging schedule outside of limited circumstances, there is of course a danger in running too far away from some kind of schedule.
I quote from JCProbably’s On Making and Breaking Routines:
Writing blog posts, for example, is something that benefits from a steady rhythm. When I had that in previous years, it felt easier to show up and publish consistently. Once that cadence broke, getting back into it requires more effort than I expected, even though my desire to write has never left.
I write often enough, including for my day job, that I cannot say I have experienced the phenomenon described above, but I can intuitively imagine that I would need some time to get back into the swing of things if I suddenly went on a six-month hiatus from The New Leaf Journal. In addition to losing one’s rhythm or breaking a routine, not writing also means that one is not practicing. I quote from Leticia Portella’s Why you should have a blog (and write in it):
Like anything in life, you can only get better if you practice. Your first blog post will probably not be great, nor your second, maybe not even your third. But you should write them anyway. The more you write, the more you can improve your writing. You will need to read other blog posts and articles and incorporate different ways of writing to your own. You can only be a good writer, if you practice. So… practice on your own blog!
Many people may have to overcome one inhibition or another when trying to produce a blog or website. A common inhibition is the fear that one’s posts may not be worth reading. Now I note here, just as I wrote in my first “wisdom” post, that it is not the case that every person needs, or would necessarily gain, from running a blog or writing website. But in that same post, I suggested a laundry list of benefits one may gain from undertaking blogging. For anyone who wants to experience those benefits, it goes without saying that devoting some time to the blog and website is a prerequisite to benefiting from the endeavor.
The middle path
There is a middle-ground between rejecting counter-productive blogging schedules schedules and neglecting one’s blog through procrastination or for some other reason. As I wrote in An Essay on Productivity, Production, and Productive Leisure while discussing select passages from Epictetus’ Enchiridion:
Why should one reject procrastination and do things conducive to his or her own well-being? Because one should think of him or herself as worthy of living well.
If the process of writing and publishing provides benefits of the sort I described in the first entry in this series, it would seem to follow that it is worth incorporating writing and publishing into one’s daily or weekly routines. Setting aside the case of the commercial blogger, the amount of time one should devote to his or her blog or writing website will invariably vary from blogger to writer. Some factors to consider may include, but are not limited to, one’s real-life work, family, and social obligations, the kinds of articles or blog posts one is interesting in writing and publishing, the length of time one typically spends on researching, drafting, and refining an article or blog post, what one hopes to gain personally and/or professionally from maintaining a blog or writing website, and many more factors which may be applicable to different cases.
In balancing the various equities described above, bloggers should also remember that even if he or she can spend “X” amount of time on a blog or website without cutting into his or her “real-world” responsibilities and activities, more is not always better. The most interesting bloggers are people who live their lives in the world and share things about their interests and competencies deriving from their real-world activities and interests. Less interesting are bloggers who define themselves by simply having interests. Ultimately, some of the best ideas for a blog post may come from doing something other than wrestling with words in front of a screen or over a notebook.
Conclusion
Similarly to my previous “wisdom” essay on the niche blog question, I cannot present a single answer regarding blogging schedules or routines that covers every blogger out there. But I think we came up with what is at least the general outline of a generally applicable principle. If blogging or writing is a beneficial activity, one should carve out time for it. But the amount of time that one should carve out should be calculated in terms of ensuring that the blogger or writer gleans the maximum benefits from the endeavor given his or her own personal circumstances and blogging/writing style and work-flow. That balance should ensure that the blogger or writer can find topics in the real world and produce the “best” possible blog given the various, case-specific factors.
