Sunday 17 July 2016

How much information is too much?

I resigned my job in December 2015 and since then I have been looking for something to do. I went through the phases, panic, fear, relief and finally excitement. First of all, I didn't know I was that exhausted. I only discovered this after I managed to sleep for three days (with occasional breaks for food and bathroom) without worrying about the alarm sounding or deadlines. It finally caught up with me that I finally have a chance to change the direction my career was taking. A chance to figure out what my next step in life was going to be. Now I get to choose what I want to be when I "grow up". Many times we worry about leaving a job without another in hand. We worry about family, bills, food, transport fare, taxes etc and forget to take care of ourselves. 

Well, I must say that during these 6 and a half months, apart from doing the job search and being interviewed twice, I have been able to put in a lot of reading, come up with ideas (which I now have to sort out into something workable) and also had time to attend career building forums which I either didn't have time to attend before or was too tired to attend or even pay attention to. Actually, this is the point at which I feel like I just shared too much information.

Anyway, during one of the forums I attended, there was a discussion about earning money as a blogger. To be honest I knew people earned money as bloggers but I didn't know anyone in Uganda who is earning as a Freelance Blogger. It was quite an eye-opener to listen to one of the panelists talk about her work as a freelance blogger, so I thought, why not? I mean I do this as a hobby, so can I turn it into something that earns me a couple of dollars at least? Then the question came to me, "How information much is too much?" I mean looking at some of the assignments given to freelance bloggers.

How much information is too much? If say, I am writing a piece about my family, how much of their lives should I put out there? If I am describing a product, how much information should I or shouldn't I put out there about it? If it is a piece about politics in my country, how much should I write or leave out? If it is a technical piece, should I fill it with all the technical jargon I picked up while I was doing research on that particular topic? While I am sure the answers are in the guidelines about blogging (which by the way are way way way more than "too much"), I think these are some of the questions new bloggers like me have. 

I started this blog as a personal initiative or something I did for my former employer to share some of the work being done and testimonies from a few of the clients away from the structure of the Company website. But since I left, I had to take off the Company stuff. The blog provided a great way to engage fellow staff and I also used it as a ..."more/details" page for the weekly newsletter. I loved the flexibility of writing my way, writing when I wanted to and about any topic that caught my fancy.

Aah, let me go Google the answers and hopefully begin my journey to becoming a great blogger.

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