Well done to all the working parents who embrace the craziness of life, keep smiling and manage to hold onto their sanity. Juggling everything and being successful at it can be hard- anyone who says otherwise is lying.

For anyone struggling to keep their balls in the air at the moment, heres a list of some of the balls that I drop (and feel guilty about) on a daily basis;

• Drinking enough water (not coffee or wine)
• Spending quality time with the kids
• Acknowledging my partmer existence (what is date night??)
• Getting enough sleep – hence the create a blog idea at 5am
• Feeling effective at work – even if I dedicated my life to the cause, it would not be enough!
• Exercising- ha, does carrying a toddler whilst trying to transfer the shopping from car to house count?
• Completing house hold tasks/ keep the house presentable-epic fail with a pooping toddler
• Being tolerable outwith work – or sociable at all 😂
• Any sort of skincare routine – some mornings I wake up like a member of Kiss.
• Making a home cooked nutritious meal
• Not losing my shit on the 2 hour commute- temp roadworks are a bitch!

Theres definitely more…but moral of the story is perfection doesn’t exist and the mission to accomplish it usually results in burnout. This is something I need to remind myself of daily, but be kind to yourself, the pile will still be there tomorrow.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.