Why Blogging is like Scuba Diving

I spent a lot of time diving last week as I have a friend over on the island at the moment who is also a diver. That’s why my posting schedule went out of the window, so I apologize for that! It did give me  chance to reflect how writing a blog is very much like diving. Allow me to explain:

Plan the dive and dive the plan

This is a mantra you learn early on as a diver, each dive is planned in some detail – maximum depth, air consumption, decompression stops and so on. And blogging is the same – you have a posting schedule, objectives for readers and income, an overall plan for the direction of the blog as well as for day to day tasks.

Having the right kit

Diving is horrible if you have a kit problem – a leaky regulator, or a mask that mists up, can ruin the whole dive as you deal with those issues. Our blogging equipment is not just the PC or Mac we use, but also all the tools we use to make ourselves more productive – things like Livewriter, Google Reader and Twitter.

Keeping your eyes open

To really enjoy diving, you need to keep constantly scanning the horizons, ready to divert to check out an interesting Grouper cave, or a shy octopus. As bloggers, we need to be always on the look out for a good story idea, a great post to comment on or a terrific story to share with our social media followers

React to currents

Although you will have entered the water with a planned route, you can’t tell which way the current is flowing until you’re below the surface – if it’s not as anticipated, you need to revise your course so that you’re not fighting it at the end of the dive when air is low and your nitrogen loading is high. All bloggers know you can hit barriers from time to time, miscalculate the right direction for some posts or have some critical comments appear on your blog. You need to be able to react to those changes as and when they happen.

Keep checking everything

When you’re diving, you should be constantly checking your depth, your remaining air and any decompression time you’ve racked up, and you need to be aware enough to make instant calculations to ensure you can surface when you need to. The blogging equivalent is looking at our statistics – did that post get plenty of reads? Are people clicking those links? Are people still reading our newsletters? If not, we need to calculate what to do to get back on track.

Communication

Divers learn a whole variety of hand signals to allow us to “talk” under water – it’s vital that our dive buddies know if and where we have a problem and that we can point out stuff of interest to each other. In the blogging world communication with other bloggers is vital via comments, social media and guest posting -  as a way to increase our own traffic.

Off-gassing

After a deep, long dive, we divers need to allow the nitrogen to escape from our system before surfacing, to avoid the bends. Bloggers need to take time away from their blogs and computers to interact with the real world to stimulate new thought and ideas.

What other sports are like blogging?

You might also enjoy:

1/ Scuba diving therapy

2/ Questions to ask yourself before getting too personal on your blog

3/ Switching to Disqus comments