Do you suffer from the curse of the perfectionist blogger?

As bloggers, we all take some degree of pride in our work. But do you know when good enough is good enough? Or do you suffer from the curse of the perfectionist blogger?

Take this simple quiz to find out whether you’re in need of help.

1. You have just written an 800-word post about your child’s latest achievement. Do you:

a) Hit publish. Open a bottle of wine. Job done.

b) Take a few minutes to edit out typos and tweak your text to make it read better.

c) Spend hours agonising over removing one word – and then put it back in again. Then sleep on it overnight. Then rewrite the entire post. Repeat ad infinitum.

2. You’re writing a post which requires you to research some facts or statistics. Do you:

a) Treat something you overheard someone say in the pub or saw on The Jeremy Kyle Show and take that as ‘fact’.

b) Quickly look at Google or Wikipedia to give you confidence you’ve got your facts right. That’s probably good enough.

c) Fact-check everything with two independent sources and consult both a world-leading expert and a lawyer, just in case.

3. You’re reading one of your old blog posts and you spot a typo. Do you:

a) Ignore it. It’s no big deal.

b) Edit the post quickly to correct it.

c) Edit the entire post to ensure there aren’t any other typos. Take out a ‘correction’ ad in the Times to apologise for your error. Say one hundred Hail Marys to atone for your sins.

4. You need a photo of your children to go with a new blog post you’re writing. Do you:

a) Take a quick shot using your phone. It’s a bit out of focus but it will do.

b) Grab your SLR, carefully compose a shot and then edit it to make it look better.

c) Take ten different artfully composed pictures using a variety of lenses and lighting set-ups, spend more time than it takes you to write the actual post to apply a range of filters and effects in Adobe Lightroom and then select the very best one for use.

5. You’re ready to publish your latest masterpiece. Do you:

a) Just hit publish as soon as you’re ready.

b) Wait or schedule it to publish and then promote it on Twitter and Facebook at a time when it is most likely to be read.

c) Automatically or manually schedule it to publish to Twitter (at least five times a day for a week), Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram and the other 915 social media platforms you also promote yourself on.

6. You’re attending a blogging conference. Do you:

a) Focus on the best way to get to the free wine and other goodies.

b) Attend a few sessions, jotting down notes for ideas to help you improve.

c) Attend everything you can get to, sitting in the front row and recording the entire session so you don’t miss out on anything. You then co-ordinate with other bloggers to ensure you receive full transcripts of all the sessions you missed out on.

7. You want to promote your blog posts via linkies. Do you:

a) Join a few as and when you have something relevant and the time to do so.

b) You’re organised enough to know which linkies you prefer and when they go live so that you’re ready to link up in good time.

c) You’re always the first person to post to every linky going and have even invested in a super-fast broadband connection and an atomic clock that tells the time accurate to within one nanosecond to give you that all-important edge.

How did you do?

Mostly (a): You enjoy blogging but life’s too short for anything as trivial as good English. Or allowing facts to get in the way of a good story. Hey, if it’s good enough for the Daily Mail

Mostly (b): You like your blog to appear as professional as possible and you’re always looking to improve, but you have a sense of when good enough is good enough.

Mostly (c): You see those men in white coats? They’re coming for you …

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