A lot of us make the mistake of recommending tactics before strategy. Sometimes it’s because it’s easier and more fun to think about a cool execution before we think about its effectiveness. Other times it’s because we’re desperate for results. Either way it ends up screwing us in the end.

A good example of this is blogging. Everyone else blogs so we think we should too. This is exaggerated even further on the corporate stage. I can’t tell you how many strategies for websites or marketing efforts I’ve heard that include blogging before even considering the objective. Typically, the result ends up being a dormant blog or at best contrived information that provides little value just because we think something should be up there.

This isn’t a post about blogging. You can find any number of posts out there about who or why you should start blogging. Instead it’s a post about our need to show we’re doing something. Just as our society is based on over consumption and acquiring as much stuff as possible, it’s also predicated on us proving our value through volume.

We’re busy. Really busy. But the problem is that we’re usually busy for the sake of it. We’re busy justifying our professional existence by pumping out volumes of stuff that provides little value to the conversation. If you’re struggling for blog content it’s likely because the strategy that went into it was either non-existent or focused on volume rather than value.

So the next time you panicking because you haven’t contributed to your blog in awhile, maybe it’s time to stop searching for something to post and instead go back to the beginning and look at what you’re trying to accomplish.