So since I got my dream job as the community manager for Postling, everything got really busy, really fast. I’m working a full time job, going to school full time at night, and trying to stay healthy and lose weight!

How does one find time to blog in the midst of all that?!

I’m starting to thing that I really have to start a writing schedule, and make the time to write the blog posts I want to write and make the videos I want to make.

I enjoy producing content, so it’s stressful for me when I don’t have time for that outlet in my life.

But I wanted to give you all an update on my weight loss goals, and staying healthy through all this stress. I’ve officially lost 20 lbs!

When I first started at Postling, it seemed very difficult to stick with my regular eating schedule. When you are suddenly out of your element, you lose control of your food to a certain extent. And if you aren’t the type of person who plans every meal in advance, suddenly not being in your own kitchen can make deciding what to eat very difficult! (especially when you are vegan)

I’m starting to feel like I’ve regained control and even picked up a few great tips on how to eat anywhere and stick to my plan. (more on that in a later blog post)

Stepping on the scale and seeing a lower number than before still feels amazing, and I’m looking forward to losing the next 20 lbs!

I really planned on writing a longer post later today. My blog’s birthday also falls on Good People Day, so I usually will recap the year in that post.

I will try and write it later tonight.

Since I redesigned my blog I have gotten a lot of great compliments on it. But a lot of my friends have asked how I keep up with writing.

I admit it can be very hard at times but you have to come up with ways to get over the blogging blues.

One of my favorite blogs, Style Me Pretty, just launched a supplemental blog called Backstage, where they write about the in’s and out’s of blogging as a business. The blog is a great read and recently Abby Larson wrote a post about Blogging Blues that I really wanted to share with you guys.

I’ve been noticing that a few of my favorite bloggers have been getting the burnout blues these days. And I totally get it. In this industry, it’s really hard to stay on top. To stay fresh and innovative and to approach each new day with a different set of enthusiastic phrases. And although I love what I do, the blogging blues can bite you when you least expect it. So today, I thought I would remind myself and all of you how to bring back that sparkle to the job that you know you love…you just might have forgotten why you love it.

1. Keep a gratitude journal. Sounds big time cheesy, I know. But writing down the reasons that we are grateful for our jobs, for our creative brains, for our lives…will remind us all as to just how lucky we are.
2. Take a break from the mundane and for one day, make it all about the fun. What does this mean? Well…if you are a florist and are bogged down in the business of being a florist, set aside one day to design flowers for your closest friends. Totally YOUR designs, influenced only by your love of your craft. For a wedding blogger this might mean spending a day with a cup of hot chocolate, sifting through all of your favorite vendor sites, finding inspiration in back copies of domino magazine, poring through galleries of your favorite weddings. Even reading your OWN blog to rediscover your voice, your passion.
3. Reserve a day just for housekeeping. It will be a brutal day…paperwork, number crunching, computer cleaning…but in the end, it will free up your brain space to get back to what you love.
4. Reserve a day just for brainstorming. Tait and I had a 2 hour meeting the other day to hash out all of the little details we needed to in order to move forward. It was hugely fulfilling and definitely reignited my motivation and excitement. Getting together a brainstorming meeting with your team will definitely bring back a little buzz. By encouraging everyone to participate (interns too)  in your session, you’ll inspire them, you’ll potentially discover a different perspective, you’ll get the fun brewing among everyone.
5. At the end of the day, shut the computer off, swear off emails and grab a glass of wine or a hot cup of tea. Take a moment to think about your day and to find the bright spots, the spots that make your stresses all worthwhile.

I know that these aren’t particularly mind blowing ideas, but these are little things that I do to give myself a pick-me-up. Of course, we all struggle with different parts of our lives. Running a family, keeping a nice home, maintaining relationships with our friends, running a business. It’s basically impossible to do all of these really well but it isn’t impossible to fall in love with the journey.

A few things I wanted to add to this list:

1. Don’t be afraid to re-blog. If someone wrote a post that you like, if it’s something you think your readers would benifit from, or if you feel like you have something to add to that post, don’t hesitate to re-blog the post. As long as you give credit to the original author and don’t try to claim the ideas as your own.
2. Read more. If you are feeling like you are in a blogging rut, read more blogs. And start reading blogs that might not fall into your “category” of blogging. Technically Random Sarah is my personal blog, but it focuses on social media and web 2.0. But I read a lot of food blogs, fashion blogs, friends personal blogs, tech blogs, local blogs. It helps me see what is out there and really reflect on how I am writing my own content.

You have to love your blog, if you don’t know why you are blogging maybe it’s time to take a break from it and reflect on why you started blogging in the first place. Let me know what helps you stay motivated to blog in the comments.

Well it’s about time!

(p.s. if you are reading this in a feed reader or via the email subscriptions, please take a moment to vist the site and let me know what you think of the new theme)

I have been wanting to give Random Sarah a face lift for some time, so I finally did!

I know many of you liked my old theme. But the good news is that you can download it for your own blog if you like!

The new theme keeps a lot of what I liked from my old theme (still Helvetica, my favorite font) But now the blog is my favorite color green! (You might remember that was the color of my wall in my old room in NYC, so I’ve been missing the color)

This new theme has a few fun extra features that I will be tweaking over the new few days, so please excuse me if something don’t look right just yet. If you scroll down you will find a section just for videos. (Not everything is playing correctly just yet, because they are not all formatted correctly) There is also a section at the bottom called “talking points”. This pulls up the posts from my archives that have the most comments. (I thought it was a really interesting way to highlight old content)

The theme also has a special tabbed module in the sidebar showing most popular posts, most recent posts, and recent comments.

The theme is originally supposed to be used as a magazine theme. It has other “magazine like” features. One in particular is a featured posts module at the top. (which I have not yet decided if I want to use) although it might be helpful in highlighting content from my blog, while still incorporating content from my tumblr.

I’m hoping that Random Sarah will be a place that shows everything that I am up to online. I will incorporating more content from my tumblr, and there is also flickr content in the sidebar. I also think this new theme will help me get back to providing some of the random content I used to post on this blog. It is a personal blog after all.

I would really LOVE your feedback on this theme, so let me know what you think!

Hey guys, it sure has been a while since I blogged here on radomsarah.com!

I have been settling into a new city and  a new job, not to mention helping crush cancer!

It sure has been a crazy few months, but I do really miss blogging. I never really stopped blogging, I have kept up a constant stream of content on my tumblr.

What I blog on tumblr is a lot like the kind of content that I used to post on Random Sarah. Random things that I find around the web that interest me. Over time I started to blog in a more focused way and tumblr became my outlet for all of the random stuff I found. But Random Sarah is where my twitter profile (and almost all of the other social sites I use) point too. When people are trying to find out more about me, they are dorected to a site that I don’t think currently reflects my level of activity on the web.

That being said I have decided that it’s time for a re-design of Random Sarah! I would really want this to be my home online, I want it to accurately reflect my activity online. I don’t want you to come to randomsarah.com and not see a post for a few weeks and think I dropped off the face of the earth!

As you can see, there doesn’t really seem to be any consistent design element, or branding across all of these sites that I use.

I am not 100% sure how I want this to look, of course I have ideas of my own, but I would really like to work with a designer on this.

If you would like to be considered for the project, or you know someone who has experience with wordpress and tumblr, please leave it in the comments. Or you can always shoot me an email at sarah.k.cooley@gmail.com

I use WordPress for this blog because I like the flexibility of it. I consider WordPress a blogging powerhouse! It can do anything you want it to do. So when I saw the P2 theme for WordPress, I was a little surprised.

I came across the theme through a post on Matt Mullenweg‘s Blog.

A group blog theme for short update messages, inspired by Twitter. Featuring: Hassle-free posting from the front page. Perfect for group blogging, or as a liveblog theme. Dynamic page updates. Threaded comment display on the front page. In-line editing for posts and comments. Live tag suggestion based on previously used tags. A show/hide feature for comments, to keep things tidy. Real-time notifications when a new comment or update is posted. Super-handy keyboard shortcuts. Helvetica Neue for you modern font lovers. And more to come…

The theme would remind anyone of twitter, so I wondered what the benefits of having a blog like this would be? I see how it would be very easy as an internal blog for a company or group. Matt said on his blog:

It completely transformed how Automattic works internally and I think is one of the most valuable things we’ve adopted in the past year. I’m on the road a lot, and sometimes my only connection is checking the mobile-optimized P2 on my iPhone.

But how would this theme play out on a public facing blog? What would be some good uses for it?

I think it would be interesting to see these features as a part of a regular wordpress blog. For example if I wanted to host this kind of a conversation on my blog, but I still wanted to have traditional blog posts, you could select P2 as a post type. I think that would be really interesting.

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this, and get a look at some cool ways that this theme is being used.

Last year Gary Vaynerchuk declared April 3rd Good People Day! This year he said that you had to write a blog post or make a video to talk about Good People. Seeing that today is my 1 year anniversary of randomsarah.com, and that I started this blog with a Good People Day video last year, I thought it was only fitting to do a post this year to talk about all the GREAT people that I have met over the past year.

Gary Vaynerchuk, I would not be writing this post if it wasn’t for you. You were the first person who told me to trust in my community when you pushed me to raise money for the Thunder Cruise and you have been very supportive ever since. So thank you for starting good people day, and for being a great person yourself.

I wanted to focus on people that have really helped me feel more comfortable in this space, and who have given me a great chance to grow.

Matt Knell. You were the first person to ever come up to me, already knowing who I was, at a Mashable event back last summer. It was one of the most flattering moments EVER. Since then you have become a great friend and provided me with some great advice over the past year. You have never stopped believing in me and pushing me to be the best person I can be.

Rob Blatt. You have always believed in What’s it all About from the very beginning. Thank you for taking a chance on me and helping me produce and edit the show. You have been a lifesaver. And Amber (I know you don’t want me to use your last name) you have been wonderful over these last few months, you are a great writer and you inspire me to be a better blogger every day.

Tim Kress-Spatz you believed in What’s it all About, and decided to help me with the show by bringing the show into the Ambush TV family and I could not be more thankful to you. You are a great entrprenuer and you inspire me.

Jonathan Dingman, simply @dingman to most people. Jonathan you have taught me so many things, from how to love Google, to understanding SEO, and the art of kicking a** and taking names with WordPress. You are a great friend and an even better WordPress developer!

Who can describe Brett Petersel, Oz Sultan, Micheal Gruen, and Nater Kane. You four have made this entry into the New York Tech Community one of the best experiences of my life. It’s been a crazy ride, but I am ready for another year.

Chris Brogan… there are no words for how awesome you are. I can only aspire to be a fraction of your awesomeness, but it’s something I work toward every day! Thank you for your words of encouragement every time we see each other.

Jeff Pulver, I have to thank you for always believing in me, and for giving me all the opportunities that you have to succeed. Thank you for believing that I am a rock star, and lifting my spirits every time I see you.

Whitney Hess, you are an amazing woman. People just couldn’t wait for us to meet each other and we clicked the second that we did. I am proud to call you my friend and I am thankful for all the great advice you have given me.

Walt Ribeiro, YOU ARE AWESOME! When you first met me, you came up to me and said “oh my god, it’s Random Sarah!” Like I was the best person on earth!  You are a great musician and a wonderful friend. You are a true rock star!

Finally Cali Lewis, you were my person for Good People Day last year, but you need to be on this list again. I wanted to thank you for all the great help, advice and feedback you have given me over this past year. Thank you for inspiring me to start doing online video and for continuing to be a great mentor.

And to all of my friends and family who knew me before I was blogging, and before I was on twitter, and who were reading my blog daily when no one else was…you guys are what keeps me going every day! Thank you for being so supportive.

Some of you might know that yesterday was the official one year anniversary of randomsarah.com. WOW, a year! Sometimes it seems like way less than that, but it also seems like so much has happened that it can’t possibly just be a year.

I have met SOOO many great people and had the opportunity to be a part of such a great community. I am so thankful.

Over the last few days I have known that this anniversary was coming up and I have had some time to reflect on why I got into this space in the beginning. I was looking through my archives from last April which was my first month of writing randomsarah.com.

My writing has changed a lot, my style on video has changed a lot, and the content that I choose to put out has certainly changed. But I think it has changed for the better.

I am very happy with where this blog has come in a year. I have learned a lot about community, blogging, video blogging, podcasting, wordpress, SEO, and so much more.

I have been feeling that my current obsession with tumblr has taken away from my blogging here, but I am making efforts to change that. I signed up for ProBlogger‘s 31 days to a better blog challenge, which will start on April 6th and I will try my best to post EVERY DAY. In addition to that, I also am participating in Video Blogging Week, which will take place from April 5th-11th and will be one new video a day.

Last night I attended an event at New Work City for Runway Project called Resume 2.0. Whitney Hess was speaking about picking your one liner that describes what you do. It made me realize that I am doing so many things, how can I condense them into one line?

I talked to Whitney after the event and she helped me remember why I got into this space in the first place, I started this because I wanted to do online video. I was watching a ton of podcasts and I knew that video podcasting and online video was something I wanted to do.

So I am going to work more on focusing my efforts toward my end goal. I thank you all for contributing to this blog over the last year and supporting me. You have been the BEST Community I could ever ask for! Thank you all for continuing to inspire me to be better.

Over the years I have started a number of new blogs for myself. Sometimes I just wanted a change, and sometimes it’s just to try out a new blogging platform. This year I had the idea to start a community blogging project and that was a whole new adventure.

This week I had the opportunity to help my mother set up her first blog and there was a lot that went into it. My mother has always wanted to write, and with five kids she sure has a lot to write about. But that wasn’t the main reason that my mother wanted to join the mommy blogging craze. My youngest brother Philip is 10 years old and he is a special needs child. Seeing the power of the internet through me, she decided that blogging about Philip’s condition might help her find other mothers who’s children have similar symptoms.

I did some research to see how many blogs there were on this subject already. I found a lot of mom’s with children that had Autism, but Philip’s condition is different. Next we had to decide what blogging platform my mom would use. I decided that she should use wordpress.com because that would teach her how to use one of the most powerful blogging platforms out there.

Setting up the site was very easy to get up and running. The hard part came when we needed to choose a theme for the blog and tweak it to look the way we wanted. This included getting the sidebar widgets in order and setting up some extra accounts like a flickr and vimeo account so that my mom could post photos and videos of Philip.

Twitter integration is a must for any blogger. My mother already had a twitter, but writing this blog will definitely give her her own community to interact with. She can find other moms in similar situations and create her own community.

Right now the blog is still a work in progress and I have found some differences working on her blog using wordpress.com than my blog which uses hosted wordpress, but I think we will be able to work it out.

I have never really blogged about my family because it wasn’t my niche. Yes this is a personal blog, but I focus on talking about technology and social media because that is what I love. I hope that my mom will be able to find or create a community online that will support her as my brother grows up and I will be here to help her every step of the way.

You can check out her blog A Life Delayed and meet Philip.

Let me know if you know any great mommy bloggers that I should be reading of following on twitter.

It has been a long year for Random Sarah. I joined twitter, started a new blog, started video blogging, started a video podcast, created a community blog project, met a ton of people….man I’m tired already. But I had one goal when I started all this and that was to make it to SXSW interactive in 2009. I know it sounds like a strange goal, but I figured if I could only attend one conference all year I would pick that one.

The plan was pretty simple: Find a company that needed help during SXSWi and work for them for the week in exchange for a conference pass and accommodations. It was a plan that I had seen many other people execute before so it didn’t seem to difficult to me. However, over the last few months it has become very clear that this year we are dealing with SXSW recession edition.  More and more, companies didn’t have the same big budget for conferences that they once had. They were going to try and get by with as little as possible. And in this economy who can blame them.

But I still have a problem: I have a plane ticket to Austin and no conference pass. I am planning on shooting a few episodes of my show What’s it all about: Web 2.0 at SXSW but this all requires a sponsorship that I don’t have. So, I have come up with a new SXSW recession plan. I will be there for all 5 days of the conference. So I am looking for 5 Companies who would like me to represent their brand during the conference. (This idea was totally inspired by Girl in your shirt and I Wear Your Shirt)

The plan is simple: Each day I will wear the shirt of a different company. On your day I will be required to wear your shirt all around the expo and to any events I attend that evening. You would send me a company shirt along with something about your company that I would tell people every time they asked me about my shirt. I will be your active brand ambassador for the day. In addition to talking about your company, I will wear the shirt on my show that will be seen by many more people than just people physically in Austin attending SXSW. Your company will be the sponsor of that episode. All of this would only cost you $150 for the day! Seriously, I know you have $150 in your budget to sponsor a totally deserving blogger to go to SXSW!

UPDATE: In addition to having me wear your shirt and talk about the company for a day, and a sponsor spot on What’s it all about: Web 2.0, I will blog about your company before SXSW in a post about my SXSW Sponsors, and a post after SXSW, thanking my sponsors with links to all the photos, and videos taken of me during the conference. You will also get ad space on Random Sarah for the month of March. (125×125)

Why should your company do this? That’s easy! Because it would cost you a lot less than paying for my whole pass and hotel stay, and you get a up and comming girl in the world of social media to talk about your company all day. This is especially great for companies that may not have the budget to attend SXSWi this year. I will attend for you!

If you are looking for more information about me you can check out the rest of Random Sarah which is my personal blog, including my old video blogs. Check me out on Twitter and Tumblr. And check out my old episodes of What’s it all about: Web 2.0

Please contact me if your company is interested in me being your brand ambassador for the day.

Related links:

Want a brand ambassador for SXSW, meet Sarah (Sanford Dickert, Social Engineer)