I could blame a multitude of external factors that contributed in this website's demise. Take, for example, the fact that I usually sleep more hours per day than I am awake. There's my full-time job that I often conveniently forget about, my freelance side hustle (s) yes, plural and nearly a full two years of restaurant closures due to COVID.
The truth is though, alongside those factors, I just really fell out of love with this whole thing. I put a huge amount of pressure on myself to post regularly, to attend every single event, bar opening and restaurant launch, to spend hours a day on Instagram 'engaging' with people and the reality is that the quality of my content declined. I started posting things that weren't my best work just so I had something to post. It became a chore rather than a hobby and eventually I just stopped posting.
From 200+ posts on here I've whittled them down to around 50 of the best, the rest have been unlisted as they're outdated or no longer relevant. The one's I've kept I've done so as they might be useful- you can find them in the 'archive' page at the top of the site.
Whilst I envisage myself spending the lockdown season posting more regularly, reviewing the multitudes of take away food and restaurant boxes arriving at my front door and generally pushing Eat Liverpool more than ever I instead took some time away to re-evaluate what was important to me and what the next step for this little project is. I've set myself 5 little steps for this blog moving forward, and in no particular order they are:
1. I will only post things that I want to post. No forcing content. No posting things just for the sake of it.
2. That means no scheduling. If I don't want to do it that day then I won't. I won't take on any projects with tight deadlines, I have enough of those as it is.
3. I've come up with a less ramble-y way of reviewing places that should hopefully make it quicker for me to write and easier for you guys to read. I know my posts mostly look like I've knocked them up in ten minutes but behind the scenes each post was taking me up to and beyond 2 hours to write, edit, post and promote. No wonder I got bored.
4. I will no longer attend the opening of an envelope just to 'be involved'. My FOMO is responsible for nearly 100% of my burn out and I need to learn to say 'no'. My focus will be on quality over quantity. Attending a bar opening at 10pm on a school night is not a good choice.
5. I need to constantly remind myself this is just for fun. I want to write about places I love and celebrate Liverpool as the incredible city it is.
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