Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Sean Platt of Writer Dad.

We each blog to the beat of our own lives.  Different schedules and rhythms require a multiplicity of approaches, but there is a constant.  If we want to be the best blogger we can be, without becoming a prisoner of our posts, then it is necessary to approach each day no different than a sunrise on the farm.

Farmers don’t waste the sunlight.  They make every minute matter.  So should we.  Bouncing around from task to task only carves us a tunnel leading to nowhere.  Modern innovation has led to an endless array of distractions; email, twitter, YouTube, Digg…  I could continue, and easily turn this into a two part post.  We must focus, or risk drowning beneath the billions of bytes.

I’m married, with two children.  I run a preschool, and a successful blog which posts five times a week.  I’m also writing a book, editing a second, and have a few other projects in various stages of development.  Even with all that, I’ve never thought of hiding under the covers and hoping it would all just go away.

The key is in how we organize our time.  We can not simply run up and down the court and hope to sink the shot.  We must first aim and then release.  When I first started blogging, I believed I could juggle a dozen things while dancing.  Alas, I can not.

I successfully sweep through my days by tackling a single task at a time.  I start each morning with a list of everything that needs to be done.  Then, I set my priorities.  Of course I check email, tweets, and comments, but only when it’s time.

Imagine you’re in the kitchen cooking.  You’ve got something on each burner, and something else is in the oven.  There’s frozen food thawing in the microwave, and a rainbow of ingredients spread across the counter.  You smell something burning, and run to check the oven.  Smoke spills out, and you grab a potholder.  One of the pots on the stovetop is bubbling; spilling angry liquid over the edge.  You reduce the flame, and begin to rapidly stir a series of sauces.  Sweat drips from your face as you wonder what went wrong.  Why you didn’t start out with a plan.

Too much blogging at once will never burn our houses down, or ruin our dinners, but it might make us wish we’d never even started.  I treat each day as a collection of minutes, where each one matters as much as all the others.  It is the only way I could ever hope to get everything done without wanting to run from the room and find a place to cry.

If you enjoyed this post, you can find more great writing by Sean at his blog Writer Dad.