This Is How We Blogged [The 2019 Edition] #AMonthofFaves

This is the 4th year that Girlxoxo has been a team of 2 – Kim and Tanya, but this is the first year that we blogged the least. We both had new changes in our lives and were trying to figure out our schedules and how to fit blogging in.

Blogging & Life

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~ Kim – In 2019, my son started Kindergarten and I started volunteering my time at the school each week to help kids who were struggling with their reading. Then I doubled the dance classes that I teach.  In early Fall I accepted an adjunct professor position at a university and began shadowing another professor, and writing course curriculum, in preparation for taking on my own class in January. It became very hard to find stretches of time to work on blogging. I felt drained mentally and pulled in too many directions but I really missed the creatively outlet of blogging.

~ Tanya – In 2019, I changed roles in my company, that came with increased travel, a new team to train and manage – and my laptop broke down on me. So this was the year that I was least focused on blogging – and I truly missed it.

The 10 Most Popular Blog Posts on GXO in 2019

The top blog posts are similar to last year … the list of reading challenges on the internet, our own reading challenge and the book awards calendar.

one. and two. Master List of 2020 and 2019 Reading Challenges.

2020 reading challenges

three. and four. Major Book Awards Calendar For 2019 and (Fiction) Award Winners and 2018 Awards Calendar

five. and six. 2019 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge and 2018 Monthly Motif.

2019 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge

Blog Happenings – Coming and Going

one. Since reading challenge posts do so well – and they are ones that can be updated year after year, that’s what we’re doing. We’ve already started a Master List of 2020 Reading Challenges … and now, in addition to hosting the Monthly Motif Reading Challenge 2020, we’re hosting 2 more challenges – the Monthly Keyword Reading Challenge 2020, which Kim used to host, and a Monthly Book Award Reading Challenge 2020. The 2019 Reading Challenges Tracker [FREE Spreadsheet] also performed well – but I haven’t had time to update it for 2020 yet – it’s coming!

two. Planning & journaling posts still continue to do well, like 7 Tips That Helped Me Use a Planner Consistently (which was written in 2018) and 4 Story Ideas to Record {1 Second Everyday App} which was written in 2016. But there weren’t many of those posts in 2019.

~ Tanya – I’m still very much interested in planning and organizing – life, work and home. I started doing some monthly planning posts – Functional Plan With Me [November 2019] and Functional Plan With Me [May 2019] – but those can become repetitive, so I’m still trying to figure this one out. I think I’ll be sharing more of the routines and processes behind the scenes in the upcoming year.

~ Kim – Although I’ve set guided journals aside for now, I’m still using Penzu to journal digitally and I love it. I might be crazy, but I’ve whipped out my bullet journal again and gotten it all set up for 2020!! I hope to share a few spreads as the year progresses and how I plan to keep up with a minimalistic style of bujo. This isn’t the only way I’m organizing my life and keeping my families memories though.

three. We tried some new types of posts on the blog, but I don’t think we blogged enough to truly know if they would do well, so our focus this year is putting out content consistently! We’ll be keeping 10 Things From Us This Month (like we did in November) – to say what happened on the blog and in our lives. And we’re incorporating more “seasonal living” type posts and hopefully way more book lists and roundups this year!


What was the most popular post on your blog? Were there any surprises in your top posts?  If you’re participating in #AMonthofFaves [The 2019 Edition] link up to your post below.

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// Comments //

  1. Akilah

    Dec 23

    This was a slow blogging year for me as well. Maybe it was just something in the air, then.

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