Blogger Interview: Sid Savara of Analysis Driven Personal Development

In this blogger interview Sid Savara talks about his journey of personal development.

Tell us a little bit about your blog.

Analysis Driven Personal Development is all about better personal development and achieving your goals faster through analysis. That means I read books, review research, and occasionally run experiments (such as outsourcing my cooking or comparing virtual assistants versus a team.

How long have you been blogging for? What made you want to start blogging?

I’ve been blogging on and off for over 10 years – long before Blogger, WordPress and the many tools that exist today. I started Analysis Driven Personal Development because I’ve learned so much from some of my favorite bloggers (Leo Babauta, Eric Hamm, Luciano Passello) and figured it was time to give back.

What were some of your biggest challenges when you first started blogging?

Writing too much. I still have this problem – most of my articles early on were exhaustive, 2000-3000 word essays. I’ve managed to bring it down to 800-1200 words on average, but I still struggle with it. Too often I find that blogs don’t provide enough references or research to back up their advice – I have the opposite problem, where I may beat a topic to death.

How did you overcome these challenges?

Edit, edit, edit. I proofread every article about 5 times before I finally pull the trigger, and if I don’t feel an article is up to par – I don’t publish it. This means missing my own deadlines some weeks, but for me it’s important to maintain quality, and usefulness, above all else.

I understand you’ve designed websites before. Why did you choose to purchase a theme for your blog rather than design it yourself?

I actually did try to design my theme initially, by modifying free themes I found online. In the end, I decided I was spending too much time playing around and tweaking my design, and not enough time putting out content.

As luck would have it, I found a premium theme on sale that week, and I figured that I didn’t care much what the price was – as long as it saved me enough time to justify the purchase, especially if I could by a license to reuse the theme any time I wanted. It’s turned out to be an excellent investment – as the theme gets updated, I gain new capabilities and options for designing my blog, without any additional work – or money.

My main concern when purchasing the theme was not the theme “files” I was getting – I wanted to purchase something that was professionally designed so I could spend my time elsewhere.

Who has inspired and influenced your blog?

I’ve been heavily influenced by Leo Babauta’s writing over at Zen Habits, and Luciano Passello at Litemind. Both those blogs contain a great mix of actionable advice mixed with some reflection and analysis. I’ve learned tips from both of them to improve my own life, and I’ve also tried to emulate both of their writing in my own style.

Some of my more inspirational story telling articles have been influenced by Eric Hamm’s writing style on Motivate Thyself.

How often do you blog?

I publish articles about once or twice a week, but I write much more frequently. I usually write a little bit in the morning, and then a little bit after work every day. Probably an hour or so total every day.

I’ve also been working on an ebook and some joint projects, and those things take time – but nobody is going to see that progress until they’re done. As my audience has grown, I’ve become tougher on myself, and I am much more picky about what I publish.

On the outside it probably looks like I take breaks every week, but I do try and stay in the habit of writing daily. Personally, I find it’s much easier to just keep it a daily habit than to take a couple days off and then try and write.

What is a recent milestone that you have accomplished with your blog? How were you able to achieve this milestone?

My biggest recent milestone was a guest post on Zen Habits. I’ve had some great success with guest posts, appearing on Problogger multiple times, Remarkablogger and a number of successful blogs in the personal development niche such as Marc and Angel Hack Life, Alex Shalman and Life Optimizer.

There’s no magic to it – hard work, sticking with it, and constantly improving my content.

What is your next goal that you want to achieve with your blog?

I’m looking to put own a premium product, either an ebook or video course. I’ve had a lot of people request that I put something together – and I think it’s about time!

What is your best tip for other people out there who might be new or struggling with their blogging?

Stay with it. Your growth is not linear – it compounds over time. Darren Rowse has been blogging for over seven years, you owe it to yourself to not be like most blogs which die off within six months.

Thanks again Sid for taking the time to do this interview.

Sid Savara is a lifehacking fanatic who lives in Honolulu, Hawaii. He blogs out of his living room, coffee shops and occasionally the beach for Analysis Driven Personal Development, and is offering free motivational quotes ebook to new subscribers to his personal development newsletter. Follow @sidsavara on Twitter.