Given the length of my “to do” list and the number of items on it – and I mean “to do now or real soon”, not just “to do one of these days” – I’m sure I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time today going through my feed reader and catching up on a lot of blogs I enjoy reading.

I’ve left a comment here and there, but most of the time has been reading. I did spend some time researching, completing and publishing one blog post, but it was on another blog (see Would You Include Twitter as a Fellow Panelist?), not here.

Even so, I was feeling frustrated because I’d actually started out to look for some inspiration for a post for this blog – if nothing else to let people know I’m still around. But while I found lots of interesting and informative posts, I did not seem to have any fresh inspiration for a post that would fit in here.

Then I read Chris Brogan’s declaration that next Monday, April 28th, is to be “Reading and Commenting Day“, a day for doing just what I’ve been doing today, reading and commenting on other people’s blogs. And he encourages his readers to report back on what they/we have done. I guess that for me, Monday might have to be a day when I do some of the things I had previously thought I’d be doing today. I can report on some results from my own reading and commenting day.

Actually, I have long followed the advice I picked up from Dave Taylor ages ago, to allocate a serious proportion of “blogging time” to reading and commenting on other blogs (my recollection is that he recommended 40% but even if that is not exact it was a significant proportion) .

It’s about being part of the conversation and contributing, not simply taking.

Just that today’s excursion wasn’t quite planned. I suppose there was part of me that wanted to take advantage of the fact that it’s been a public holiday where I live.

And, come to think of it, I did achieve what I set out to do. I got the inspiration for this blog post!

Why not give Chris Brogan’s challenge a try? See you over there, reporting, I hope.