I'm always surprised at the number of bloggers I come across who are addicted, or are quickly becoming addicted to their blog's statistics. (Statistics addiction- try pronouncing that.)
A blogger will start a new blog, and is excited about the writing part of it for a while.. but then the initial excitement begins to wear off and soon enough, the blogger becomes more focused on how many people are visiting and where they're coming from, and little by little, more and more, they become addicted. Before you know it, there's a fine line between "just checking your stats" and "you're addicted- knock it off!" It's an easy habit to get sucked into.
When this happens, I've noticed that the quality of the 'addicted' blogger's content begins to drop, and sometimes, so does the rate at which they publish new posts. It often seems that the blogger has lost sight of what he or she originally started blogging for.
Ever feel that?
Here's something to try (if you think you can hack it, and you don't actually have to be addicted to your stats- it's a great exercise for everyone):
Stop tracking your blog's stats. Stop obsessing over how many people are finding you through Google every second of every day. Forget all that crap. Just get out there and read new blogs (along with your usual reads, of course), chat with some new bloggers, and pour your heart and soul into whatever it is you're writing. Do it for a week.
You may find that when you finally do check your blog's stats when the week is over, they're much better than when you were compulsively checking to see if they'd changed.
It's all about priorities. A lot of people tend to lose sight of what's most important (content, readers, and visibility) when tempted with something so addicting as statistics. They become so engrossed in the whole idea that they begin to hide behind it. Just get out there and blog as if Google Analytics, or FeedBurner, or whatever stat tracker you use religiously, doesn't exist. It'll make a world of difference.