For many, blogging can be a total time drain, but with the right techniques, you can blog more efficiently. Doing one thing at a time generally ensures you’ll do that thing well in a minimum amount of time. On the other hand, multi-tasking guarantees you’ll do a poor job across multiple tasks and you’ll take a longer time to do a crappy job among those tasks. Do one thing at a time and you’ll get the job done more quickly there for a better job is done in the process.
There is a lot of work that goes into running a blog; the first step in making your blogging time is to figure out how to spend that time. Start by first making a list of everything you need to do for your blog, it simplifies the work you need to do. Once you have your list, figure out what the most important thing for your blog is. What is the one thing you know you need to make time for? Don’t get caught up on what you think this answer should be, rather, choose the item you know needs to be at the top for you.
Once you have your number one, go ahead and go through the rest of your list and rank each item based on where it falls on your priority scale. After organizing your tasks by priority, it’s time to take a look at how frequently those tasks need to be completed. Not every task needs to be done on a daily basis. Figure out how often you need to be working on the items on your list and note that down beside them. Always start with the top priorities Figure out how much time you’re going to need to complete these tasks and create a plan that you can follow each day. When you plan ahead by identifying your topic, using an editorial calendar, repurposing content, varying your blog format and securing guest bloggers, you can tackle blogging more efficiently.
1. Go Through Your Emails Frequently
Bloggers should check the emails every morning so as to respond to a potential client the problem with most bloggers is that they don’t know how to sift through emails. They spend precious energy responding to time-sapping emails, Email is not a time waster. Choosing to spend your time and energy on time-sapping emails is the time-waster. Respond to every email possible and reserve quick responses for the potential clients, and implement anything that expands your reach or grows your business in time. Respond with 1-2 line emails to everybody else to respect both parties’ time. This is the most polite, thoughtful, helpful, time-saving thing you can do.
2. Time Yourself
Blogging takes so much time. Social media alone is a minefield of distractions Bloggers have to constantly go through analytics, email, comments, researching, networking and so much more. One knows how long they need to finish a certain task, set your timer for that amount of time, and only focus on that one task. When the timer beeps, it’s time to stop and move on to the next item. The timer allows us to keep working on that list without getting lost in one task. Devote what time you can, to the tasks you can and don’t worry about the rest. It will come in time.
3. Stay Organized
Take the list of post ideas you had and commit it to a calendar. Note down which blog posts you plan to publish and this will help keep you on target with your writing. Learn to keep track of other people’s blog posts that may interest most viewers, learn to engage your followers on various platforms. Pinterest’s new private boards are an awesome way to file away great articles that will be an inspiration for your writing when you need it.
4. Set Goals for Your Blog
When you have specific goals in mind as you approach your blog, you’ll be able to cut out unnecessary things that won’t help you achieve your goals. If your goal is to increase your blog’s reach on Pinterest, you’d try to spend less time on Twitter and try to focus your attention on either developing skills that will improve the images on your blog. You can judge what you’re currently doing by whether it helps you achieve your goals, and quit wasting time on things that don’t. So just write out five goals for you to blog this year and post them nearby where you write and refer to them often.
5. Don’t Force Blog Writing
If you’re one of the independent bloggers who’s new to the game, you’re most likely not under the thumb of advertisers or demanding readers to put out a set number of articles per week. What this means is that if you’re not feeling the desire when it comes time to start typing, don’t bang your head against the wall just put the blog on hold for a while until you get more in the writing groove. Forcing yourself to write out posts when you’re not into it will only cause uninspired writing, which will lead to uninspired readers and most likely bring a fast end to your blog.
6. Full Steam Ahead
When you start writing a post, keep going. Don’t revise; don’t worry about sentence structure or word repetition. Every time you stop to fix something or pause to come up with something new, you’re breaking your momentum and burning time. This will definitely be tough to do mainly because as human beings, we’re hardwired to correct mistakes while trying to do the best we can do, but if you can ignore it as you write, you’ll be far more efficient with your time and will get those posts completed without burning yourself out.
7. Capture Your Ideas
Your thoughts will go in and out of your head throughout the day, and for most people, their great ideas hit them when they’re doing something totally unrelated to blogging. So when those moments hit you, you want to be able to get them down. Keep a notepad with you at all times, or even just use a note taking app on your Smartphone, this will allow you to have your ideas ready to go when you sit down to write and let you use your writing time for actual writing, not trying to figure out what you’re going to write about.
8. The Power to Say No
There’s a certain thrill a blogger feels when they’re approached for the first time to guest post on another blog, but the thrill can turn to irritation real fast when you start giving up your time for other people’s websites without any reward when it’s time to write, you’ll keep your eyes on the prize and not risk wasting the precious time you have to build your blog.
Blogging is a wonderful world of participating, discussing, promoting, teaching, learning, and sharing. If you spend all your time on your own blog, you’re missing out on being part of a community of bloggers. When you become known as a person who promotes others, others will be attracted to you, to your blog, and to your community.
About the Author: Janet Anthony is a blogger from Kansas City and content editor at All Top Reviews who has been writing professionally for five years now. She mostly writes about blogging, social media, and entrepreneurship. Her motto is “What you do today can improve all your tomorrows”.
