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Blog Better: Five Time Management Essentials for Bloggers

Blog Better: Five Time Management Essentials for Bloggers 9 Comments

Sally Shaws loves writing about blogging tips and has a keen interest in making money online opportunities. She also writes about sites such as volunteers.gsk and on using paid clinical trials as a means to raise income alongside other work at home and freelance business opportunities.


Time Management tipsSeems that nowadays everyone and their brother is jumping on the blogging bandwagon. Just a few short years ago, blogs were a fairly new way to carve out a presence on the internet, but since then the market has become saturated with blogs on every topic you can imagine, and some you don’t even want to think about.

If you’re lucky enough to create a strong presence and build up a following, you can make decent money as a blogger.


But the effectiveness of blogging to make extra money or as a work-at-home strategy is only as effective as your time management skills. After all, if your whole life becomes consumed with blogging, you might find you have nothing left to blog about.

  1. Create an At-Home Work Schedule and Stick to It. Those who are serious about making money at home with blogging must ditch the “I’ll get to it when I can” mentality. Treat your blog like a business; create a daily work schedule and stick to it.
  2. Capitalize on Coherence. It makes no sense to start blogging at 6am if your mind doesn’t wake up until 10am. If you have to start working at 6am, tend to some of the behind-the-scenes tasks that contribute toward blogging. Respond to comments or emails, or research your topic for the day.
  3. Plan and Research Ahead of Time. There’s nothing worse than sitting down to blog and finding that you have no idea what to write about. This problem is easily solved and can help you avoid countless wasted hours. Make a blog topic list and keep it on your desk. Every time an idea pops into your mind, add it to the list.
  4. Improve Your Technical Skills. If you think faster than you type, it’s going to slow you down. A lack of technical or computer skills is a huge hindrance with this line of work. A typing, HTML or SEO class can be a blogging business investment that pays you back in spades.
  5. Dangle That Carrot. We all need a little extrinsic motivation once in a while.  On days where you find yourself in a rut and dragging your heels, dangle a little “carrot” in front of your nose to urge yourself on. Rewarding yourself at the end of the work day with a favorite meal, movie, or outing with friends can be just the ticket to encourage you to be more productive.

Time management skills, or lack thereof, will have a direct effect on the success of your blog. Use these tips to become more efficient so you can concentrate on the task of blogging with greater quality and frequency to build your audience. Don’t worry; managing your time wisely isn’t about following the rigid office mindset you wish to avoid! It’s about not wasting time on other things, resulting in you being hunched over the keyboard trying to crank out your blog entry at 10pm while everyone else enjoys life. Time management allows you to engage in life’s adventures, ultimately giving you more to blog about.

Image Courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Sally Shaws loves writing about blogging tips and has a keen interest in making money online opportunities. She also writes about sites such as volunteers.gsk and on using paid clinical trials as a means to raise income alongside other work at home and freelance business opportunities.

9 comments

  1. Hi Sally,
    Bloggers always tend to have issues with time management. Glad to have read your post on how to manage one’s time well on blogging. I agree with you, there are many bloggers who have lots of ideas but cannot put it into writing (or typing) fast enough that they lose those great ideas and thoughts. I really like the last tip you shared. Bloggers are ordinary humans too, so they also need to take some time out for themselves and enjoy life beyond the online world. Thanks for sharing!

  2. Hi Sally,

    Stick to your sked! Simply following a routine daily makes your job infinitely easier. I persist in sticking to simple steps each hour. Easy to prosper as you create an orderly environment, both outside and within.

    Thanks!

    RB

  3. @ Felicia, thanks it’s always so nice to hear back from fellow bloggers as you can sometimes feel a bit isolated some days and yes, taking time out to enjoy life is definitely on my schedule!
    @ RB, absolutely a schedule is a must and to avoid straying from it, I factor in breaks and time out within my daily routine. I go along with your motto!

  4. Sally, this is a great post…turning off social media, emails and other distractions while blogging is also a must.

  5. Nothing to add to this article.
    Only thing to add, send the e-mail with blog updates in the right time (when the most part of your audience is active). In this case, it will bring higher engagement with your e-mail.

  6. Hey Sally,

    Great article. What works for me is creating a routine and sticking to it. This helps me save a lot of time because it makes “work” a simple part of the process and doesn’t give me the freedom to procrastinate.

  7. Really good point Alexander, something I’ve not taken into consideration before, but it does make sense to do that to increase engagement.

    Hey Mark, thank you! I like a routine too. If my day is structured, I actually have more free time at the end of my ‘work’ day for other enjoyable pursuits.

  8. I recently heard another great tip over at MasonWorld.com. Mark has been reading a book called the Checklist Formula. The concept is simple: any process that you repeat more than once should be broken down into a checklist that you save. For example: writing a blog post would include: finding a picture/image, writing the headline, researching the content, writing the rough draft, proofreading. I save my checklists in Evernote. That way, I can cut right through the procrastination. Also, in the future, if we are training virtual assistants to do some of our work, we can just give them the checklist and say: Do this!

  9. Hi Sally,
    You have some really good tips on time management to help bloggers to stay focused and consistent with their blogging. I try to stick to a schedule of posting but sometimes I get off track when other responsibilities are more pressing. Thanks for the reminders!

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