There are only 24 hours in a day. By this point you might be wondering how you, one person with kids, or a job, or a whole life outside of the blogging world could possibly be expected to do everything mentioned in this book.
The simple answer is this: You can’t.
If you try to do everything mentioned in the previous ten chapters all at once you will either make yourself crazy, drive those around you crazy, or completely burn out before you even start. You might even manage to do all three. In any case, it won’t get you very far.
When it really comes down to it, professional blogging for profit is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to be in it for the long haul and to keep telling yourself that the work put in on the front end will pay off eventually. If you try to rush it you may be setting yourself up to crash and burn. You also have to be strong enough to not listen to the people who don’t get it, who tell you blogging is just a waste of time.
That said, there are lots of ways to work smarter in order to maximize your efficiency and get more done in less time. You may still not be able to do it all, but you will be able to do a lot more than you think.
Stay Organized Between post ideas, income from thirty-seven different sources, important contacts, traffic statistics, social media, photos, craft supplies, recipes, schedules, deadlines, expenses, and everything else blogging related, staying organized can easily become totally overwhelming. There is just so much to keep track of!
Over the years I’ve tried many different planners, calendars, Google docs, and spreadsheets to stay organized. Ultimately I found what worked best for me was creating my own customized printable blog planner. It allows me to set both long-term and short-term goals, as well as manage my daily to-do list, schedule, editorial calendar, brainstorming sessions, monthly expenses, login info, traffic statistics, and contacts.
While this type of planner would probably not work for everyone, for me it has been the key to both my sanity and my productivity.
It includes:
Long-Term Goals
Setting long-term goals helps take you out of the day-to-day busywork of just trying to stay on top of the next blog post or social media engagement and focus on the bigger picture. What do you hope to accomplish as a blogger? What is your end game? Where do you see yourself in one, five, or even ten years? It is pretty amazing how much more you can accomplish when you approach your daily task list with the perspective of how it will help you reach your long-term goals. It makes prioritizing and separating the essential from the time fillers much, much easier.
My long-term goal page includes five major goals and five improvement goals for the website itself, as well as specific goals for income, blog traffic, and social media statistics. While it would be very easy for me to set more than five, I purposely limited the number in order to keep my long-term goals easy to remember and (at least
somewhat) realistic. I have my long-term goal page as the first page of my planner, and I refer to it daily. It is such great motivation and definitely helps me focus!
The simple answer is this: You can’t.
If you try to do everything mentioned in the previous ten chapters all at once you will either make yourself crazy, drive those around you crazy, or completely burn out before you even start. You might even manage to do all three. In any case, it won’t get you very far.
When it really comes down to it, professional blogging for profit is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to be in it for the long haul and to keep telling yourself that the work put in on the front end will pay off eventually. If you try to rush it you may be setting yourself up to crash and burn. You also have to be strong enough to not listen to the people who don’t get it, who tell you blogging is just a waste of time.
That said, there are lots of ways to work smarter in order to maximize your efficiency and get more done in less time. You may still not be able to do it all, but you will be able to do a lot more than you think.
Stay Organized Between post ideas, income from thirty-seven different sources, important contacts, traffic statistics, social media, photos, craft supplies, recipes, schedules, deadlines, expenses, and everything else blogging related, staying organized can easily become totally overwhelming. There is just so much to keep track of!
Over the years I’ve tried many different planners, calendars, Google docs, and spreadsheets to stay organized. Ultimately I found what worked best for me was creating my own customized printable blog planner. It allows me to set both long-term and short-term goals, as well as manage my daily to-do list, schedule, editorial calendar, brainstorming sessions, monthly expenses, login info, traffic statistics, and contacts.
While this type of planner would probably not work for everyone, for me it has been the key to both my sanity and my productivity.
It includes:
Long-Term Goals
Setting long-term goals helps take you out of the day-to-day busywork of just trying to stay on top of the next blog post or social media engagement and focus on the bigger picture. What do you hope to accomplish as a blogger? What is your end game? Where do you see yourself in one, five, or even ten years? It is pretty amazing how much more you can accomplish when you approach your daily task list with the perspective of how it will help you reach your long-term goals. It makes prioritizing and separating the essential from the time fillers much, much easier.
My long-term goal page includes five major goals and five improvement goals for the website itself, as well as specific goals for income, blog traffic, and social media statistics. While it would be very easy for me to set more than five, I purposely limited the number in order to keep my long-term goals easy to remember and (at least
somewhat) realistic. I have my long-term goal page as the first page of my planner, and I refer to it daily. It is such great motivation and definitely helps me focus!
Year at a Glance
My blog planner includes a year-at-a-glance page that can help me keep perspective on the bigger picture. I use this for writing down big events, monthly themes, underwritten posts, blog conferences, vacations, and so on.
Monthly Goals
Monthly goals are the medium-term goals that help break down long-term goals into manageable chunks and help focus my priorities. I start by determining five major things I want to accomplish in a given month, then I also select three small site improvements I want to make. Because success in blogging has a lot to do with interpersonal connections, I also try to identify three people or brands I would like to reach out to.
The final section on my monthly goal sheet includes specific traffic and income goals. This allows me to have some measure of success, especially if I happen to be focusing on a particular metric in a given month, such as increasing my Facebook presence or growing my Instagram numbers
Monthly Calendar
Each monthly section has a monthly calendar that allows me to track appointments and phone calls, as well as see my whole editorial calendar for the month.
Weekly Post-Planning Pages
The weekly post-planning pages help me plan the details of each week’s three major posts. I start by writing the post title, then make a short checklist of what steps I will have to complete to finish that post.
For instance, the steps for a recipe post might include the following:
1. Make recipe and take photos. 2. Upload and sort photos. 3. Edit photos. 4. Write post copy. 5. Insert photos into post. 6. Publish and promote post.
Because I will often be working on multiple posts simultaneously, this helps me keep better track of the individual progress for each post, since I can cross out items as I finish them.
The post-planning page also includes a weekly task list of the things I really need to get done that week. I will usually try to include a few things that help meet my monthly goals, as well as the ongoing day-to-day tasks such as email, Pinterest marketing, etc.
While I could probably write a whole book just on how to be more productive as a blogger, here are a few more of the time-management strategies that have helped me the most:
• Stick to a daily routine. The more good habits you can create when it comes to blogging and working efficiently, the easier it will be to get things done. Our brains are pretty amazing, and although it initially takes a lot of willpower to create a new habit or routine, after a few weeks that behavior starts to go on autopilot. Starting your day in the same way each morning will tell your brain that it is time to work.
• Make a daily checklist. My own morning routine always starts with devotions, then a cup of coffee as I plan my task list for the day. I try to list my tasks in the order that I want to accomplish them, starting with the hardest and most essential tasks to my long-term goals. I use a 4x4 Post-It pad to make my list for a couple of reasons. First, it is small enough to keep my list manageable, and second, it sticks nicely to my current weekly planning page in my blog planner.
• Set the timer . Giving yourself a certain amount of time to work on each task helps keep you motivated and on task. I usually just put a time in parentheses
after each task on my list.
• Take regular breaks. Our brains can work at any given task for about 90 minutes before we start to fade and get distracted. Taking a quick 5–15 minute break to get up and stretch, drink a glass of water, or have a snack before getting back to the grind can make a huge difference.
• Delete the unessential. If the number of things on your to-do list is far more than you can realistically get done, or the number of emails coming in is far more than you could ever possibly respond to, it is time to start deleting. While it is tempting to try to tackle the “easy” tasks or emails first, a smarter approach is to remove anything on your list or in your inbox that doesn’t line up with your overall longterm goals. Time is precious; don’t waste it on the stuff that doesn’t matter.
• Work in bulk. I’ve alluded to this one already in earlier chapters, but if you tend to do a lot of the same type of posts, such as DIY projects or recipes, it is far more efficient to plan, create, and photograph multiple posts at the same time. That way you can shop once, cook or create (and make a big mess) once, then upload and sort photos once. I will generally try to do at least a month’s worth of DIY projects or recipes in one day, which ends up saving me a lot of time.
• Use canned responses. If you get a lot of the same type of questions or emails, taking the time up front to set up canned responses in Gmail can save you a lot of time and energy when it comes to tackling your inbox each day.
• Bring your inbox to (almost) zero. Email is a lot less overwhelming if you are starting from zero each day. Get into the habit of automatically deleting all non-essential emails, then quickly responding (using canned responses as much as possible) to the rest. Using folders and rules to automatically sort your incoming emails can help a lot as well.
• Turn off all alerts. It is a lot easier to resist the ding of email alerts and Facebook or Skype messages if you simply can’t hear them. This goes for push notifications on your phone as well!
• Save the mindless stuff for later in the day. Willpower and discipline are
finite resources, which means we tend to have less to draw on as the day goes on. Save your easy, more mindless tasks—such as responding to email, interacting on social media, and catching up on blog reading—for the time of day when you feel the least motivated.
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