As a blogger, time is money. If you don’t write, publish, and promote your content, you’ll find it impossible to keep the lights on. Unfortunately, the blogging industry is filled with snares, hurdles, and distractions that steal your time and leave you grasping for air. Learning how to maximize efficiency in your daily routine will do wonders for your business.
5 Productivity Hacks for Bloggers
The thing about blogging is that there’s always something to do. While creating content is the most visible responsibility, there’s also a lot going on behind the scenes. You have to manage your accounting, marketing, advertising website development, and big-picture strategy. Despite all of these demands, you only have a few hours in each workday to get everything done.
Your success as a blogger will directly hinge on your ability to be productive and efficient with your limited time. While you have the freedom to call your own shots, the following tips will help you improve in this area:
1.Write When You’re Freshest
It’s important that you write when you’re freshest. We all have a window of a couple of hours where writing is easiest for us. For some, this is the early morning hours. For others, it might be late at night when the kids have gone to bed. Discover what works for you and use this time to pump out quality content.
2. Avoid Editing When Writing
There’s an old saying that you should write drunk and edit sober. While we wouldn’t endorse this approach, it is helpful to separate the two actions. You should write during one period and edit during another. Mixing the two will slow down your writing, inhibit your creativity, and lead to paralysis by analysis.
3. Learn How to Use Your Technology
When it comes to new technology, it’s easy to get caught up in all of the features and functions. Unfortunately, few bloggers ever learn how to master these elements. As a result, they end up with sophisticated technology that causes more issues than anything. If you’re going to use a piece of technology, learn it from the inside out.
Take a printer, for example. Have you taken the time to learn the difference between collated and uncollated? Doing so could save you a lot of time and hassle. The same goes for your CMS platform for your blog. Learning how to seamlessly navigate through the various parts of the program will greatly increase your efficiency.
4. Block Out Distractions
“Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can be great places to do some networking as a writer. You can meet other writers. You can find clients if you’re a freelance writer. You can find publishers. Or you can just have a little fun ‘hanging out’ with your Internet buddies,” blogger Adam Clarke writes. “But when you are supposed to be writing, you need to stay away from these places. It’s also a good idea to turn off notifications on your mobile phone too.”
What are your biggest distractions? Is social media to blame? Is it a noisy roommate? Does your phone constantly ping, ring, ding? Whatever the case may be, find ways to block out these distractions when you’re writing. You can return to them after you’ve finished.
5. Keep Your Work Area Organized
Regardless of how organized you are in your life, you need to prioritize organization in your blogging workspace. Every piece of clutter – including yesterday’s dishes, stacks of paper, sticky notes, and paperclips – takes up some of your limited focus. By decluttering and keeping your workspace organized, you’ll find it easier to stay on task.
Make the Most Out of Your Day
Depending on a multitude of factors, a full-time blogger most likely has somewhere between 7 and 14 hours of allotted work time per day. And though that may sound like a lot on paper, it quickly gets eaten up by tasks like bookkeeping, social media, phone calls, meetings, and, of course, writing.
You don’t necessarily need to increase the hours in your day to get more done. By enhancing your productivity, you can maximize output within the constraints of a limited schedule.