Did you notice the middle of the year just slide on by? Are you one of those people who has already reviewed their yearly goals to see if you’re on track? Or are you in a bit of a mid-year blogging slump? Perhaps you were out enjoying the summer weather or, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, your fingers probably froze off and you can’t type anymore.
Whatever your reason for being in a bit of a lull, we thought it was a good time to give you a bit of inspiration in the productivity department to rev you up for the home stretch of 2018. Here’s a roundup of posts we’ve noticed around the internet, as well as some popular ones from here on the blog and podcast. We hope you can find something in there that gets you amped and actioning things with your blogging.
Are you too helpful for your own good?
Paul Cunningham is a long-time ProBlogger team ally, and is super generous with his knowledge and time in our Facebook community. His latest post Solving Problems Without Falling into the Helpfulness Trap really struck a chord with me, and if your most common catchphrase is “leave it with me” then you need to read this.
And don’t dismiss it if you think because you don’t work in a team it won’t be useful. I’m going to start using these awesome questioning strategies on my kids.
Is Your Productivity a Victim of Your Environment?
Many bloggers either blog in their spare time outside of work hours (which usually means blogging at home) or work from home full-time because it’s too expensive to lease an office space to get the separation from your home life.
If your procrastination has ever become so bad that you get distracted by folding washing or all the odd jobs you never have time for, then you need rescuing by ProBlogger productivity expert Nicole Avery. Check out her five rules that will help you work more productively at home.
Is the Social Media Rabbit Hole Holding You Back from Success?
One of the biggest drains on our productivity as bloggers is our working environment. And I don’t just mean the kitchen table or the ‘office’ you’ve set up in the corner of the living room. (I’ve had both, by the way.) I mean the place where we almost unavoidably spend a lot of our time – on social media.
Elements of our blogging require using platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Youtube (and that’s just three) to promote our content, engage with our community and curate ideas and content to share. But then the rabbit hole widens, and down we go.
Before you know it you’ve probably wasted more than an hour over the course of your day, mindlessly scrolling and consuming nothing useful that will help you achieve your goals. So, why not intentionally put that time towards implementing the five-hour rule used by Bill Gates, Jack Ma and Elon Musk to climb to the top of the ranks of the world’s most successful people?
My Time is Limited
There are only so many hours in a day. So you might be familiar with some of these problems.
I Don’t Know What to Focus On
Blogging is incredibly multi-faceted, and if you don’t have pages of “To Do” lists gathering dust as you battle the next urgent/shiny/fun thing then join the club. Fortunately, Darren had the foresight to write this post just for you.
For each stage you’re in with your blogging, he has practical advice on where you should be spending your time. Check out this post from the archives on four key areas to focus your time on to grow profitable blogs (and how much time to spend on them).
I Don’t Have Enough Time to Be Consistent
We get it, we really do. We’ve already identified things such as competing priorities and environmental factors that make blogging difficult. Yet one thing we constantly hear (and advise) is to be consistent with your blogging. So how do you do that when you just don’t seem to have the time? ProBlogger writing expert Ali Luke has some awesome tips on how to blog consistently when you have little time. You can squash your blogging into your busy life.
It Just Takes Me Too Long
You’re not alone. We regularly see this question being asked in our Facebook Community:
There are a lot of parts to writing a blog post, and different approaches to getting it done (such as the batching that Ali suggests). But what if this sounds more like you?
Blog posts take me hours. Not minutes. Hours. Write one and I’m creatively spent. I need to lie down, take a walk or faff about on Facebook for 30 minutes to recover. By then a crisis has flared up. Forget batching.
That’s ProBlogger’s psychology expert Ellen Jackson. And she uses her psychology background to develop a five-step plan that helps her write faster and crank out blog posts in the time she has available for them. Check out her post on five ways to write faster and you’ll wonder what to do with your extra time.
I hope you find something that works to get you out of your slump. Failing that, do what I do and have a bulletproof coffee in the morning. I’ve got energy and laser focus almost all day long.
What are your top productivity tips and hacks?
Image Credit: Nathan Dumlao