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This post will be sharing six actionable tips for effective time management for bloggers.
If there’s one thing that you will struggle with as a blogger, it is managing your time effectively. With all the numerous unending tasks that come with blogging, it is inevitable. Which is not completely a bad thing. I mean everyone struggles with time management in one area of their life. You just need to manage your time better to stay on top of things.
One thing I see a lot of bloggers do all the time is spread themselves thin. You honestly do not need to be on every social media platform. You also do not need to be creating content three times a week if you won’t be consistent. The list goes on and on.
As someone who runs three blogs, I literally have to split my blogging time into three so you can imagine what I have to deal with. But so far, I’ve been coping well. In fact, I just created a new time management schedule for my blogs which will help me manage my time even better. As a blogger, I’m constantly looking for ways to tweak my schedule to maximize productivity.
If you’re a new or veteran blogger still struggling with time management, then this post is for you.
Here are 6 Tips for Effective Time Management Tips You Didn’t Know You Needed
With these tips, I hope you’ll be able to reassess your blogging priorities and focus squarely on them to achieve your blogging goals. These are the tips I’m currently using and I hope they are as helpful for you as well.
Determine your Blogging Goals.
I’m sure you might have heard this tip numerous times but I’m gonna revamp it a bit. As a blogger, the first thing I did was to determine what kind of blogger I want to be. Yes, ultimately my goal is to make money blogging but what direction would I want to take to achieve this goal?
So, I asked myself if I wanted to be a Blogger or a Creator/Influencer. Yes, they are two different things. As a Blogger, my goal is to create long-term passive income with my multiple blogs and not necessarily build a following on social media. You need to decide what path you want to take because if you decide to go both routes, you’ll definitely burn out. This is why you see a lot of influencers with abandoned blogs and a lot of bloggers without a social media presence.
Set your Priorites right and write them out!
If you decide to be an influencer which is completely fine, you should have an idea of your priorities. Which is building your following on 2-3 core social media platforms. But for serious bloggers who want to make money long-term, our priorities are a bit different.
These are the four things you need to prioritize:
- Posting weekly blog posts consistently
- Constantly working on SEO to increase organic traffic with a core focus on increasing domain authority.
- Growing your Facebook Group and Mailing List to increase Affiliate sales and blog traffic.
- Utilizing Pinterest for boosting daily traffic before your SEO efforts kicks in.
As you can see, your priorities are a lot more different as a blogger so you need to get it right. Plus they all require a lot of work in their own right. When it comes to my blogging priorities, I prefer to have them written down on a sticky note on my desktop as a constant reminder.
Create a Schedule around your Primary Priorities & Document them.
Now that you know your core priorities, you need to break them down further into primary and secondary priorities. This also helps you manage your time more effectively especially if you are a visual person.
As for me, my primary priority is publishing a new article on each of my blogs every week. So, that’s three new posts per week. How do I ensure this is done? I make sure I research my topics for the week/month and populate my content planner. I have two separate weekly and monthly content planners that help me document my schedule. Sometimes, I even go ahead and jot down bullet points for articles so I don’t forget.
The point is, I make sure I clear out any obstacles that will distract and potentially make me procrastinate publishing those articles.
Try to Focus on your Priorities as much as possible.
When I decided to take blogging more seriously about three years ago, I had to take drastic steps to ensure I stay focused. One of which included leaving Instagram. So, I sat down and thought about the biggest hindrance to my blogging goals and I discovered that it is the temptation to dump my blog to become an influencer. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it is faster and easier to make money as an influencer if you play your cards right.
But it has always been a goal of mine to have a well-monetized blog so I figured it’s either now or never. I had to make good use of the lockdown. Anyway, so I deleted all my Instagram accounts and took the app off my phone. You have no idea how much that decision has helped me stay focused. I was able to focus squarely on Pinterest Marketing to jumpstart my blog. My traffic took off and I was able to monetize my blog. Now, my blog brings me a regular monthly side income which is constantly growing.
If you’re the kind of person that sometimes needs drastic steps to get things done, please do. It will help you so much.
Do your hard tasks first thing in the morning, if possible.
My biggest and hardest task is pumping out a 1500-2000 word article in one sitting. It’s not exactly hard because I’ve been writing for almost a decade but it is brain-tasking. If you have noticed, I try to make my content as detailed and precise as possible. This requires me to use a lot of my brainpower. I’ve tried writing at various times during the day but lately, I’ve found mornings to be the sweet spot.
In fact, I’m currently writing this article at 10:46 am after waking up at 9:30 am. Waking up and writing first thing in the morning even before my morning tea has been one of my best tips for effective time management. Once I get a written, edited and published blog post out of the way in 2-3 hours, I spend the rest of the day doing other less brain-tasking activities like running my Facebook Group.
Remove any form of potential distractions.
With a lot of us having the attention span of a jellyfish, it’s really hard to not be distracted. So, you need to be intentional about removing distractions. I just mentioned how I had to get off Instagram to build my first blog. If you’re easily distracted by people, your phone or any other seeming mundane activity, you need to take them out.
When I’m pumping out my articles in the morning, I try not to scroll through my phone. It interrupts my line of thoughts and flow of words which makes it even harder to get back to after the interruption. So, remove any potential distraction and cultivate an environment where you can do deep work and get it done. You’ll feel even more fulfilled in the end, trust me.
In Conclusion,
I hope you have found these tips for effective time management for bloggers as useful as I did. Once I was able to get these tips on lockdown, my productivity has skyrocketed and I’ve been more consistent with my blogging.
