If there’s one thing I can take away from my current job and musings from my boss is the importance of time management. From the first day I clocked in, my boss stressed I created my own systematization for the work that I do. This wasn’t to drive me insane or transform me into a robot, it was to cut away the wasted time on minuscule tasks.
Years later and I now understand the importance of time management when blogging. With so few precious hours in the day, it’s easy to be overwhelmed with work, fun and dedicating time to your blog. Managing the time for tasks on your blog will free up your day so you can enjoy the success.
This post explores how to manage your time as a blogger, build a great blogging habit and systematizing common blogging tasks to take back your day.
Time Management Isn’t About Time
It’s about you.
More specifically, it’s how you delegate and control yourself. You don’t have to be overly analytical about breaking down each task into segments of time, you simply need the mindset of completing tasks which benefit you the most while eliminating those that don’t.
Develop A Blogging Schedule And Stick To It
Out of all the advice many bloggers give, without a doubt the suggestion most make to build a successful blog is consistency.
You see, starting a blog is the easiest part, keeping it going is more difficult while managing your time is downright a pain in the rear.
Why would you want a blogging schedule? Simple, by keeping a consistent blogging schedule you’ll be able to give greater incentive for readers to regularly visit AND develop a manageable blogging schedule which fits within your day.
When you have a lapse in your blog routine, you’ll most likely notice a drop in subscription and overall traffic. Worse is when you allow this lapse to compound by delaying your posts simply because you’ve convinced yourself you don’t have enough time.
Plan of action: Set aside a core period of your day dedicated to writing content for your blog. Do this every day until it becomes a habit.
By dedicating a core block of your day to writing, you won’t be distributing your
Batch Process Common Tasks
If you’re like me, the first thing you open when jumping on the web are tabs of your email, analytics, comments, blog and RSS reader. It’s hard to avoid this because each of these lend a very important role in the success of your blog.
Unfortunately, multi-tasking while working on each of these elements is detrimental to the precious time you could be using to build your blog.
Instead, set aside time dedicated to checking and replying to email. Don’t make your email the first thing you check in the morning; instead, use the beginning of your day to finish your most important task first: your content.
Afterward, batch process your comments. Go through each, approving and answering them as you go. Once you’ve completed this task, leave any new comments to be processed the next day.
Finally, set aside time to browse other blogs. Don’t do this while you’re working on your own projects; this will merely slow you down and distract you.
By breaking your work into blocks which may be batch processed, you’ll avoid the interruption that arises when you try to handle many things at once.
Systematize Your Routine
When I worked on creating promotional videos and instructions for my job, I created a process which included batch processes of pictures and video. Next I’d run a rough edit and get approval to move on. Finally, I’d complete the project, write notes and submit the final version.
As I first began, I realized many of these tasks involved doing the same things across each project. I created a step-by-step blueprint on how to do each of these jobs. The result? It cut my involvement from a whole day down to just a few hours.
You most likely have the same kind of routine when working on your blog. Outlining a post, creating content, editing, finding media and promoting.
Develop a blueprint for this entire process so you’ll be able to check your progress each step of the way. By cutting a few minutes involved with each posts, you’ll find many additional hours across the entire month – productivity!
Outsource The Unnecessary
Here’s a trick used by some of the best online workers: outsource the minuscule tasks. Trying to do everything on your blog is very time consuming, why not create a blueprint or step-by-step outline which could be passed off to someone else?
Websites like oDesk and Freelancer will help you find a virtual assistant which can take care of those time consuming tasks for a very manageable cost.
If you offer a service which includes invoicing and bookkeeping, you could use the help of a virtual assistant to take care of these needs while you work on the main aspects of your blog such as content creation.
Many people have a hard time letting go of every task they work on. They feel because they’re not involved with every step, they’re losing control. You have to realize your time is best spent working on the tasks which benefit you the most while trimming the time which would otherwise go to unproductive tasks.
By creating a blueprint or step-by-step guide, you’ll be able to hand these tasks to a virtual assistant and know it will be completed to your standards.
Your Turn
Take out a piece of paper or load up your favorite word processor. Write down everything you do each day dedicated to your blog. Are you beginning to see repetition?
Assess which tasks you could batch together and develop a system to hand off to others.
If you receive dozens of emails each day, try to make a template which answers these to cut out the response time on each. To really systematize the process, point common questions to a FAQ page on your website – you’ll be sure to cut out the amount of personalized emails you’ll need to respond to each day.
Try to develop a blog commenting blueprint for blogs which you frequently visit. Do this in batches so you aren’t doing them individually while you should be working.
By compounding your time and controlling how you approach each of your blogging tasks, you’ll be able to shave precious amounts of time to use towards those which benefit you the most.
How do you manage your time?
I agree with you on Time Management not being about time but about us.
It is indeed about how to delegate and control ourselves in completing tasks that is going to be most beneficial.
It’s all about having the mindset of an Action taker.
Thanks for the awesome insights.
.-= Adam Paudyal´s last blog ..2 Simple Ways To Backup Your WordPress Blog. =-.
You are quite right Murlu, A blogger to be organized is a must. Proper time will provide more benefits to a blogger since for a blogger the most precious thing is time.
Every Blogger should develop a routine to follow according to which he blogs. That will help not only in his blogging but also to develop his own personality which can help in other fields of life.
Thanks for the great post
.-= Shiva | Web Magazine´s last blog ..Huge List of RSS Feed Directories =-.
Couldn’t have said it better Shiva. When you zoom out and look at the larger picture, developing a great habit from blogging could then be applied to other aspects of your life such as work, personal relationships and important projects.
Blogging can be especially difficult when you cannot find the time to do so. We’re all so busy today with all the tasks we need to handle but when you break it down and show personal restraint from wasted time, you’ll find all kinds of additional hours.
Thanks for the comment.
Thanks for touching on this subject Jonathan.
There’s a fantastic (and free) service called UserVoice which allows you to easily setup a feedback forum for your website.
As you said, you’ll see that passionate customers will go out of their way to answer questions which compound the effectiveness because there is no spin on the responses. I always hated when you get a canned response or a turn around from a company when you ask a legitimate question.
Allowing your community to ask questions, give suggestions, comment and so on about your website, they will feel a sense of involvement to better the whole. Transparency is all the buzz; don’t lie to your community, they can easily go somewhere else.
Thanks for the comment
I liked this post very much, Now i will make on FAQ page. For blogging I wake up 3 hrs earlier than routine.
.-= Shekhar Sahu´s last blog ..Win Sony Dash | A Sony Insider Global Contest =-.
3 hours is quite a bit of time, sounds like you’re quite busy – that’s excellent!
i like the way you write
i have account in freelancer and odesk but never used odesk till date. Have to try it out.
- Robin
.-= Robin´s last blog ..Kaspersky 2010 Licenses (3 User) Give Away – Contest June 2010 =-.
Once again, you hit a homerun with this subject. I was just thinking how to master the time I have and you touched this subject beautifully.
.-= Griffin´s last blog ..Why Can’t I?! =-.
@Griffin
It’s all about setting yourself up for a great habit. It’s interesting because it’s easy to develop a bad habit and twice as hard for a good one. However, once the good habit kicks in, you’ll be rocking time.
I am gleaming from the book “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy. I am grabbing my fork and knife next morning.
.-= Griffin´s last blog ..Why Can’t I?! =-.
Thanks for this excellent post! I’m just getting a handle on the routine tasks involved in blogging, and you have some great advice here.
Managing your time for anything (not just blogging) always comes back to the Pareto principle – focus on the most important 20% first and you will achieve results.
Right on Dino – I try to apply that to a lot of my work. I usually try to break things down into A, B, C categories with A being the most important (obviously) as long as I get the A’s done, I’m happy with my day but if I have time to do the B’s and C’s than it’s that much better.
We have all the time in the world and never enough to get the job done; gotta make due with what we have.