5 Tips For Blogging When You Just Don’t Have The Time
October 23, 2007
This is a guest post by Jamin Gray. Jamin Gray writes at WondR.net and covers topics such as lifehacks and productivity.
So you’ve got this brilliant blog, and you have high hopes for it to continue to grow, grab new readers, and produce fantastic content. But the boss at your day job is making you work overtime to meet a deadline. And the kids need to be taken to piano practice. And it’s time to pay the bills, do the dishes, and meet up with that college friend you’ve been neglecting. It’s been a few days since you posted something and you’re feeling a sense of urgency. But you just don’t have the time.
Fast forward 6 hours. You met your work deadline, the kids are in bed and the dishes and bills are done. You called your college friend and agreed to meet over the weekend. It’s 1am and you have a few minutes to write a post before you should get to bed. But your brain won’t cooperate and switch into creative blogging mode. You have no idea what to write about and are just staring at your computer screen. Finally, you write a hurried post on the blog linking to another article with a brief description.
Well that was thoroughly unsatisfying. If this sounds familiar to you, chances are you’re going about blogging all wrong. How can you keep that juicy content flowing when your life is full of other responsibilities and time drains? Here are five tips that I think will help you tremendously.
Keep a notebook. I use Google Notebook but you could also use a PDA, your mobile phone, or paper and pen. The purpose of this is to jot down ideas that come to you when you’re not actively focused on writing a blog post so that when you do have a few minutes to devote to the blog you’ve got an existing pool of ideas and aren’t starting from scratch. I organize my notebook into four sections:
- To Do - This is where I keep track of general tasks I need to do such as “clean up sidebar” or “install XYZ Wordpress Plugin.”
- Articles - Just a list of titles for articles I want to write. Maybe I’ll see someone at work taking photos at the company pot luck and that will inspire me to jot down, “Top 10 Free Photography Resources.”
- Ongoing - This is my list of reminders for things I should be doing regularly to gain readers and build interest in my blog. Examples include “Comment on other blogs in my niche,” “Email a new reader thanking him/her for posting a comment.”
- Scratchpad - Anything else goes here. I have paragraphs that may some day turn into a full article, links, quotations, and marketing ideas.
Write advance posts. Let’s face it, some days you’re going to have more time than others. If you’ve got a significant block of time available and are full of ideas, don’t limit yourself to one article. Write several and save them as drafts for those days when you barely have time to eat.
Post less often. Yes, it’s true. You really don’t have to post every day. Some readers will even unsubscribe from your feed if the number of posts overwhelm them. Remember, yours isn’t the only blog they read. And their time is just as important as yours. Don’t kill yourself with your blogging schedule and your readers will thank you for it.
Use the contributions of others. There is no shortage of talented bloggers willing to write a guest post in an effort to gain exposure and build relationships. You could even extend this concept to non-bloggers by inviting photographers, writers, and other professionals to showcase their content on your blog.
Give a little love to the blogs you read. There’s nothing wrong with posting the occasional entry that’s primarily links to other blogs. It doesn’t take long and who knows? The author may return the favor some day.
These are just a few of the techniques you can use to keep your blog going even with a busy schedule. How do you blog when you’re short on time?
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My vote would be for ‘post less often’. Churning out a quick post at 1am in the morning after a long day at work is hardly likely to lead to your best work is it? You’re in danger of just posting drivel just to get a post out. Just don’t post.
I’ve read about how we should keep a notebook/notepad and write down all our ideas but it never worked for me. I could never finish writing a post from a few short sentences that I had written down a week ago. In fact, all my posts were written at-one-go.
Yeah, talk about short attention span, LOL.
Or you could just throw-together a Speedlinker post. That’s what I do. I save my list of links until Saturday, when I don’t have much time to blog, and I Speedlink then.
Interesting, this is about the third or fourth post in two days that mentions using Google Notebook. I’ll definitely have to look into that. Currently I have a small notebook that I write ideas and to do’s in but I think having something online would be really helpful.
Caroline, I completely agree. It’s better not to post than post half-baked rubbish.
Pelf, I have discovered that it is sort of my problem too. If I don’t put down the ideas as soon as they occur to me, it becomes hard for me to expand on them later
redwall_hp, yes, that’s a great time saver too. I save my speedlinkig posts for days when I don’t have anything worthwhile to post
FreeFromBroke, I haven’t used Google Notebook either. I usually put down my ideas on the notepad, and so far it’s been doing the job well.
Good advice, I know exactly what you mean, the day job, dishes etc getting in the way.
When I first started blogging I was trying to do 1 post a day, after nearly 5 months of blogging I was getting really frustrated trying to keep this up, now I do 3 posts a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Good advice.
Regards.
Thanks for this post. I will look into google notebook…
So this article piqued my interest and I started using Google Notebook. I gotta say it’s pretty useful. I’ve set up different books to sort my thoughts such as :To Do, Diary/Blog Changes, Post Ideas. If you get the Firefox extension you can cut clips from sites and post them in your Notebook. I have to recommend it.
Great post! One thing that I have found helps me a lot is to not only keep on a posting schedule but to keep on a ‘type-of-post’ schedule - i.e every Sunday I write a post around a particular good/famous quote on marketing. On Wednesdays I try to do a media post, like finding a good video and then writing about its lessons. Monday’s and Friday’s are traditional articles.
Nick: I like that approach of scheduling your posts by type. I may have to try that.
I think there are several great thoughts in your post. I need to be more organized and I think a notebook of some sort will help greatly. Thanks again!
excellent suggestion on the notebook. I’ve found myself sprinting down the stairs to the computer screen when a brilliant topic hits my brain for fear I will forget about it later.
if I keep a notebook handy, I can jot those ideas down and move on. I also love the idea about building up a bank of posts. I’ve not been able to find the time to do that just yet, but one day I will.
In the meantime, I’ll just keep reading your blog looking for some other cool ideas.
thanks,
from one very tired blogging mom