I regularly hear statements like I just don’t have time to work on my blog, I am too busy to get out there and promote the blog, I have to do this, I have to do that, plus many other excuses. What these people really mean is I prioritize something else.
“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.” – Harvey MacKay
Even though time is a limited resource, we still have 24 hours in a day, which is plenty of time, but it is a matter of reevaluating our priorities.
Most bloggers might have a job that takes some 9 hours daily, then you sleep some 7 hours and it leaves you with some 8 hours daily to do some house work, hang out with your friends and family or work on your hobbies.
That is why you have to learn to control your time, optimize it the best possible way and manage it wisely. There are the 8 ways that you can find more time to work on your blogging dreams.
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Stop reading, take action
Reading and learning is important, but only to a point. It is important to stop and implement some of the things you have read about. If you don’t take your time to use what you have learned, nothing will change and you will stand still. Be a blog producer.
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Stop checking the stats
If you are regularly stressing yourself checking your blog visitor stats, your RSS subscriber stats, your earning stats, stop. Checking them will not help, but actively working on things that will improve those stats will. Try not to check the stats more than once daily.
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Focus on the tasks that have the highest impact
You must focus your energy on the tasks that have the highest impact on your goals. For bloggers, the goal usually is to increase the readership, and the task that will bring you closer to that goal is creating remarkable content and pulling your target audience to your blog.
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Don’t get distracted
In the age of the Internet it is very easy to get distracted and waste several hours reading RSS, checking Facebook, sending tweets or reading Steve Pavlina’s blog (it happens to me every once in a while as Steve’s blog is so good). Shut out the distractions!
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Throw away your television
Most of the people that say that they are too busy to be able to work on their blogs regularly, still seem to have enough time to watch hours of television every day. TV watching might be entertaining, but it is not going to bring you closer to your blogging goals.
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Forget your strict schedule
Did you set yourself on a very strict schedule of having to produce regular blog posts? Forget about it. Your blog will not become extinct if you miss a day or two. The tight schedule just might strain you so much that you give up the blog. Writing one great post per week will have a much bigger impact than writing one average post daily.
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Maximize your health
Eat healthy. Do some exercise. Get enough sleep. Leading a healthy lifestyle will definitely make you more energetic, fresh and will improve your productivity and will win you time.
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Your passion motivates you
We always hear about the blog passion and it really is true. If your blog topic is something you really love, it is going to be so much easier to motivate yourself to work on it. You will not be able to fall asleep because you would want to blog, you would wake up very early energetic to get out of the bed and do even more blogging.
From passive viewing to active working
Majority of the “busy” bloggers are spending more time surfing the internet and watching TV than working on their blogs and at the end of another day they have nothing to show for. You must be disciplined and shift your focus from passive viewing into active working on your blogging targets and dreams. No one else but you can do it.
Image by Damon Garrett.
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{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
That is a good list to follow. I have pretty much given up on TV, although I still waste time looking at stats
good post
I hadn’t heard any other probloggers make the connection between a healthy lifestyle and a healthy blogstyle. It goes along with some things I’ve been thinking (and writing) about lately.
Thanks for the confirmation.
We (my gf and I) recently downgraded our tv cable package. I hope that next year, I can convince to get rid of it totally. I need to experiment with an apple tv hack. But it’s the biggest time suck out there, the tv that is. New series startups and all. It’s the mundane status quo of corporate office life that makes you watch the crap though. You want to have something to talk about at the cooler, or to put off the boringness at work.
I will argue number 1 – the stop reading. I know where you are coming from when you mention to stop reading and take action. I am 100% with you on this one. I want to approach it another way though too. Read More! Not the very technical things or constantly reading blog type thing. Read anything to do with your passion or interest, and related or other material. WHY? Read for many other reasons. I am working on the benefits but a quick one for here is that your mind will activate ideas for headlines, topics, quotes you can use within blog posts and new topic ideas. I read a magazine totally unrelated to photography or blogging today and I got about 10 ideas from it. So Random.
I just wanted to share how reading can help if done for the right reason and not to procrastinate working on your own blog.
Thanks Scott. Definitely. Reading is a great source for inspiration, I do it constantly. But there is a point where you must say enough for today, I have read, I have written down some ideas and notes, now it is time to use them. Otherwise you’ll just end up reading and reading and another day will pass by quickly.
Great points Marko. I am a victim of checking my stats regularly. Blogging is intended as a resource to grow my business, and I like to see if it’s having an impact in terms of prospects (or customers) who might be coming to visit me to get insight into my knowledge. But you’re right in that I really only need check my stats once a day, and any more than that is procrastination.
I have often found that pulling myself away from some of Steve Palvina’s work is nearly impossible.
I’m also a fan of your advice about writing a great post once a week as opposed to an average post multiple times a week. I really have tried to sit down and implement that strategy more than anything else. I just feel like I have a business to run, and the blog is only part of it.
Good insight…thanks!
Thanks Mariano. I did write daily for first few months of this blog, then 3 times a week for few months and now I write once a week. I feel it works best for me at the moment, it doesn’t stress me too much and there is not much difference in my stats. I guess writing a lot is good for first few months of a new blog, and then when you are a bit established and start getting traffic from Google, then you can focus on quality so you can get lots of links and get the first-time visitors to bookmark, subscribe and come back again.
I think writing a blog is writing my thoughts. The thoughts that motivates everyone are the one that will be read and tweeted the most.
I was reading the book “Planet Google” and it was inspiring. The google founders are implementing the ideas what they felt the need in the student days. E.g. their book project or their search engine, the technology they believed would change the way internet is looked at.
I feel same principles apply for blogging or writing a song or a book. That’s one of the reason of my blog project iwaant….
Regards,
Santosh Puthran
PS: Throw away your television – don’t agree with that. That is one of source of ideas for writing a blog.
Great post! I definitely needed to reminder today…
Thanks,
Angela
Hey Marko!
Another great post! My biggest time waster is reading my RSS feed to see if there’s stuff I can learn from, tweet, or comment on. I do find this useful, but strangely the diamonds seem to come from a few regular places, so maybe one thing might be to rationalize my list a bit?
I think the other thing about reading lots and lots of other stuff is that I can psyche myself out that everybody else’s blogs are better than mine and end up not writing because I feel not good enough. I don’t know if this ever happens to you or to anyone else reading this?!
Take care for now!
Christine
I would suggest to stop reading them too much if they make you demotivated to write your own stuff. Stop reading, and look into yourself and see what is the best stuff you can come up with. Write it in a blog post, publish it and go out to Twitter / Stumble etc and share it with people. Ask for comments and see what people say. That way you can see if your writing is good or you can get good tips on how to improve it.
My trick is to close email, TweetDeck, Facebook and all those other useful but distracting things with alerts popping up that you’re also working on. Divert the phone for a couple of hours too. Amazing what you can get done if you schedule it in.
Another good one, is to keep a diary of what you’re spending your time on. 3 hours of “can’t remember/miscellaneous” will scare you so much, you’ll never forget to schedule time for blog writing again!
Definitely! Sometimes hours just pass by very quickly and at the end of the day you have nothing to show other then surfing the web and “wasting time” checking out all the distractions from Twitter, Facebook and so on. Being organized and scheduling your “surfing” time to limited hours is a great idea to get more productive.
Very good information. Time management and prioritization are by far the most important aspects of blogging.
Another strategy I find helpful is to decide on a “work schedule” such as working so many hours per day or working only between certain hours. You can spend time on the internet or TV but do it only during “non-work” hours.
Wow, each and every point made perfect sense to me. Thank you.
I am still relatively new to the blogging world with my site being around a month old. I have managed to put quite a bit of content together, but only at the expense of staying up late most nights and sacrificing sleep.
I think things will get a bit easier now that I’m past the initial set-up, but I still need to manage my time better to keep the blog fun and a creative outlet (rather than a burden). I appreciate your insight, and your tips have made me realize just how much time I do waste reading other sites, checking Facebook and Twitter, and just generally surfing the net…not to mention stat-checking.
My new resolution is to turn off everything else on the computer whenever I sit down to write a new post. This will probably trim my “blogging” time in half!
Definitely. Shut down all the distractions and type away…
I’ve set myself a target of producing 3 bigger articles a month. I usually do this on Monday when things are quieter. I also top it up with smaller articles. I’ve recently bought a Dell netbook and this is great for sitting in bed writing for the blog.
Ian, I love the idea of thinking about bigger and smaller blog posts! Thanks for sharing that! I’m going to set myself a workable target like you – that feels really achievable.
Best wishes
Christine
Good idea Ian. Writing shorter posts is not only faster / easier, your visitors also appreciate something they can easily skim through.
Thanks Marko for these wonderful tips!
I do agree that blogging should always be supported by passion and a great interest. It’s a good reservoir of motivation and inspiration, indeed. Often than not, when you are passionate about a certain thing, you find ways to get hold of it despite your busy schedule. Plus, there’s a good percentage that you won’t give up or get bore easily when you are enjoying and loving what you are doing. It definitely applies to all activities outside of blogging.
Good point about writing a superb article once a week than posting a so..so.. article daily.
Thank you. Glad you found it useful.
I love this post and I love the content of your blog. Going to sign up to follow it…great tips!
Good stuff, now I have to go blog thanks.
Freakin’ epic list!!!
#6 – has my heart pumping again – and has me realizing why it is that I’m so frustrated with myself and why I’ve nearly given up!
Also #5 – had me laughing so hard – made me remember a video from a while back from Gary Vee – where he flat out said, “Stop watching F*&#ing LOST!” Even when you get your inspiration from TV – you have to know when to cut it off.
Thanks for the encouragement! ^~~^
Thanks man! Great comment. I am sure if you write blog posts / of make blog videos with the same energetic style as this comment, you will get to build your audience.
Marko,
If you’re just starting out with your blog, I’d focus on CONTENT CREATION. Then comes whatever else you think is necessary: social media, networking and so on. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Build a small number of core friendships first. This goes a long way. Especially if you’re helpful and willing to serve others. People will share your stuff with others.
Awesome advice, having spread myself too thin – I can vouch for NOT doing such. I’m glad to hear that I’m going down the right path in building a core group of relationships – I’m also thinking about opening that core up to guest posts and interviews, what are your thoughts on that?
This is helpful. Thanks.
This is going straight onto my cork board!
I’m guilty of most of the sins listed there and I think it will help me to be reminded of it!
Throw the TV? That extreme ? I probably would for an older cabinet style model but not my plasma yet.
Great tips by the way!
Good post. We canceled our cable and watch a lot less TV these days. Our son now takes up most of our time – he’s definitely more worthwhile than TV
I schedule myself some time at the end of the day, when the house is quiet, to work on my web site. I’m a lot more productive than during the day, when I can get interrupted all the time.
These are all great points. I have been a victim of just about every one of these drawbacks and some of them I am still trying to overcome. I am sure most of these lessons people learn through trial and error, but posts like these help newcomers not continue these common mistakes.
The one most common problem of a blogger is to take an action, mostly they do know the techniques or they have bunch of ideas but they tend not to put it into action
I agree 100% on Maximizing your health. Before the new year I was tired all the time, especially after getting home from my day job. I had a really hard time re-energizing myself to get online to do any real focused work.
This last month we started a new workout program and healthy diet and I can already feel the difference in my energy level. I do feel more focused at night when I get online to work on my blog.
Take Care – Heidi
It was sound “Me” indeed.. thanks for remind me Marco…
@Telesales – I hope for your sake that your building your telemarketing business based on permission and not interruption (check out any of Seth Godin’s books – would recommend either “Meatball Sunday” or “Purple Cow”).