Building A Better Blog: Time Management

Blogging takes time and lots of it. If you’re a serious blogger, you know this. If you aren’t, then trust me. One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing a beautiful blog carefully maintained and updated by a woman who is a stay-at-home mom. All I can figure is that she either doesn’t sleep or her older kids do all of the housework, educating, and caretaking of the younger kids. Basically, if you don’t have a job that allows you time to blog or if you have young children, you’re going to have to be very careful at your time management in order to keep your blog up while still taking care of your home and family. No one’s perfect at it, but here are a few ideas to keep you going:

1) Be realistic about product reviews and giveaways. These take a huge amount of time (I figure around 3 hours per review/giveaway). If you don’t honestly have the time to put in, don’t do it. Your family is more important than reviewing everything available to you. Only choose the ones that you really need and that are worth this time.

2) Have a set time every day to write, and do it offline. Since I’m home now, I’m learning to blog while LoveBug is sleeping. I get on our computer that has no Internet access and type my posts into a word processer. Having a regular time and not being online keeps me focused and free from the distractions of my daughter, housework, and email. I’m also able to work on multiple posts at once which helps to keep the words flowing.

3) Keep a notebook handy to jot down titles of blog posts. There’s nothing worse for a blogger than to waste time at the computer because you can’t think of what to write about! I come up with some of my best posts while I’m driving (or at least I think they’re some of my best topics), so I just write down the titles then and write the post later when I have time. You’ll be surprised at how much you have to say if you do this!

4) Use a pre-written letter for product review inquiries and to notify prize winners. Simply save the letter, keep it updated, and personalize it for each contact. This will keep you from having to write a new letter every time you contact someone!

5) Organize your writings and photos into a “blog” folder on your computer. You might even go so far as to save documents by their date first and title second so you can quickly find things.

6) Upload your writings once or twice a week. Since you’re doing your writing offline, upload a bunch of them once or twice a week. Just set their “posting” dates to be spread out throughout the week so that your readers have new things to read every day or few days until you get into your blogging platform again. Uploading a bunch at once will save you time in the long run!

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