How A Blogging Routine Can Help You

Filed in Blog Better (Blogging 401)

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Whether you’re running one blog or several, it’s hard finding time to write content, link others, leave comments and perform all of the social networking necessary to bring traffic. If you’ve ever found yourself sitting down at your computer in the morning only to look up and realize that somehow four hours passed, you’ve probably found yourself wondering how on earth you can get it all done.

Let me just tell you: you’re not alone. Lately, I’ve found it hard juggling the operation of five blogs along with homeschooling and my new blog-maintenance business. Some days, the planets seem to all be in alignment and I have no trouble getting the bulk of my work done in the 3-hour window between the time I wake up and when my son does. Other days? Well, let’s just say they’re not so good.

Recently I’ve noticed that the “good days” tend to have a certain flow to them, activities following one another in a way that maximizes my productivity. The bad days? They’re most often spent pointlessly flitting from one site to another in the hope of finding something that sparks my desire to write.

I started tracking my activities on those good days and created a routine that I’m hopeful will help me squeeze the most out of the moments I spend at my keyboard. Getting into the habit of following a routine? Well, that’s going to take some time but I’m definitely glad to be spending less time at the computer while getting more done.

Here’s how:

1. Set a time for blogging. Sure, we all love the thought of writing when inspiration strikes, but if you’re serious about making money with your blog you’ve got to treat your blog like a business. Commit to business hours that coincide with your quiet time. For me, that’s first thing in the morning… as in 6:00 a.m. if not earlier. No, I don’t like getting up that early, but it’s the only time I’m guaranteed not to have a small child asking to be fed.

2. Don’t check email first thing in the morning. For years I’ve been in the habit of launching my email client the instant I sit down and perusing any comments or messages received while I slept. Between the time it took to delete spam messages and comments, and jotting off quick little replies to easier messages, I lost some of my best creative time and had nothing to show for it.

3. Pick up where you left off. Keep a backlog of unfinished entries and a “link dump” in draft mode so you never have to wonder what should I blog about. Then start your day by picking up where you left off on one unfinished entry and you’ll find it easy to jump start your blog mojo for the day.

4. Protect your work space. I used to take my laptop all over the house to write, moving from room-to-room based on my whim that particular day. After a while I noticed that whenever I began blogging in the kitchen I’d get distracted by dishes, spills, and a floor that needed to be swept. In my bedroom I’d putter around picking my husband’s socks off the floor and getting my son’s toys out of my room. The family room? Well, the television kept sucking me in. Now I blog exclusively in my little closet office where there’s no radio, no television and — surprisingly — no one else’s mess to pick up.

5. Organize your feed reading. Not every blog needs (or deserves) to be read daily. There are many I can catch up with once a week, while news sites clearly need more frequent visits. Separating my RSS feeds into folders for daily reads then dividing the remainder of my feeds into groups to be visited once a week has done wonders to help speed up the amount of time I spend visiting other peoples’ blogs while still allowing me to stay up-to-date.

6. Use Shortkeys. Since the email address and URL I leave in comment forms on various blogs depends on their niche (for instance, I use my diet blog URL when reading health-related blogs), I was spending a lot of time typing in different information into form fields. This nifty little text-replacement program makes that so much easier. I also use it for certain repetitive things like typing the “a href=” part preceding a link in blog entries and even quick email responses (e.g., “Thanks for sharing that. I’ll plan to link it soon.”).

7. Calendar your regular features. I run a regular feature every Tuesday at Electric Venom. By adding it to my online calendar, I’m visually reminded that I don’t have to worry about finding content for that blog on Tuesdays. As a result, I know I can spend my morning adding content on my other blogs.

8. Check your money-making sites daily. I check all of my money-making sites in the morning, even those that send me emails about possible assignments. For those issuing weekly assignments, I print out a list first thing on Monday so I don’t have to keep re-visiting the site to know what my next task is, then I keep it taped to my desk for reference throughout the week. I still visit the others daily because I’ve often missed emails and lost out on opportunities. Besides, I sometimes wonder if they check their visitors logs much like I do and, hey, everyone likes to reward frequent visitors, right?

9. Use Morning Coffee for Firefox to process other tasks. Once I’ve actually posted content on my different blogs I like to visit social networking sites, check my bank balance and pay bills. Rather than drilling through a folder of bookmarks, this add-on opens them all in one click. (I use it to visit my money-making sites, too.)

10. When you do check email, do it efficiently. Pick off the easiest emails to handle first: deleting spam comments and junk mail; sending “Thanks for the link” messages; assuring your mother that, yes, that funny forwarded joke that you’ve read 80 times is still worth a laugh. Then go for the meatier ones, but try to keep your responses to a paragraph or less. That reduces the likelihood of receiving a novel-length response. Oh, and my favorite tip: go ahead and delete those messages you know you’ll never get around to answering. Chances are, the person who sent it will have forgotten about it, anyway.

Share your favorite tips on making your blogging day more productive in the comments. I’ll highlight the best ones in a future post. (Why, yes, I’ve already started that entry and calendared it, too!)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 8:34 am and is filed under Blog Better (Blogging 401). Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Tagged in: blog | blogs | making money | productivity