Posted: 2:10 am by tom in
Blog,
Blogging
All bloggers will inevitably run into periods when they have less time for writing. This is partly why so many new blogs fail within their first 3 months online. The trick is to keep writing, and not to simply become another statistic. I’m going to share some of my favorite and most effective time-saving techniques with you today.
1. Get an email notifier. I used to spend an unhealthy amount of time checking my inbox, often to find no new emails. This block of daily time was seriously effecting my time for posting. Answer? I downloaded Gmail email notifier. This allows me to receive email alerts right from my desktop. The real time saved here is also in checking forums. By changing my forum settings so that I would receive email updates for my subscribed threads I was able to cut out the HUGE amount of time wasted checking forums.
2. Build up a backlog of articles. This very article was planned on a train while I had 10 minutes to spare. There is no need to write out your future articles in full detail, but simply jotting down any ideas that pop into your head will save you hours of thinking time in the future. The ideas are the hard part, for me the words naturally follow.
3. Maximize on ‘useless time’. This relates somewhat to my second point, but a lot of ‘useless time’ in your day can be spent thinking about your blog. If you try to think of interesting articles in the shower, when you’re watching tv or any other such time you’ll be getting something from nothing. No extra hours are magically appearing in your day, you’re just making the most of what you have.
4. Be concise in your writing. Not only is concise writing a great practice to benefit your readers but it will save you tones of time. Listed articles such as this one are often very easy-to-read and helpful but don’t take as long to read as a lengthy, boring essay.
5. Replace leisure time with blogging time. This isn’t an easy option but if you’re that pushed for time you should consider cutting out some leisure time. Dedicated bloggers are the ones who will read up on blogging techniques instead of reading their favorite novel (or worse, watching TV).
6. Track your time. Fellow blogger Jon Wheatley recently had a script developed that effectively works as a simple timer. The idea is to start the timer when you start working and pause it when you take a break. It’s a fantastic and easy-to-use tool that should help you to not only save time but work more efficiently.
Please let me know if you found these tips helpful and give me a digg if you really liked them :). Thanks!
By the way I would just like to announce that I’ll be blogging just as frequently as ever and have some really exciting posts and ventures planned for the near future. I’m determined to keep up this blogs great progress and I hope that you’ll support me!
My time management is probably my biggest flaw at the moment, I spend far too much time browsing forums, reading blogs, etc. Using an RSS reader has made life a lot easier and more manageable, though… So I recommend people that aren’t using one, to get one (Google Reader is awesome) and use it!
Ah good point, RSS Readers have to be the biggest time-saver in history!
The idea of using a mail notifier to keep up with your forum threads is something I’ve not seen before, but sounds really useful.
On my to do list tonight is to register myself on a heap of blogging forums. (network, network, network)
Will see about getting a notifier sorted first.
Yeah the mail notifier is a great time saver I find. Please let me know which blogging forums you join too, I’d be interested to see them!