Time Efficient Blogging - How To Do More In Less Time

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Blogging is a task that can eat up all your time. You don’t seem to have enough time to do all the blogging related tasks you have to do, and you don’t have time left over to attend to non-blogging responsibilities (like your ‘other’, offline life?).

Time management is about doing more work in the least amount of time. It’s about doing work effectively, and it is essential if you wish to reduce the time spent on your blog (while increasing productivity), and have time left over to tend to other things too. This article is just about that. Here are a few tips to help you manage your blogging effectively, and set it on autopilot, so you have more time for things that matter (besides your blog ).

You Don’t Have To Post Daily

Really, you don’t. Why not decrease your posting frequency from five times a week, to only, say, two times? Not only will this do you a favor (by giving you more time for other things), it will also do your blog a favor. It will allow more exposure to posts, and also help you pile up posts for the future (you could save those extra three posts for the future, couldn’t you? ).

Pick suitable days to post. By ’suitable’ I mean the ones with the most traffic potential. It is generally agreed that Monday is a good day to post, as it’s the start of the week, and if you time your post perfectly, you can land it at the top of your readers’ feed readers.

Also, late Tuesday or Wednesday is a good time to post, as it gives enough time for readers to find your content (since the last day or so), and it’s not the weekend yet, which means that there will not be the drop in traffic associated with weekends.

As you know already, posting on weekends is usually less profitable than posting on weekdays, because of the drop in traffic…

If you have a topical (or ‘urgent‘) niche, like sports or news, you have a particular advantage, and a disadvantage. The advantage is that you can post on any day, and since the information is topical, it is urgent, and people cannot afford to miss it, so you will not probably experience a drop in traffic, nevertheless of the day you post it. So, you can safely post on any day. The disadvantage is that most topical niches demand constant attention, and you should be posting like multiple times a day, to keep up with competitors. That’s bad for you, since you’re trying to decrease your posting frequency, right? Why not hire people to write for you, and fill in for times you cannot be available? (I discuss this later in this article, so read on!)

The point is, find the best days to post, and determine the number of times to post in a week. No matter times you decide to post in a week, I suggest spreading your posts out over week, to guarantee the most exposure. The most important thing, is to experiment with different posting frequencies, to fine tune your schedule, for maximum profit.

Writing In Your Free Time, For Busy Times

Once you’ve decided upon your posting frequency, you want to write your content as well, right? It is important (and it is the best strategy), to give some structure and organization to your content production process.

Why not have your posts written in advance, set to publish automatically on a designated date? Suppose you have Wednesday as your day to post. But, you’ll be terribly busy with other tasks (aka real life). But you have weekends free: why not write your posts over the weekend, and pre-post it to automatically publish on Wednesday? Most blogging platforms have a pre-publishing function, which allows you to set a date (in the future) to publish your post, and the post is automatically published when the time comes. Neat, eh?

The greatest advantage of this method is that it doesn’t limit you. You can still post on ‘terribly busy’ days, by taking advantage of free time you have.

Moreover, why not write a post or two extra, if you have the time, and schedule it for the next week? This way, you set up a buffer for yourself, by already having content ready, to counter emergencies when you’ll not be able to write content (like a faulty internet connection…).

This technique is a pillar of time management, at least for me. Instead of wasting your free time, you utilize it for something constructive

Delegate, Hire: Get The Work Done!

Huge, successful companies are not usually (there are exceptions) a one man show, are they? It takes the combined effort of their many employees to make their business a success.

Earlier, I discussed a disadvantage of a decreased posting frequency for news, sports, etc blogs, that such niches demand constant attention, and having a decreased posting frequency might hurt your blog. The solution? Hire writers!

You can fairly easily find good, trustworthy writers to report and write for your blog, and fill in for times you’re not available. Places to look for writers are plenty: Elance and Get A Freelancer, and so on.

Another advantage to having writers is that it prevents monotonousness. It gives your blog a different voice and opinion, and makes it a more vibrant place. And who knows, the writers that you hire might be better than you!

Guest Blogging

Why not allow guest bloggers to write for your blog? Most bloggers will be more than happy to write for your blog (for free). This will allow you to save your posts for other times (thus helping set up more buffers)! And, it will also allow you to get off the computer, and manage other tasks.

Getting bloggers to guest blog on your blog can be both easy and difficult. The easiest way to start off would be to shoot an email to bloggers within your niche, asking them (politely and nicely ) to guest post on your blog. Doesn’t matter if some reject. One or two might accept you!

A word of caution though: if you’re stringent about publishing only quality content on your blog, be ready to reject some candidates. A post sent to you might not be up to the standard, so you may have to reject it… be gentle but firm, and offer the blogger another chance to improve the post and send it again. Help him or her; do not just flatly reject

Eliminate, Eliminate, Eliminate

Often, the things that eat up a majority of your time are secondary, and unnecessary. Eliminate, or reduce them to save time, and increase productivity.

Don’t check your stats every five minutes. Check them once a week. Don’t waste time on social networks (like Twitter or Plurk). Get on, and get off. Get online, write a post, and get off. Don’t wander about, wasting precious time. Moderate comments once a day (or even better, turn comment moderation off).

Set a specific time for tasks. For example, an hour every day to check email. An hour a week to check stats. A hour everyday to catch up on social networks. I know, it’s harsh, but it’s the best way to go.

Identify things that eat up your time, and figure out how you can eliminate or reduce them. Keep fine tuning, working, and you’ll figure out a perfect schedule, and method of managing your time effectively

If you’re persistent, hard working, willing to learn from past mistakes, and determined , you will learn to do things in the least time possible, and set your blog on autopilot, churning out profit, and productivity, while you tend to other tasks. It’s like being everywhere at once. Wonderful, isn’t it?

Add To The List!

You have probably taken a time management course or read such a book. What do you have to add to this list? How would you decrease the time spent on your blog, while increasing productivity? Any tips are welcome!

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