This post was most recently updated on July 18th, 2017
These 4 Productivity Tips For Bloggers will keep you sharp and on top of your game.
It’s very important for bloggers to use their time productively.
Anyone can put a lot of time into doing a lot of busy work, spinning their wheels on Facebook and tweeting their brains out while accomplishing very little in terms of growing their blog into a viable business.
You don’t want to waste time.
There’s not enough of it around these days.
Time is an essential, core ingredient for every entrepreneur and blogger to carefully cultivate.
You cannot run your business without managing your time properly and productively.
I’ve run a across many bloggers who thought that their time is worth more than money.
In order to save $10, you could work 5 hours performing manual chores that could be handled through automation.
It may sound crazy, but this is one of the biggest newbie blogger mistakes.
It just adds up to a very poor and unwise use of your time.
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Time needs to be respected or else steer yourself straight into overwhelm and confusion.
There is way too much distraction to be ignored, and way too many things that need to be done and compete for your interest and attention.
If you can not get these things under control, you will not be able to run a successful business.
To help you with this, here are a few tips to help you manage your time better, and make you a more productive blogger.
4 Productivity Tips For Bloggers
1. Keep Things Simple
When it comes to being productive, simplicity is king.
The tagline on my on my blog reads: “Blogging & Online Marketing… Made Simple.”
Don’t overcomplicate things.
Keep your business simple.
Don’t create a complicated process that requires you to jump through a million hoops to build an email list, to find affiliate products, to interact with people on social media sites or anything else.
Whenever you find yourself deeply embedded inside of a complicated solution to your problems, stop and reassess.
I promise you there IS a simpler way to do it.
There always is.
Make it your goal to keep your blogging and online marketing business as simple as possible.
Simple does not mean “beginner” or “amateur.”
It means simple in structure, design and application.
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You can have a very complicated business with some very sophisticated strategies and funnels put into place, but if you keep them simple to use and apply, then they are workable.
If you make them complicated, then
- you’ll probably never do them,
- they will take you far too much time to do,
- they’ll probably come across as being too complicated for your readers to try to duplicate.
People don’t like complicated.
They like simple.
Keep your business simple and you will be more productive, and also far more focused.
Keep your business simple and people will be more comfortable doing business with you.
One of the most common things that people tell me when they give me feedback on my blog or in my training courses and coaching, is that I keep things so simple.
They tell me that it while something is a complicated topic or process, they’re so happy to find a simple solution that they can actually put into immediate use.
People want to be able to implement what you teach them.
They don’t want things so complicated that they feel like they’re sitting in a advanced seminar, or that they are just learning theory and possibility, without the opportunity to get their hands dirty.
You need to make things simple, actionable, and workable for people.
When you do that, you will build a strong loyal following.
Whenever you write a blog post, try to focus on one issue, one problem, one strategy.
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Then suggest one plan of action that people can take, or one solution to the problem that you raise, and again, make it a simple action.
When people see a quick, simple thing they can do to improve their lives, or be able to move forward in their business, they will become a serial visitor to your blog, and a key component of your loyal audience.
In order to teach and display this kind of simplicity, you must practice it in your own life and business.
When you do, you will naturally pass that on in your writings, teaching and training.
And you’ll be lead by example, not theory.
When the time comes for you to elaborate on a topic, it is the perfect time to offer a content upgrade that people can obtain to drill more deeply into what you’re teaching them.
This is how you build your list, sell your products, and convert visitors into customers of your products, and clients for your services.
2. Beyond Daily Operations: Limit Social Media Networking
One of the most important aspects of your daily operation is to engage in robust networking activities on your social media sites.
This is how you build trust with people.
As they get to know you on social media sites, they feel comfortable with you, they build a relationship with you, and they are now willing to become subscribers to your list or buyers and clients for your products and services.
You cannot afford to let yourself spin out hours of your day chatting on Facebook and tweeting on Twitter.
Your work day needs to be focused.
Your social media presence is important, even critical to the growth of your blog.
That doesn’t mean you can spend an unlimited amount of time on it, though.
Confine your social media efforts to limited, well defined blocks of time within your daily schedule.
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See how much time you are spending on your favorite social media sites.
And please, limit the number social media sites that you are building networks on.
It’s very unlikely, that you need to be on 12 different social media platforms.
Even the biggest and most successful blogs I know, focus on 2 or 3, sometimes 4 or 5 social media sites… and 4 or 5 is a lot!
If you are a solopreneur, running your blog by yourself, it’s not likely that you can handle more than 3 social media platforms effectively and efficiently.
Go find 1, 2 or 3 platforms that you choose to network on, and give yourself time blocks of maybe 15 minutes in the morning, afternoon, and evening.
That’s a total of 45 minutes a day.
That should be sufficient time to work on all of your social media networking.
If you’re spending more than an hour day on social media, then chances are you are spending very little time on being productive in your business.
3. Beyond Daily Operations: Move Your Business Forward
In one of my recent coaching calls, I was telling people to be sure to include one hour of good, high quality productive time in their daily schedule.
By productive time, I mean time when you’re actually producing something that will move your business forward.
You need to have an hour of productivity each and every day to make your blogging business viable.
Productivity includes things like
- writing your blog posts,
- creating info products,
- producing videos,
- creating coaching programs,
- hosting webinars
- writing sales pages,
- creating squeeze pages, and
- anything else that can directly lead to the results you seek to attain.
These are the activities that will actually
- drive traffic to your business,
- convert new traffic into subscribers,
- convert repeat traffic into clients and buyers.
Nothing else that you do matters if you are not doing these kinds of productive activities.
Do not try to stack your time and do 6 hours of productivity on Friday afternoon.
People do this because they spent their entire week on social media sites, reading blogs, commenting on blogs, watching videos and other non-productive things.
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Then, at the end of the week, they try to catch up on all their productivity work because they realize that another week with zero results is about to pass.
When you do this, the quality of your productivity will suffer… plus, you will never build a productive momentum in your business.
Be Productive Early In Your Day
I suggest that you make productivity the very first part of your day.
That’s the time when you usually have the most energy, the most focus and the most resolve to complete your tasks.
I never start my day reading emails, checking out social media sites, and building relationships with other bloggers and marketers,
I don’t even look at those things, until I’ve done my own productivity work.
That’s how I know that no matter what else happens in my day, I have been productive.
When you’re done with your 1 hour of productivity time, then you can do anything else that you think will help enhance your business.
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Now we’re talking about social media networking, blog commenting, and any other strategy that is built into your business model.
That can be the marketing part of your day.
That’s when you make connections to people, show them what you’ve done, ask them to join your list, ask them to register for your webinar and all that.
By putting the productive part of your day in motion, first and foremost, you will not only free up the rest of your day to do other important activities, but you will free your mind of the burden (and sometimes guilt) of not achieving anything of substance.
Have you ever spent a whole day being busy, only to feel like you accomplished nothing?
If you start your day with 1 hour of laser-focused productivity, you’ll never feel this way.
4. Leisure Time
People don’t generally think of leisure time as part of their productivity strategy.
But it is.
You need to have leisure time, my friend, every single day.
Don’t wait for the weekend.
You need to have something that you do for yourself, that makes you happy.
This can be meditation, prayer, shopping or whatever else it is that makes you happy, and takes your mind away from your business.
You should even schedule this free time into your planner.
Several things will happen when you do this.
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First of all, you will be greatly incentivized to get the productivity part of your day completed.
You won’t want to drag out your day on tedious chores and tasks, when you know that you have leisure time to look forward to.
In this way your leisure time becomes your reward.
It’s your reward for doing a good job… for completing all the most important activities you had lined up in your day.
More than a reward, though, it’s also the “renewal” part of your day.
Consider This…
You’ve just completed an hour of intense, productive time.
Then you spent an hour engaged in blogging activities, and maybe an additional 30 minutes networking on social media.
Next, you send out your daily email to your subscriber list.
You just spent half your day working.
If you continue on at this point, you will probably have a much lower level of energy, your focus will not be as sharp, and any work you produce will not be as good as it could be.
If you take time now to do some personal and leisurely things, you will enhance your health, renew your energy, and refresh your mind.
All of these things will actually make you more productive when you re-engage later in your business.
One of the funny things I’ve always found out about taking this leisure time, is that even without trying, my mind comes up with great ideas for business while I’m out shopping or raking the lawn.
Try it yourself.
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I think you’ll have a similar experience.
It’s because you’ve relaxed your mind.
You told it that you’re off work and it’s okay.
It’s in this relaxed state that subconscious ideas can rise to the surface.
Often, these subconscious ideas, creativity and inspirations are far superior to anything you can think of hunched over your computer, tired and worn out from a hard day of work already.
My husband and I take walks on the beach in practically every type of weather.
We look at the water, say very little to one another and just relax our minds and enjoy the serenity and calm of the moment.
Typically, on the way home, we enter into an impromptu mastermind session.
We start blabbing about all the ideas we had while we were walking.
It’s like an unscheduled brainstorming that just happens.
We weren’t working, we were just relaxing.
But somehow, our minds were on the job in much the same way that they often are while we are sleeping and dreaming.
How many times have you woken up from a dream with all kinds of ideas that you never even thought of during the day when you were trying so hard to get ideas?
4 Productivity Tips For Bloggers
So those are 4 productivity tips for bloggers that I think can help them build a strong and viable blogging business if they will integrate them into their day.
Maybe it’s time that you try some of these things out in your business.
If you follow this process, I promise that you’ll become more productive.
The reason I say this is because it’s one of the things that works best for me.
Since I started tracking my productivity time in these four ways, and adjusting my work schedule accordingly, it has changed my entire way of doing business.
It has paved the way for me to attain some results that, frankly, I thought might be unattainable.
So I’d like to hear from you now.
How do you maintain a high, steady level of productivity in your business?
Are you willing to try applying these 4 productivity tips for bloggers?
I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Also, I’ll be really happy to see you sharing this article with your wonderful social media friends and contacts:)
So there you have it my friends.
4 simple ways to boost your business.
4 productivity tips for bloggers.
Let me know what you think.
-Donna
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