If you’re like most people, blogging is only one of a thousand things you need to do in a work day. So you may feel like your blog is either always on the back burner or taking too much time away from other tasks. How can you create an epic blog that doesn’t suck all of the time out of your schedule? Check out these 12 awesome tips on how to blog more efficiently and productively.
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1. Batch tasks
Want a helpful tip for boosting your productivity in almost any domain? Batch your tasks. Instead of grouping blogging tasks by post, group them by the type of task they represent.
What do we mean by this?
Don’t do all tasks for one blog post (i.e., brainstorming, collecting research, drafting, and publishing) before moving on to the next post. Instead, during your first sitting, brainstorm ideas for all the posts you plan to write in the next week or month. Use your second sitting to do research for all of these posts. During your third sitting, draft all of your posts. And during your fourth sitting, source images for all of your posts and upload them.
You can blog more efficiently and productively when you batch similar tasks together. Why? Because you can usually work more quickly when you’re “in the zone” for a particular task. Instead of switching between tasks (and having to switch mental gears), take advantage of being in the right headspace for the task you’re already doing.
2. Work at your most efficient time of time
Another tip for how to blog more efficiently is to work on mentally demanding blogging tasks (e.g., writing) at your best time of day. If you work best in the mornings, try writing a post at the beginning of your day. What if you’re a zombie in the mornings but get into your groove around 7 p.m.? Blog at night.
When you work at your best time of day, you can usually complete a task in less time than you would need at another time of day. This lets you get more done without putting in more time. Now that’s a win!
3. Give yourself a deadline
Unless you’re a full-time blogger, it can be easy to let blogging slip by the wayside. After all, when you have so many other tasks that have concrete deadlines, it’s hard to prioritize blogging. So what can you do to blog more efficiently? Give yourself a deadline.
Even if there’s no one to answer to if you don’t meet your blogging deadline, just having one can motivate you to carve out time for posts. Your deadline can be a formal editorial calendar or just dates you mark off in your calendar so you know when each task is “due.”
4. Use a timer
Setting deadlines can help you blog more efficiently by encouraging you to carve out time for it in your calendar. But what can you do once you’re seated at your computer and ready to work? Use a timer.
Set a timer for the amount of time your blogging task should take and tell yourself you need to finish the task before the timer goes off. Of course, there may be times when you have to work past your timer or find another time to finish the task. After all, you’re not going to publish a post that ends abruptly in the middle of a sentence because that’s where you were when your timer went off. But just setting a timer can help you blog more efficiently by pushing you to work faster than you would otherwise.
5. Create an outline
We’re a big fan of outlines because they can drastically reduce the amount of time you spend writing. An outline is essentially a plan. And you probably find that when you have a plan for how you’re going to do a task, you’re able to do it more quickly. The same is true for writing blog posts.
To blog more efficiently, create an outline of each blog post before you start writing it. It can be tempting to jump right into the writing phase. But when you take the time to plan the key points you want to cover, you’ll find that it takes a lot less time to write your post. As a bonus, your post will probably also be more cohesive and coherent because your outline allowed you to write purposefully instead of aimlessly.
Want to get more out of your blog while spending less time on it?
Download our free list of 24 time-saving blogging tools to speed up every stage of your blogging process.
6. Choose post formats based on your schedule
Some weeks are busier than others. That’s just how it is. But having a busier week doesn’t mean you can’t be a productive blogger. You just need to approach blogging differently.
If you’re having a busy week, work on posts that won’t take as much time to prepare. Here at Inpression Editing, we sometimes prepare posts that include lots of screen shots of online tools or examples of brand content. Our posts on 9 free blog post headline generator tools and 13 practical tips for writing insanely powerful website copy fall into this category.
These posts take more time to prepare than our other posts do. So we don’t create these during our busier weeks. Instead, we stick with shorter formats – like the descriptive list in this post on how to make a blog writing schedule you can stick to. Use this approach to blog more efficiently when life gets busy for you.
7. Change your plan
There may be times when you have an awesome idea for a post. Maybe you’re going to interview an expert in the field or draw an epic parallel between startup culture and the Super Bowl. Sometimes these ideas organically turn into great posts. But in other cases, you get stuck or realize that your awesome idea is going to take a lot more time to pull off.
You can blog more efficiently by pivoting when you get stuck with a post and won’t have time to see it through based on your original plan. Don’t have time to finish your detailed guide on how to set up an email sales funnel? Turn your guide into a list post with your top 10 tips. Remember, you don’t need to write a novel to give your audience value. A focused list that contains only your most important info can go a long way.
8. Automate tasks
Want to cut down on the amount of blogging work you have to do yourself? Bring in the robots. A key way to blog more efficiently is to automate everything you don’t need a human to do. For example, schedule your posts to automatically go live at your optimal posting time so that you don’t have to remember to do it yourself. And if you promote your posts on social media (which we hope you do!), let tools like Buffer, Later, or Tailwind take care of most of the work for you.
9. Use technology
Even if technology can’t fully automate a task for you, it might still be able to help you blog more efficiently. Need to brainstorm ideas for a post and walk the dog? No problem! Use the voice recognition software on your phone to jot down ideas while you’re on the go. You can even use it to make a rough draft of a post that you can edit on a computer later.
10. Repurpose content
It’s great to post new content for your audience. But not every post you publish needs to be 100% new. One of the secrets to being able to blog more efficiently is to get creative with repurposing your content. Turn a post packed with stats into an infographic or combine a series of related posts to create a detailed guide.
Remember, most of your fans haven’t seen every single post you’ve ever published. And even if they have, they can still benefit from seeing your content in another form.
11. Get help
Even if you automate, use technology, and repurpose content regularly, you might still need some help with keeping your blog going. And that’s totally fine. There’s no shame in asking for help.
The help you seek out to blog more efficiently can take many different forms. If you work with a team, reach out to them. Get them to help you brainstorm ideas for posts, create outlines, or prep posts for publishing.
And if you have some change to spare, consider hiring someone to write or edit your posts. A ghostwriter can take your ideas or outlines and turn them into coherent, engaging posts. And an editor can help you polish your posts if grammar or writing aren’t your strengths. If you’ve been thinking of hiring someone to help with your blog, get in touch. We’d love to chat.
12. Invite guest posts
Need help creating posts but can’t afford a ghostwriter? Blog more efficiently by inviting other people in your niche to publish guest posts on your blog. When someone publishes a guest post on your platform, you usually don’t have the pay them. Instead, the opportunity to reach your audience is their prize.
Guest posts give you content to publish on your blog without having to spend time writing it yourself. And that’s not all. If you and your guest both agree to promote the guest post in your networks, you could end up attracting new followers to your blog.
Blog more efficiently today
Blogging takes time. A lot of time. But this doesn’t mean that it has to suck time away from everything else on your plate. Use the 12 strategies we talked about above to transform your blog from something that seems impossible to something that feels manageable.
There is a way blog more efficiently and productively. You just need to know how to make it happen.
Want to get more out of your blog while spending less time on it?
Download our free list of 24 time-saving blogging tools to speed up every stage of your blogging process.
A planned approach and scheduled tasks would really help get the results in a timely manner. Otherwise trying persistently without goalkeeping is not going to benefit quickly especially when there is so much competition.
Thanks for sharing! These tips are really helpful and I’m gonna try them for sure.
Hi Ramesh. Yes, taking the time to come up with a plan first usually saves you time in the log run. Glad you enjoyed the tips.