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Productivity Tips For Bloggers That Work ALL The Time
by JaneSheeba
Productivity tips are always sought af ter
by bloggers. T hanks to the overwhelming
inf ormation on the internet, the massive
number of places to get distracted online
and the nature of work involved f or a
blogger, blogger productivity is always
in danger!
In order to get blog content ideas, in order
to expand those ideas, in order to do
keyword research, market research and
content research and in order to create
the content, a blogger has to use the
enormous number of online tools that are
easily available.
Now this comes with a price. T he “enormous” usef ul online tools that help bloggers to do what they
gotta do also keep them f rom doing what they got to do.
Productivity rests in peace in the lif e of most bloggers.
Let me give you a scene so that you can picture it yourself .
You wake up in the morning and open your computer with a nice cuppa cof f ee. You start checking emails.
And then, oh there’s Facebook. No, you’re not wasting your time – but you’re engaging! T hat’s what
YOU think.
Wait a moment, you need to login to Youtube and check those “best blogging tips” tutorials. But this cat
is so cute while it plays the piano.
Bam! Lunch time!
Af ter lunch, let’s say you take a nap. You come back to your working (?!) table with yet another cuppa
cof f ee. Now you’re determined to do the work.
You need to write that blog post. You need to do the background research. You go to Google. You end
up reading 55 blog posts, share them, pin them on Pinterest, get lost on all the shiny objects out there
until your eyes go blurry, and red.
Now you take a serious pledge that you WILL work seriously without wasting time f rom tomorrow
morning.
And the story continues…
In this post I am going to tell you what exactly you need as a blogger to boost your productivity. T he
productivity tips I’m going to share here are no theory; but they’ve been tested (on me) and are f ound to
work perf ectly.
Let’s get to productivity tips for bloggers 101 class.
Have clear goals
2. It all starts with clarity. Without this it will not be hard f or you to get lost in the sea of inf ormation that’s
presented bef ore you on that computer screen.
Get over with the f oggy clouds and multiple voices that are over your head 24/7. Eliminate all the unclear
thoughts and goals. Find out exactly what you want with your business and your blog.
In f act, as a blogger, you should get clarity f rom day -10 – I mean, even bef ore you start your journey
as a blogger. If you do not have clarity then don’t start a blog or an online business unless you know
what you want to achieve.
T his not only applies to bloggers but to all businesses and even starting something new with your
personal lif e. But in the case of blogging, having a clarity is very crucial since this is a crowded business.
We see blogs being started every minute and they also die that f aster. Without clarity, you won’t be able
to succeed as a blogger.
OK that’s the big picture. When we see at the detailed level, without clarity you cannot accomplish
anything in one single day. I mean, you cannot even think about being productive.
Plan f or the long term
Once you get clarity about your business, you look at the bigger picture and make long term plans. T his
is the f irst step to increase your productivity as a blogger.
Why? Because having a long term plan will put a target in f ront of you and motivate you to work towards
it.
Without a long term plan and a goal you will simple be checking emails, hanging out on social media
and occasionally work on your blog. T his is not the best working model for a blogger.
As a blogger, if you want to be productive every day, you should have long term goals, that are split up
into short term goals, which again are split into manageable chunks (tasks) that you handle on a daily
basis.
Now let me ask you: What will you work on everyday, as a blogger, when you don’t have a long term
plan?
Let’s answer this question f irst and talk about productivity later!
Have f ocus
Remember I talked about distractions in the
beginning? Well you cannot eliminate them as a
blogger, coz you need to do a lot of research,
be on social media and put your f ace all over the
internet. And this can lead to a lot of distraction.
But that doesn’t mean you’ve to get lost in the
sea of things to do. Of ten times, you get lost
when you don’t have clarity, which we talked
about earlier.
But having f ocus is another bit of the story.
Now, assuming that you have your long term
plan > short term action plans > daily tasks and
strategies, you have something to work on
everyday, right? You have a precise list of stuf f
that you need to take care on a daily basis.
3. When you have that stuf f in f ront of you, work
on that and that alone.
If you f ind yourself getting distracted quite of ten, use the appropriate productivity tools f or bloggers
(more on that below).
T hese are the bits you need to stay focused:
Have a clear long term goal
Create an action plan to achieve that goal
Organize the baby steps
Split big goals into chunks to easily get them done
Take action and approach tasks one by one
Stop regularly and analyze the results (more on this below)
Work in blocks
T he working hours of bloggers can get boring by the day since all we do is sit in f ront of the computers.
T his can be really tiring. And this will seriously hit your productivity.
To avoid this boredom and kinda sick f eeling f rom emerging inside you, try to work in short blocks of
time. T he Promodoro technique is the best bet in this case.
Choose to work say 25 minutes and compulsorily take a 5 minute break. Or you can also choose to work
an hour straight and take a 10 minute break.
It is very important that you take your eyes and f ocus of f your blogging activity at regular intervals to
make yourself more productive.
And one important advice here > Have everything ready when you start working in a block of time.
Do not set aside time f or writing a particular blog post until you have all the material ready and have done
the research.
T ip > Set aside a separate block f or doing research to start writing that blog post and really limit
yourself to work on that task only f or that amount of time!
Analyze your plan regularly
Do not keep working hard monotonously on a strategy. It
is very crucial in any business to pause and analyze.
Whenever you are implementing something new, or
whenever you are working on a strategy, you need to
pause of ten and look back. And, analyze the results.
If you keep on working on a thing without looking back,
you are not being productive. You could be wasting
your energy on strategies that don’t work and you could
be missing out on strategies that work.
Stopping by and looking back helps you to f ind out what
worked and what didn’t work.
T his inf ormation is crucial f or any business (not just f or
blogging).
4. In short > Find out what works and do more of it. Find out
what doesn’t work and eliminate it or tweak it.
Have the RIGHT productivity tools
As a blogger we use so many tools every day f or
blogging, social networking, promotion etc. It is also
important that we use the right tools in order to keep
ourselves productive and to keep us on track.
Here is a post where I talk about two tools I use on a daily basis >> 2 Task management tools I use and
a f ew handy tips f or bloggers.
I use Swif t to-do list to keep myself alive in this chaos It not just helps me plan things, but also to
stay f ocused and keep an account of my productivity.
Also you should subscribe to my newsletter at janesheeba.com to receive amazing productivity and time
management tips!
Just visit any post and you will f ind a subscription f orm either on the sidebar or at the bottom of the
post. Here’s a post you should visit:
>> People have asked me these questions since I started my online business
Takeaway
What productivity tools do you use? What do you do to keep yourselves accountable?
Or are you the blogger who doesn’t worry about being productive and just perf orms tasks everyday when
and as they come in (I won’t be surprised)?
Let me (and everyone else) know in the comments!