I have one word to offer when someone asks me how to manage blogging time efficiently. That word is “batch.”
If you aren’t batching your blog post production, you soon will feel burned out and resentful. And you’ll always feel like there’s a blog post hanging over your head waiting to be written and produced…because there will be!
Blog, Blog, Blog, and more Blogging
When you have as many blogs as I do (three active sites with one or more posts per week and one active site that I post to occasionally), time management becomes a huge issue. There have been times when I felt like all I did was write and produce blog posts. Indeed, that was my primary task each day.
When someone would ask me if how much time I spend writing per day, I’d query back, “Do you mean blog posts or books?” In fact, I wrote a blog post each and every day to keep up with the content needs of my sites.
And it’s hard to go away when you have so many posts to produce and publish per week. After all, you have to continue feeding your blog and your readers content, right?
Correct, but there is a solution.
Batch Blog-Post Production
Today, I batch. From a time-management perspective, this is the easiest and most efficient way to keep up with a blog schedule—whether you publish one or seven posts per week.
Think of batching this way: If you want to have a homemade cookie, you don’t mix up and bake just one. You make a batch.
Batching blog-post production uses the same concept. Write and produce a month’s worth of posts in a few days per month rather than one per day or week.
Here’s how to batch:
- Go to your calendar and schedule one day per week or a few days per month that you devote to blogging.
- Block out time on those days to write posts, shoot videos, create visuals, or anything else required to get your posts ready for production or publication.
- Block out time on those days or on different days to upload your content to the site, design the posts, add the visuals, and proof the posts.
- Schedule the posts for future dates. Remember, WordPress offers this option!
Now, I mess with my blogs just a bit each week—mostly to share them on social media. Every two weeks or so, I have a bit of work to do as a blogger. But I try to keep about two weeks in between batching more posts.
I’m less burned out by my blogging, and I am getting other work done more consistently. I’m also more efficient as a blogger, which means I spend less time blogging. I’m also less worried about going away.
Schedule Content for a Month or More
To make this process most useful, take extra time the first month or two to get ahead. Schedule posts a month or more ahead of when they will publish.
When you have a month or two of posts scheduled, you get a breather…a few weeks in between your post-production days…to work on other projects. Or you can go on vacation.
It takes a bit of work to get to that point, but it’s possible. And then you just keep up with your post-production schedule. A few times a month you write, design, or schedule posts.
Give batching a whirl. Let me know how it works for you.
Photo courtesy of bellessence0 / Pixabay
I really love this idea I am going to implement it right away.
Awesome, Joe. Let me know how it works for you.
Great stuff. I do this often, though most of the time it’s one or two posts ahead. Every once in a while I’ll test myself by writing an entire month’s worth of posts in 4 or 5 days and then post-date them so I not only have a free month but tell people up front that I did it. I think it’s a great way to see if you believe you actually have something to say about your niche. 🙂
Good ideas here. I read your book and really enjoyed it.
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His is a visionary gem of advice and inspiration, thank you Nina
Thanks, Theresa! Glad you found it useful.I hope you left a review on Amazon!
It is a great exercise, Mitch. I used to write a post daily…now I try to batch the week or as much as a month at a time.