Managing a busy workflow as a blogger

ⓘ Featured image: Pexels

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Today, a huge and ever-increasing number of professionals are seeking out entrepreneurial careers through a variety of different web-based and digital avenues.

Affiliate marketing is one industry that has had a prominent following among entrepreneurs for some time now, and varied other forms of eCommerce – ranging from things like small craft stores to disruptive IT-based products – are also apparently becoming more and more prevalent.

One thing which many modern forms of entrepreneurship have in common is that they rely to a significant degree on the creation of SEO-focused and customer-facing content in order to thrive, and while various forms of graphic design and visual presentation are certainly invaluable, there is no way of side-stepping the importance of written content, and the prominent role of blogging in all of these different domains.

Not only do many entrepreneurs end up becoming avid bloggers in order to support their existing business ventures – only to then find that the blogging can, in and of itself, end up being very lucrative – but many individuals who started out as bloggers end up working with digital marketing companies and the like in order to monetise what began as a hobby.

Of course, managing a successful blog will typically require you to produce a substantial amount of content on a regular basis, and this can certainly pose challenges when it comes to things like exercising good time management and remaining properly organised as a whole.

Here are a handful of tips and suggestions for managing a busy workflow as a blogger.

Use the right tools for the job

In business as a whole, it’s very beneficial to use the right tool for a given job. In fact, it can be absolutely imperative, and this is a key reason why companies will often be found making use of iPhone rental services and similar when they need to coordinate a big event or to make sure that all members of their team are on the same page, and are using the same approaches to communication and project management.

As a blogger, the “right tool for the job” may not immediately be clear. After all, if you’re new to blogging, you probably just use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to do your writing – or, if you’re on Mac, you might use Pages.

What many bloggers find quite quickly, however, is that handling an array of different posts, projects, tasks and assignments with these basic word processing tools can be a real headache – as it can be very difficult to maintain a proper “big picture” overview of what you’re working on, to jump back and forth between projects, or even to stick to a cohesive folder structure.

If you’re likely to be writing dozens or even hundreds of blog posts in a given month, this can be a massive issue – and it can cause a lot of time to be wasted, at the very least.

So, the “right tools for the job” may involve things like modern cutting edge word processing tools with a built-in binder view and embedded folder structure that allows you to switch between projects on the flow, edit and rearrange parts of a longer text, and more, all in one place.

Perhaps the most popular and famous of these tools among writers is Scrivener, which is available for both Windows and macOS. For those using Apple products exclusively, Ulysses Writer is another alternative with inbuilt cloud backups and a Markdown-based text formatting system.

Aim for word processors that:

• Allow for rapid task switching and a good overview
• Include an inbuilt binder system
• Work similarly to Scrivener and Ulysses

Set aside time to “batch” together similar parts of the blogging process

Whenever you are trying to create a significant number of blog posts, you’ll find that it can be very jarring and counterproductive to have to switch topics back and forth on the fly – and this can, in fact, make it difficult to focus and to keep up the momentum.

One technique that many accomplished bloggers find to be particularly useful here, is to use the tried and true productive entrepreneurs approach of “batching” together with similar tasks in the blogging process.

This may mean, for example, that you set aside a certain number of hours on a given day for idea generation and content planning, where you outline the rough concept for a dozen articles that you want to work on. Another block of a few hours could be spent working on blog posts that have a similar theme or some direct overlap, which would then allow you to continue moving smoothly from one post to another with as few hiccups as possible.

Posting and scheduling posts could take up another “time block” on an appropriate day.

Batching posts helps to:

• Facilitate speed and efficiency while blogging
• Put you into productive and uplifting “flow states”
• Allow for a more sustainable approach to the content creation process

Find ways to explore personal interests in your writing

Managing a bust workflow as a blogger can be tiring and can become frustrating and dull, if you’re not constantly striving to find new ways of exploring your personal interests through your writing — or, at the very least, to find points of interest in what you’re writing.

Not only will this help you to stay motivated and positive when it comes to managing your daily workflow, but anyone who reads what you write is likely to come away with a much better overall impression of what they’ve read if it was written in a spirit of enthusiasm and interest, instead of just being something where you were “going through the motions”.

Generally speaking, it should be possible to anchor just about anything that you may be focusing on and writing about to a topic that you find compelling. To a large extent, this is just a matter of remaining curious.

Remember:

• If you’re bored writing a post, others will be bored reading it
• Keeping your posts interesting to you will likely speed up your workflow
• Enthusiasm and interest are contagious

Always be on the lookout for interesting trends and topics to blog about

Being able to come up with a variety of fresh, relevant and interesting topics on a routine basis is a fundamental part of what it takes to be a successful blogger – and the more that you can tap into current trends and social moments, the better your blog is likely to be.

Of course, part of what this means is that it’s likely to be a very good idea for you to remain constantly on the lookout for interesting trends and topics to blog about – and this can keep your eyes and ears open in all sorts of situations, ranging from glancing over the local newspapers and magazines to hearing what friends are talking about, to seeing what’s trending on social media.

Use the right system for tracking and managing your time and routine

To stay on top of a busy workflow as a blogger, having the right system at hand for tracking and managing your time and routine can be invaluable. It can reduce the amount of stress you experience, while also making you more consistent and effective at the same time.

There is a wide range of different task management apps and methodologies out there to consider:

• Habit tracking apps such as Done and Habitify
• To-do list apps such as Todoist
• Methodologies such as David Allen’s famous “Getting Things Done” system

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