Bloggers write and ask for time management tips.
After all, I teach five classes, produce a 104-page yearbook, and run a blog.
Of course, that’s in addition to making time for family and friends.
Despite this ability to multitask and that I consider myself knowledgeable enough to publish blog posts on productivity, today’s guest author, Ryan Biddulph, blows my mind when it comes to time management.
He is a successful blogger, guest author, speaker, television personality, family man, and world traveler. In addition, Ryan has authored 126 eBooks and has time to network with his 51,000 Twitter followers.
by Ryan Biddulph
I have written and self-published 126 eBooks.
I write and publish upwards of 35 guest posts weekly.
Before you think I am shoveling out crap, my eBooks have been “tweet” endorsed by a NY Times Best Selling Author. Without me even asking him to do so. I was invited to speak at NYU about my eBooks too.
My guest posts have been featured on blogs with million member communities like Positively Positive and Lifehack and I have been featured on Richard Branson’s Virgin blog, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Fox News.
I know how to create inspired, helpful content and how to build a massive, engaged, loyal friend network of influential bloggers all while sticking to a brutal schedule.
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention; I change time zones like most folks change their minds.
I am a full-time world traveler, often jetting to exotic locals on the other side of the world like Fiji, Bali, and Thailand.
If you have a full-time job and are struggling like heck to find time to blog or if you are raising a family of younglings and feel you have zero time to blog, I have felt your pain. I know how tough it is to blog effectively when you feel like you are up against the clock.
But I have also cracked the code. I know how to build a full-time income through blogging when you are pressed for time.
Follow these tips to blog even if you seem to have ZERO time to blog.
1: Remember Your Why
I love having fun blogging. I feel free as a bird when blogging. So I have a lovey dovey relationship with my blog. I know why I am blogging. So I make time to blog.
Blogging has helped me circle the globe. I love traveling. So I make time to blog.
If you feel you have zero time to blog your fear of running out of time is greater than your love of freedom. Or your familiarity with comfort is greater than your love of having fun, freeing yourself and creating your dream life.
Tie the reason why you blog to some overpowering, inspired, fun, freeing driver.
You will always make time for what you value and what you love.
2: Work off of the Clock
Sleep in. If you can. Especially on weekends. Get your sleep. Critical to remaining energized.
Then schedule every hour to work off of the clock. Or if you have 1 hour to blog, schedule tasks every 10-20 minutes if you have 3-4 blogging tasks to complete.
Work typically expands to fill the time allotted for it. Work off of the clock. Get the job done in as little time as possible.
Enjoy this helpful post on WHSR [Web Hosting Secrets Revealed] to make your blog schedule work for you:
How Super Bloggers Work: Getting Efficient with A Blog Schedule
3: MAKE Time to Blog
I recall during the lean blogging years worrying about only having 2 hours a night to blog after dinner.
These days, after dinner, I ponder when I’m going to bed after I am done doing what I love doing, what I want to do and what I have fun doing because I *make* time for my blogging activities.
If you are a busy full-time job worker, delete your Netflix account for the next 3 months. Or devote 1 night a week to binge-watching Netflix. Release all distractions. MAKE time to blog.
Unless you are the POTUS or the below mentioned Gordon Gekko, let’s not kid ourselves; you may be super duper busy but you are not the most powerful man in the free world or a fictional billionaire who is rich enough not to waste time. Your day ain’t booked from 6 AM to 11 PM, in 5 minute or 35 minute or 60 minute blocks.
You ain’t that busy, guys. Sorry.
I guarantee you, even if you have a family, and a full-time job, you are not busier than me. Because you slowly begin to ponder what goes into promoting 126 eBooks, commenting on 10 to 30 blogs daily and writing up to 35 guest posts weekly (yes, I do that stuff) all while circling the globe and realize yeah, I don’t suffer blogging time excuses.
4: Prioritize or Profit-orize
If I literally have 45 minutes to blog because I am busy with some offline situation I do what yields the greatest profits for me. Could be writing a guest post for Lifehack.org. Or maybe I schedule time with a client or promote my latest eBook or whatever leads directly toward a pay day.
Not because I am in blogging for the money, solely. But because it makes sense to render useful service and simply receive money for problems solved if you only have a little time to do anything with your blog on a particular day.
5: Double Down on Your Energy Work
If you appear to have a time problem, you have an energy problem.
Anytime I fear running out of time, *fear* is temporarily dominating *fun* and *love* in my energetic vessel. Or, in my meat suit.
I spend a bit more time meditating, exercising, diving into an icy cold shower (speak to your doctor first, fellow blog-sicle) or doing whatever I do to BE the loving, fun, fear-slaying energetic dynamo I am, and who we ALL are.
Set aside your first 30 minutes of every day to raise your vibe. Then you will see your time management issue for what it really is: fear dominating your fun, or your love of blogging.
When you regularly raise your vibe through persistent energy work you will always have time to do what you love to do.
6: Leverage
Leverage. Make the greatest impact in as little time as possible.
The split second Janice told me she’d love for me to write a post I set up a time slot tonight to write the post.
Why?
Her audience is huge, engages like crazy and is a barrel of monkeys to write for.
The 60 minutes I spend writing and proofreading this post is a fine use of time because I will leverage my presence, help a ton of interested folks and save my time in the process.
Guest post on top blogs in your niche.
Write 2-5 paragraph long, valuable blog comments on top blogs from your niche.
Make your time work for you.
Leverage.
7: Have Someone Handle the Les Deplorables
I am a kinda busy guy.
If I even dreamed of handling more than 1% of my web development and design all else would collapse with my blog. I would, literally, have zero time to blog. Because web development and programming and design would take up 16 hours of my day, for likely my next 6 lifetimes, then 20 lifetimes beyond that (I am not Buddhist, if you are wondering).
But by asking the ever talented and kind Phillip Dews to handle web design and development I have ample time to focus on writing, guest posting, blog commenting and social sharing.
I make more time to do what I love by handing off les deplorables (my weird attempt at French, American Political Pop Culture, and unloved blogging tasks) to an expert.
If you seem to have zero time to blog you are likely spending precious seconds on something that you can outsource, and that something is usually something you dislike doing anyway. Outsource. Save time.
8: Pay for a Tool to Handle Repetitive Tasks (Or Use a Free One)
Pay for premium tools to save your blogging time. Or use free tools to save your blogging time.
If you are pressed for time use tools to save time. Simple as pie.
Example; you need to share your blog post at 1-2 specific times yet will be sitting at your 9-5 job during those hours. Enter socialoomph.com.
Or maybe you wish to engage for 5 minutes on Twitter with fellow bloggers but the site itself is a bit clunky and a time suck whenever you log in. Enter tweetdeck.com.
Use tools. Be cool. Save your time.
9: No Matter What You Do….Write Every Single Day You Are Alive
I am sitting down at 8:04 PM after a busy day of blogging to write this post.
Since I have written 1000 words or more every day for the past few years I can write and proofread this post within 60 minutes. Time saver, writing for practice, every day, is, because if writing were difficult for me this post would take me 2 hours to write. Or maybe 3 hours. Which is eons in my world.
If you have little time to blog – or ample time – develop the skill of writing valuable, powerful, impacting posts in as little time as possible. Give yourself more time to blog and to enjoy life offline. Become prolific by developing a writing habit.
Open a Word document. Write 1000 words daily. Trash the document. Save time.
10: Clear Your Cache, Capiche?
If you want to know how ruthless I am with my time consider this tip: even though I am not in the Gordon Gekko stratosphere or time management – yet – I advise you to clear your browser cache 1-3 times daily to save precious seconds which add up to minutes when your heavy, cache-filled, sluggish browser slows down your blogging tasks.
This may seem minimal. Until you are pressed for time and the 3 blogs you visit you read and comment on, take 15 seconds to load because of your bloated cache, versus 3 seconds, with a cleared, fresh cache.
Multiply 15 times 3. That’s 45 seconds. An eternity, with how I schedule stuff, and if you have little time to blog 1 wasted minute can seriously eat into your blogging duties time.
Your Turn
What tips can you add to this list?
Readers, please share so other busy bloggers know how to make the most of the time they have.
Author Bio: Ryan Biddulph is a blogger, author and world traveler who’s been featured on Richard Branson’s Virgin Blog, Forbes, Fox News, Entrepreneur, John Chows Dot Com and Neil Patel Dot Com. He has written and self-published 126 bite-sized eBooks on Amazon. Ryan can help you retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging at Blogging From Paradise.
