Has this ever happened to you?
You lie awake at night, unable to sleep. There is a heavy burden on your shoulders. Then you feel it crawling up your chest, making it difficult for you to breathe. For too long you've consciously overlooked the root of the problem, but now you realize that's not helping.
Every time you open your eyes, the problem is still there... and it's growing.
You know you have to face reality, even if it's hard. And finally you admit to yourself that if you don't address the issue now, it will silently choke your dear blog to death.
What is the monster that terrorizes you at night? Lack of time.
If you felt this, no worries. I went there too. Relax, there is still hope. You can cure this disease once and for all.
1. Decide to do something to fix the problem
Being able to identify the problem is only the first part, but the problem does not miraculously go away on its own. You must decide to do something about it.
Note that I did not use the words wish, want ou try on our creations in the sentence above. These words are for dreamers.
I used the word decide, which means turning off all other options. When you decide, the choice is carved into a tablet of stone. You'll see the plan through, no matter what.
Do you know who the most important person in your life is? If you answered, yourself, then that's a five out of five for you.
Of course, you probably love your family more than anything. However, only you can make the decision and take control of your own life. Are you ready to take charge of your life?
Good.
In order for you to do this, it is important that you find your why.
2. Find your why
Whatever type of goal you set and whatever decision you make, your real why will be the most important factor when it comes to seeing it through. The stronger your why, the more likely you are to achieve the goal.
Let's say you have a little girl and she's with you at the grocery store. She wants candy, even though it's not Saturday. At first, you say no to your little girl, because there's no reason for her to get candy that day. And we all know that giving your kids candy every day would just transfer money from your kid's college fund to the dentist. Which is good for the dentist and doubly bad for your kids.
Getting dentures and starting to work at McDonald's, while your friends go off to college with nice teeth, is a bad start for your kids' teenage years.
Then your daughter starts giving you cute Bambi eyes, and you realize you're only human, and giving her candy just for today couldn't really hurt.
On the other hand, if your little girl wants to put her hands in the fireplace, no matter how cute her eyes are, the answer is no. Why?
Because there is a strong reason behind the decision.
You get the point. You need to find a good reason why you should spend more time your blog. Maybe your situation is one of the following:
- You blog on the side, so you can earn money for your kids' college funds
- You blog part-time to quit your full-time job, which you hate
- You took the plunge and quit your job to do blogging full time
Whatever the reason, it is crucial that it is a very strong reason for YOU. A strong enough reason to kick your ass, so you can take the time to blog.
Have you found your reason?
Great, let's continue.
3. Analyze your current schedule
The process ofanalysis has two parts:
- Identify the number of overtime hours you want to free up
- Get an overview of your weekly schedule (include details of all your activities each day of the week)
Once you've set your goal, you know how many hours you have to free up. As we cannot produce more hours per day, we have to prioritize differently. Let's say your goal is to free up 4 more hours per week.
Then it's on to part 2.
A good method is to use a spreadsheet (in Excel) and make a detailed plan of ALL the activities you need to do EACH day, every day of the week.
I will now show you a method that has increased my productivity by 100%.
Prioritize tasks using the ABCDE method
A: Tasks I have to do – serious consequences if not done
B: Tasks I should do – mild consequences if not done
C: Tasks I could do – no consequences if not done
D: Tasks that I delegate
E: Tasks I never do
Never do a B task before you have done all the A tasks, and never do a C task before you have done all the B tasks, etc.
The 80/20 rule
Apply the 80/20 rule: you must identify each day, which 20% of the tasks of your to do list will give you 80% of the results.
Tuesday example:
Time Activity Priority Duration
07-08: Activity 1 Priority C 1 hour
08-10: Activity 2 Priority B 2 hours
10-12: Activity 3 Priority C 2 hours
12-14: Activity 4 Priority C 2 hours
14-17: Activity 5 Priority A 3 hours
17-18: Activity 6 Priority D 1 hour
18-19: Activity 7 Priority E 1 hour
Total hours worked that day: 12 hours.
4. Reschedule
If we apply the ABCDE method I mentioned above, your day should look like this.
Example of rescheduled Tuesday
Time Activity Priority Duration
07-10: Activity 5 Priority A 3 hours
10-12: Activity 2 Priority B 2 hours
12-13: Activity 1 Priority C 1 hour
13-15: Activity 3 Priority C 2 hours
15-17: Activity 4 Priority C 2 hours
Total hours worked that day: 10 hours.
What happened to priority D and E tasks?
One task has been delegated and the other deleted. You may not be able to move all tasks as you wish, but you understand. Your schedule will probably be made up of many small activities, and they will probably be harder to categorize (ABCDE). However, practice makes you better.
In the example above, you managed to free up 2 more hours per day. That's 10 more hours a week!
Let's say you only managed to free up an extra hour a day, that's still great. This gives you up to 5 more hours per week to devote to your blog.
5. Make the sacrifice
Everything has a price. This is the price for your extra blogging hours. If your why is strong, this should now be an easy choice for you.
6. Work on your blog
Since you have now made a big sacrifice and freed X hours more for your blog, I have to say please… Let me say it again… PLEASE, for your own good, spend the time properly on your blog.
Spend it on the most revenue-generating tasks for your blog. Which would probably be networking with other bloggers, creating content and products.
7. Be proud and sleep well
You succeeded !
Now you can finally get a good night's sleep. To be completely honest. I didn't really have time to write this blog post today. But I saved time.
Why?
Because content creation is one of the most important activities for bloggers.
How?
I postponed other tasks. If I can do it, so can you. Do you have the recipe. Good luck!
Have you ever had too little time to blog? What did you do to fix it?
