“I have spare time,” said no blogger ever. Blogging is a tough job. Every article not only involves ideating but also writing, publishing and marketing. If you’re a busy blogger, churning quite a few blog posts a week, imagine the time you will need to run the entire content marketing cycle over and over again.
Your audience is looking forward to your articles hence you need to manage your time efficiently and never miss a deadline. Key to success in blogging is consistency and especially if it is your bread and butter. From one blogger to another – we understand how difficult it is to get words on the paper before a deadline. However, we are to share seven-time saver tips that can help you write more efficiently and be more productive.
- Create an idea box: Thinking of ideas and topics to write is one of the most challenging tasks faced by any blog writer. Ideas don’t always crop up when you sit and think about them. They can come to us at the most unexpected of times, while reading a book, playing a video game or just by talking to someone. Note down any idea that comes to your mind. You can either use a small notebook or even your mobile phone to capture all these fresh ideas. You can go back to this idea box and review them and use the ones that make sense for your next article. With this practice, you’re never going to run out of ideas.
Evernote is a great tool to save your ideas. It is multi-platform compatible so you can access all your ideas on either your computer or mobile device via an app. Another popular tool for saving notes, lists and images is Google Keep. Just like Evernote, this tool can be accessed via multiple platforms. - Build a content plan: A content plan is the holy grail of every content writer. This plan is generally a calendar where you map which article you will create on a particular day when you’re going to publish it and even use it to plan your marketing strategy. The calendar helps you plan, execute and review your content marketing strategies effectively. If you’re writing content for multiple brands or websites, then we highly recommend you have a content plan in place.
Coschedule is a premium content calendar tool that will quickly help you to plan your content for a month or even a year. However, if you don’t wish to pay for a tool, then the nifty Google Calendar can also do the trick. - Block time out to write: Every article needs time to be written. Unfortunately, due to busy schedules or writer’s block, we sometimes are not able to give sufficient time to complete an article. The ideal way to overcome this problem is to block time out to write. Block time when you are going to be least distracted or feel more alert. Some people write better in the morning, while others at night. Find your sweet spot and make sure to block out that time for writing.
- Create a structure for each post: After thinking of a suitable title, every blogger must invest some time in creating a structure for the article. Creating a structure will enable you to create a good flow of content, making it easier to complete your piece. Certain types of blog posts like lists, reviews, checklist have the same structure and can be reused, hence saving you a significant amount of time.
- Automate tasks using tools like Buffer & Constant Contact: Automating common tasks will definitely save you time, which you can use for other important activities. We use Buffer, to schedule and publish our articles to all our social media channels with just a couple of clicks. Similarly, we also use Constant Contact to send out an automatic reminder email to anyone who has not opened the original email.
- Invest in a reliable grammar tool: Once you are done writing your article, it is best that you proofread it to identify and fix grammar issues. This practice will not only help you save yourself from any embarrassment but also from time lost editing the article at a later time. But the practice of proofreading is time-consuming and there are chances that the human eye may miss out on a few mistakes. So, to make life simpler for you, we recommend that you get your hands on Grammarly. This nifty tool is like the virtual writing assistant that will quickly prompt you if there are any problems with grammar, simplify your sentences with suggestions and make your article mistake-free.
- Use Canva for images & Biteable for videos: If you’re a new or seasoned blogger, you will agree with us when we say that new good blog is complete without an image. There are times that you need to compliment your blog post with a video or an infographic. Finding or preparing these assets is time-consuming and if not properly planned for, can lead to delay in completing the blog. Fret not, because we have some tools that will ensure to help you save a lot of time.
Canva is an image editing tool and is so user-friendly, that even a young toddler could use it. If you can’t find the right image from stock images then we recommend that you invest time in building that image in this tool. Did we mention that this tool can also help you create infographics? Now you know. Biteable is our favorite video making tool. We have literally spent ten minutes in making some really cool videos for our event marketing and people have loved them.
There is so much you can do by saving time and we hope these tips help you be more productive. We are sure that you have some of your own tips to help save time. Feel free to share them in the comments section below.
