Category: Work from home

How To Blog – Routine

After writing my first ‘How to blog’ article about starting a blog, I received a lot of enthusiasm from other bloggers. I love reading other people’s tips on blogging and have continued on my journey now, learning so much along the way. Working full time as well as balancing a developing blog has been tricky. But if you love blogging as much as a I do, then you will make it work. I definitely feel like I have a good balance now. This post is all about how to establish a positive blog routine.

Time is one of those things that we have a limited amount of. When I first started blogging I was staying up late trying to work out how to increase site speed, reply to comments, research SEO and update previous posts. This was incredibly draining so I had to quickly find other ways to become more efficient. If not, I would have started losing my mind, for sure.

Here are three things I do to maintain my blogging routine

1) Do regular bite-size bits

Rather than spending hours of continuous time blogging, I have learned to do regular instalments. My friends and family were saying that I was getting carried away and soon losing many hours to blogging and researching. It is true that I can easily lose track of time when I get deeply engrossed in my blog writing and editing. The trouble is, it started making me behind in other areas of my life.

My solution has been to look carefully at certain elements of blogging and factor these in daily. Things that I can divide up into small sections of time are:

– Starting #writerslift threads on Twitter and contributing to those started by others

– Checking out other blogs and commenting (I love seeing what others write about and have learned so much from reading a wide range of blogs, ranging from lifestyle to travel, health tips to money saving advice)

– Sharing recent posts on either Pinterest or Facebook groups

– Tagging and refreshing SEO on past blog posts

– Piecing together paragraphs for future blog articles (sometimes I am inspired with one idea – for example a reading habit or hack, and I write it down, ready to add more suggestions to later, when compiling a full post)

– Taking pictures of books ready for blog posts and bookstagram. This will save time later on. People love to know what you are reading so these will be handy.

– Researching blogging tips, either by watching short YouTube videos or reading useful articles (this can be done during my breaks at work and I find it so helpful generally)

When I wake up I spend ten minutes doing one of these activities. I then spend fifteen minutes at lunchtime, half an hour when I arrive home after work and about half an hour after dinner, before watching TV and catching up on ironing etc.

2) Put aside allocated blog writing time

When I said I work full time, I actually work four and a half days for my main job and have a couple of side hustles. Blogging can be done during my Wednesday free half day (although I guess blogging has now become a side hustle in itself). I spend one and a half hours writing blogs and getting up to date with everything blog related then. At the weekend I also allocate one and a half hours on Saturday and the same on Sunday, specifically for writing content and making sure I am up-to-date.

If I have a busy Saturday then I make up for the lack of blogging time with extra half hour inserts throughout the week. This way I still spend the same amount of time, without feeling I have got behind or not contributed as much blog content as usual. After all, blogging is my favourite pastime these days.

3) Enjoy the routine

I have found that, after some experimentation. my blogging routine has ended up suiting me. You may find that you attempt to stick to something like the above but soon realise that it doesn’t quite fit with your lifestyle. Fine. Adapt it and change it until you feel more comfortable with it. It needs to work for you!

Maybe you feel able to spend half an hour blogging every day just after the kids have gone to bed, writing parts of blog posts or refining SEO skills. Perhaps you work part time and can afford two afternoons a week to really go for it and produce lots of lovely content.

The important thing is that blogging needs to be enjoyable and the moment it ceases to be that, you need to think about mixing it up a bit. Don’t let it become a monotonous task that you do out of habit, rather than love. It isn’t worth the stress. Bend and twist your schedule until you find something that works particularly well for you.

I really hope that you found my ideas useful. As my blog has developed I have made lots of mistakes and am learning about the process every day. The biggest lesson that I have learned is to manage time well, otherwise blogging can take over all of your free time and leave you feeling burned out. For more articles about blogging, entertainment and the environment, perhaps consider following my growing blog.

Why Is Reading Blogs Beneficial?

I almost called this article, ‘Why is reading blogs powerful?’ But I changed my mind as powerful can sometimes suggest something negative and I wanted the post to be wholly positive. However, blogs are powerful entities which can influence people markedly. I would hope that blogs have had nothing but positive influences over me and I definitely have loved reading such a variety of them, especially in the past year.

As a reader and writer I have no doubt that any kind of reading is good for you in terms of expanding your vocabulary and improving your language flexibility. Of course, there are some blogs that are slightly one-sided and these may drag you down a rabbit hole of negativity, but I avoid those.

I chose this picture merely because I wanted some Norwegian countryside in my blog. I hope to produce more travel blog posts sometime soon.

Keeping It Positive

For me, I originally started reading blogs as a result of Twitter threads for writers. So yes, I was late to the party. Until then, I had only read a few blog articles and didn’t quite understand their functions. Nowadays I read probably ten blogs a day and absolutely love them.

What Are Their Benefits Of Reading Blogs (for me)?

1) They have taught me so much about subjects that I previously knew very little about. Learning more about the environment has been eye-opening for me, as a geographer who is already very interested in this topic. Similarly, I have found out facts about health and nutrition, as well as mental health and particular industries.

2) I have begun to understand how blogging itself works. Learning from more experienced writers has been wonderful, especially knowing how they started out and what drove their blogging process. I also have enjoyed finding out about ways to improve SEO and integrate into the very friendly community of blog writers.

3) I have read such brilliant poems and short stories which I would never have otherwise come across. Some poets are very talented and their work is only available on their personal blogs.

4) Blogs often draw attention to goods. Yes, they are businesses and I embrace that. I would rather see a recommendation for a product from a blogger than just read meaningless endorsements on selling websites. We all know that product reviews can be misleading on selling sites, so blog reviews from trusted bloggers are far better.

5) My eyes have been opened to new destinations through travel blogs. Rachel Foy for example, often visits places in Britain that I never thought of visiting up until now. Confidently Kayleigh also gives me plenty of ideas, such as recently with her Salford museum post.

6) Most of all, I have loved reading book reviews and this has influenced my reading heavily. The Happy Reader (from 🇨🇦 Canada) is one such blog that has given me book suggestions to follow up with. Learning about new books is one of the major benefits of reading blogs.

Why are blogs useful?

So now hopefully you will understand why blogs have become more than just a hobby to me. Blogging is brilliant and the community is embracing. Reading blogs is beneficial in so many fabulous ways.

For an article about starting a blog click here. If you enjoyed this article about the benefits of reading blogs, please consider following my blog as I want to eventually become a full time blogger.

Working From Home – In The Mix

As Boris announces today that he wants everyone to return to their offices again to enable the economy to keep growing, it made me think more about this. I am lucky enough to do a mix of work, but the majority of it is not working from home. My dream is to eventually work mainly in writing jobs, but even then I hope to have a good balance of work in a workplace and at home.

There are so many advantages and disadvantages for working at home. I like the idea of finding a reasonable balance between the two. Here are the pros and cons of home working:

Advantages

1) No travel. Good for the environment and saves time being wasted. Why travel for meetings when you can still cover the material with online professional appointments?

2) No need to spend on snacking. All the food and supplies you need are already at home. This can be a downer too as you may be tempted to eat and drink more when working so close to a fully filled fridge.

3) You can take better control of your timetable, unless you are unlucky enough to have been given back-to-back zoom calls all day.

4) You are your own boss. Well, not literally, but at least nobody is actually breathing down your neck as you try to hit a deadline. At least if you need to buy some time you can say that the internet is down. Who will know?!

5) In theory you will get much more done. No distractions from chatty colleagues or noisy photocopiers can be used as excuses for a lack of productivity.

Disadvantages

1) Although you don’t use any fuel, you may find it harder to make a distinction between work and home. Travelling to work is often a good way to disconnect from your home life and give yourself the brain space needed for a day at work. I often unpick a day on my way home from work and usually by the time I reach my house I am ready to move on and chill.

2) Pets and family members can get in the way. At work you won‘t be dealing with fighting cats or intrusive dogs. Kids won’t be arguing over computer games in the background. Of course office hours are longer then school hours so there is bound to be an overlap.

3) I found that when I had a period of working from home I missed the social interaction of being around my colleagues who always give me a sounding board and regularly cheer me up with their humour. Let’s face it, nothing beats a good face to face gossip either.

4) You are using your own supplies. At least at work everything is there for you. Working from home leads to dealing with printers, restocking ink and regular trips to the post office. Although you can claim for these, they can take up a lot of valuable time.

5) You can get tempted to relax whilst at home. I know people who end up getting up later and staying in their jogging bottoms all day. Sitting around can lead to bad backs and putting weight on. That trip into the office can involve walking or cycling and getting your daily dose of fresh air and exercise.

So yes, I like working from home a lot but it comes with a down side. Personally I have a mix of both and like being able to have some days at home and others in a busy environment. Perhaps in future I will manage to make it a 50:50 split between them both.

For a related article about working from home click here.

If you enjoyed reading this post please comment below your thoughts about working from home. Also please consider following my blog. This will help me build a platform so that one day I can work on it from home more.