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.