How to Create a Blogging Schedule that Works for You, Part 1

Welcome to day three of the What to Expect in Blogging: The Early Years series! If you haven’t read the first two posts on why we blog and creating a vision for your blog, take a few moments and check them out! 

Today we’re going to talk about how to set a blogging schedule! When you have a lot of ideas and aspirations for your blog, there are countless ways you can begin to build your blog and bring your vision to life! Along with learning about SEO, how to get other people to read your posts, how to write effective post titles, how to make money blogging and how to use social media to reach the right people {and so much more!}**, there are endless articles, books, videos and tutorials you can spend time reading and looking at to improve your blogging skills.

The big disadvantage to all this available information is that it is very easy to become obsessed with being a better blogger. You don’t expect it to happen, but it does, and suddenly you feel a bit out of control. You find yourself thinking about blogging the first thing in the morning, your family is suffering and your children’s behavior is being ignored because you are busy on the internet learning “important” skills.

While building your blog is certainly a wonderful pursuit, if it happens at the expense of your family’s well-being and your relationship with the Lord, then it needs to be brought under control–and quick! Nothing is more important that the sweet family God has entrusted to your care!

Our family, Christmas 2012

If you have become overly distracted by blogging, as I have more than once, it is more than possible to take back control so you can find the balance you need to continue to strengthen your faith, nurture your family and work on your blog.

Everyone is in a unique place in life and has different needs. Therefore there is no one perfect schedule for you as a blogger. You have to find something that works for you!

Pray over your goals and the vision for your blog, asking God to help you line things up with His plan for you. Ask for the discernment to see when you are getting overly ambitious and focusing on things that are not so important.

Here are six steps to creating a blogging schedule that is accurately based on your needs and desires:

1. Write down all your commitments on a piece of paper, including those that involve your husband and children, because those take up your time as well. Then write down your “extra-curricular activities”, such as TV watching, internet surfing, time spent texting and talking on the phone, reading, etc.
2. Estimate how much time out of your day these commitments and activities use up, then decide how much time you’d like to spend blogging. Figure out what activities or commitments can be negotiated or cut down on so you can research, write for and build your blog. There are obviously things that are non-negotiable and you may want to talk to your spouse about what those things are in your family.
3. Once you’ve established a reasonable amount of time you’d like to spend blogging, you’ll need to find time to fit that in to your day. Break down the amount of time you will use to:
1. Write your blog posts {including adding images and scheduling your post}
2. Read and research for your posts, when needed
3. Link up your post to blog hops around the web and share on social media
4. Network with other bloggers, including commenting on their posts
5. Promoting other bloggers
6. Learning about blogging – there’s always new information!
4. Find a time of day that you can fit in these tasks. For some moms, early morning is your most productive time. For others, it may be that working at night after the kids go to bed gives you the motivation to write and learn. You probably won’t be able to fit all of these things in every single day or at the same time each day. But go ahead and pick something that you believe will work!
5. Write and record your blogging schedule and keep it in a convenient place so you can remind yourself what you are doing and when. It will take a little while to get used to your new routine. The best way to do this is to use a blog planner. In the next post {tomorrow} I’ll show you some good blogging planners that I’ve found, both for purchase and for free!
6. Be flexible! Recognize that even after you create a schedule for yourself, you may find that you need to adjust the time that you spend in certain areas. Or you may notice that you don’t really have enough time to do all the things I listed and need to just focus on the most important things {writing your posts being one of them!}

Ambro/freedigitalphotos.net

Are you wondering what my blogging schedule is like? Honestly, it’s a bit all over the place right now, because I am trying to fit a lot in before the baby comes. But on average, I spend about 2 hours per weekday on serious blog-related internet use.

Sadly, I probably waste about an hour a day on the web that isn’t as focused as it should be. I try not to spend too much time on the web on the weekends until Sunday night when I’m working on my posts for the next week.

I want to make sure that when I work on blogging I am actually working on blogging but I find myself getting frustrated quite often because I get distracted very easily by Facebook, checking email or looking at Pinterest among other things. One of the things I am trying to do is to is close out of these windows while I am typing. I’m a work in progress, but it’s getting a little better!

Along the way, you’ll figure out what your distractions and downfalls are and will have to adjust your schedule and your way of working on your blog as you go. But we can work toward this, together!

Have any “blogging schedule” related questions that I can answer? I can address them in Friday’s post when I share the blog planners I love!

**We’ll talk more about all these areas of blogging later in the series!

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