Michelle Rafter

The Future of Freelancing

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How to squeeze blogging into your work day

Cat in a tight squeeze

For the first time in eight years, I’m not blogging every day for a month as part of the FreelanceSuccess/WordCount blogathon challenge. In 2008 when I started the challenge, I’d been back in the freelance game a short time, was new to blogging and was looking for a quick way to turbocharge my efforts. It worked. Today I’ve got all the writing, editing and content strategy work I can handle, so much I couldn’t do the blogathon and keep my editors and content clients happy. This year, I’m cheering from the sidelines and you can too, by folllowing the blogathon Facebook page.

Throughout the next 30 days, I’ll be re-running favorite posts from previous blogathons to inspire everyone who’s participating as well as anyone else who wants to blog or write more often. — Michelle

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A writer I know was considering starting a blog and asked how I squeeze writing posts into my regular writing work day. Good question, and one that’s relevant to anyone who works full time but wants to market themselves or a business by blogging and promoting posts on social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Bottom line: blogging takes time, especially for it to make the most impact. But there are a handful of things you can do to ease the burden.

Here are my suggestions for juggling blogging on top of regular work, regardless of what you do:

1. Commit to posting on a regular basis.

Pick a schedule that works for you. Some bloggers post once a day, Monday through Friday. Some post once or twice a week or month.

Set aside 20 to 60 minutes a day depending on how much you want or need to say about the topic you’re writing about. Some days I write an original post. Other days I run guest posts, an advice column or a list of links to interesting posts I’ve read elsewhere. I also re-run posts with a lot of page views, comments, social shares or all three. Creating a post from scratch takes the longest — especially if I’m writing a how-to piece, or analysis of a trend. Sometimes I’m inspired and the writing goes quickly.

2. Commit to writing the same time every day.

I’m an early riser and like to write posts before doing anything else on that day’s to-do list. I think of it as a writing prompt for whatever else I have to write that day.

Still, some weeks I’m more into it than others. Weeks when I have  major deadlines, blogging gets minimal attention. Those weeks, I may spend Sunday afternoon writing a couple posts so I don’t have to think about the website again until Wednesday. When I’m busy, I’m also more likely to update and re-run an older post, or skip a day.

3. Commit to an editorial calendar.

Using a calendar is a great way to organize a blog. I don’t know about you, but when I can write about anything, I can’t find anything to write about. But when I set strict parameters for myself — original post Monday, guest post Tuesday, advice column Thursday — ideas start to fly.

Using an editorial calendar is a huge help. When inspiration strikes, I open the WordPress editorial calendar, pick a day, start a new post in Draft mode, and type in a title and whatever is in my head. It doesn’t even matter what the day is — with the editorial calendar you can drag and drop posts from one day to another. I use the editorial calendar to schedule guest posts too. When I make arrangements with someone to write a guest post, I copy our correspondence into a draft post and put it on the calendar as a placeholder until the post is in.

4. Share – but don’t overshare – on social networks.

My family jokes that I live on Facebook and Twitter. It’s true. I use social media to promote this blog, but also to do research, find sources, keep tabs on trends, and publicize stories once they’re out. I share links to every blog post I write. But I don’t share links to every post on every social network. When I do share links, what I say on Twitter is different from what I say on LinkedIn or Facebook. When it’s time to get down to other business, I use a Chrome extension called StayFocusd to block Facebook and other social networks I like to goof off on after a pre-set number of minutes a day to make sure I focus on work.

5. The Tim Ferriss Way

For Tim Ferriss, less is more. The blogger and author of the best seller The 4-Hour Work Week, advocates in this post, The top 5 uncommon timesavers for bloggers for blogging only a couple times a week so posts have time to percolate and shared by other bloggers – definitely food for thought.

[Flickr photo by Tomi Tapio]

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Comments

  1. Jackie Dishner says

    Michelle,

    I’m addicted. I spend about two hours–and sometimes more–on most days working on some aspect of my blogging life…posting, researching, reading, filing photos and ideas, etc.

    I blog six times a week on my travel blog, but I’m paid and it’s required. My BIKE blog takes a lot less time, more like the half hour, five days a week you mention.

    But it’s so much fun to search and find new blogs and build the network that relates to your own. I have two blogs now, as of July, and though they do take up a lot of my time, both fit in with my overall business plan. I think of working on them as strategic to my succes as a writer and for building my platform.

    You can visit them at:

    http://bikewithjackie.blogspot.com
    http://www.thephoenixtraveler.com

    Keep letting us know over at FLX what you’re doing here. I usually learn something new that’s really helpful. And the links you’ve posted above I’m forwarding on to some speaker friends of mine who are relatively new to blogging.

    All my best,
    Jackie

  2. Jenn says

    That’s very interesting. I’m in the building phase, so my blog is taking up more of my time right now–closer to the hour+ range.

    Also, that’s good food for thought re: the less is more philosophy. On my blog, Atlanta on the Cheap (www.atlantaonthecheap.com), I post leads on freebies & deals for exploring the city on a budget.

    Right now I’m trying to build up some content, so I’m posting 2-3 times a day. I’ve been thinking of myself as a service provider, so I’ve been approaching it from the more is better viewpoint. I’ll have to revisit how I post the content to trim the volume down a bit once I get a little further along. Within the next couple of weeks, I plan to drop down to 5 or so posts a week, maybe 30 min. or so each.

    Best,
    Jenn

  3. Michelle Rafter says

    As Jackie and Jenn have pointed out, there’s a definite difference between the amount of time writers spend on paid blogging gigs v. blogs they use as marketing vehicles for their work. As you’d expect paid blogs=more time but more $$$. But sometimes the line gets blurred, especially if you’re blogging to build a platform, like Jenn is.

    I too am rethinking my blogging schedule after reading Ferriss’ opinion that fewer posts a week might be better. Since May I’ve posted every weekday, but come September I might shift to three or four days a week and use some of the time that I’d spent writing into promoting my blog and updating my social networks.

    Michelle Rafter

  4. imelda says

    It takes me sometimes under 5 minutes to post a photo with a blurb, tag it properly and categorize it and post it.

    Other times it could take me up to an hour to form my thoughts into something others can try and comprehend.

    It really varies for me. I like your answer much better.

  5. Roxanne says

    I post entries at least 5 days a week at .

    I set aside Monday afternoons (or sometimes Friday s) for blog writing, and I write all 5 entries back to back, then each morning I give the post a quick edit before posting first thing.

    I find that I’m MUCH faster if I do them all at once. Sometimes I can write all 5 in a couple of hours vs the potential for fiddling with each one every day for an hour or more.

    Early on a fellow blogger told me that you need to blog at least 5 days per week to be taken seriously, so once I got over the learning curve, that’s what I’ve done.

  7. Michelle Rafter says

    I pre-wrote a week’s worth of posts before going on vacation earlier this month and have to agree that although it took a couple hours, it was nice to get it out of the way all at once. Not sure I’d want to do that all the time, however, because I like being able to respond to events as they happen.

    Michelle R.

  8. Julie Sturgeon says

    I use social networking like a builder uses mortar. I have my foundational blocks of time scheduled throughout the day: write this article, interviews at 10, 11 and 2. So that time between hanging up the phone at 10 and picking it back up at 11 is too short to drag out notes and concentrate deeply enough to write an article. I fill the gap with checking LinkedIn, FLX, TwoPeas, LA-Story.com, and a host of other blogs I keep up with.

    As for writing my blog entries — mine is to promote a second business, so I chose an essay style. They write themselves in my head in the shower or on the treadmill.

  9. Dara Chadwick says

    I blog five days a week and typically, I’m working no more than a day or two in advance. But I’ve also found it helpful to keep a file of more broad topic posts, so that on days when I don’t have a lot of time to write or I’m not feeling particularly inspired, I have something fresh to post.

    I’m on LinkedIn, although I don’t do too much with it and I’ve yet to venture into the world of FaceBook.

  10. Kerry Dexter says

    I post two to four times a week at Music Road. I’ve just passed the two year mark keeping the blog going, and that pace seems to to suit my readers, my subject, and my schedule. I have a syndication contract which requires twelve posts a month, which fits in with that fine. Spend maybe half and hour to an hour on each post, usually. Sometimes write in advance, many times not.

    I have a number of contacts on LinkedIn but haven’t determined a really good way to make use of it, probably spend about an hour or two a month on there. I’m on the music side of MySpace, as I write about music, and I’ve found making connections and comments there to be helpful. Visit there briefly every week or so. I’m not on Facebook.

  11. Julie says

    Michele,
    I enjoy reading your blog, but don’t comment often (I’m an FLXer). I have a cooking blog, so it’s not very newsy at all. I try to post twice a week, but if I’m crazy busy or all my cooking involves developing recipes for work, I might only post once a week. I probably spend an hour per post on average. After over two years, I’ve gotten into a rhythm, and I enjoy doing it.

  12. cathmiller says

    Thank you so much for the tip on the wordpress editorial calender. I was jotting ideas into my paper diary for the week ahead, but this is going to be much more effective. I have installed the plugin and dragged some unscheduled draft posts in already. You are providing some great tips for the new blogger. Mine is just a hobby so I can share our beautiful property with my Mum who is 86 and slowing down. I have based it on the The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and am posting everyday on things I see, sometimes more than once. http://cathmiller.com/blog/

  13. Van Waffle says

    I could blog every day, but the challenge is staying on topic! There are too many things I want to think and write about that don’t fit neatly into my theme.