Write What You Know
The most time consuming part of writing blog posts is any research you have to do. If you write about what you know you won’t have to do that research and you will be sharing your personal expertise with others without really having to think about it.
Write about your hobby, your career, your family, your kids and share the value that you have learned from your experience. Turn your expertise into a blog post with a catchy headline, interesting subheadings, some eye catching images and hey presto what you know turns into a blog post.
Write Your Notes Directly Into A WordPress Post.
Have an idea? Then when you can just go directly into wordpress and start your post. There’s no point writing notes down somewhere else when you can type straight away into the source.This is exactly what I’m doing at the moment. I’ve had an idea – 10 ways to write a blog post super quickly. And I’m typing my thoughts directly into wordpress so it will become part of the article.
Use Your Phone To Do Timesaving Tasks
I quite often do pinterest pics using the canva app on my phone because I find I can do certain pictures quickly if I use canva’s templates. The canva app is more limited on the phone but if you just need to use a template, it can be super quick to complete a pinterest post.
When you promote your posts it can also be much quicker to use your smartphone to pin and share on facebook. These kind of tasks can be done on the go as well when you have a few minutes with nothing else to do.
Some bloggers reply to comments on posts on their phone.
Find out tasks you can do regarding your blog on your phone and see if you can complete them more quickly on a mobile device.
Use a Post Template
Many bloggers follow a post template. This can be the way they set up their articles. They may start with a heading, followed by an image, followed by some text and then another image. They can layout a draft post on wordpress and then duplicate it (you will need to upload a wordpress plugin to duplicate your posts)
Once you have a draft post template laid out you don’t have to worry about the layout of each post. You don’t have to think about how each page will be divided up into sections for each blog post as it already has been done.
Some bloggers go further than this and they will have word limits and a set number of sections for each posts. So you could have a 200 word limit for the introduction to your post and a 200 word conclusion with 10 different subheadings and paragraphs in between. Personally I don’t go this far. I just stick to having a draft post template on wordpress but it’s something that does work for some people and can cut down time spent on blog posts.
Having a post layout or template may seem like it could be boring for reader. But it has the advantage of making the blog easier to read and to follow as the reader learns to know what to expect.
Make Blogging A Habit
Set blogging goals. My goal at the moment as I am setting up this blog is to blog everyday. I find if I stop and don’t do something everyday, the blog will lose momentum and may eventually fizzle out. How do I know this? From past blogging failiures. I start blogging. It gets hard. I can’t find enough time. I don’t blog for a few days. The days between blog posts get more and more. Before you know it, I’ve finished blog. The blog has ended before it’s begun.
It’s important to make blogging a habit and stick to it. Consider working on your blog or writing everyday even if you can’t post each day as you will build momentum. If you leave it a few days between working on your blog it can be difficult to get that momentum back.
Write A Series of Posts
At the moment one of the things that really interests me is becoming zero waste and using less plastic. I have therefore decided to write a series of posts on the zero waste topic splitting zero waste down into lots of different niches. This has lots of advantages.
Firstly timewise, when I do research for zero waste it can apply for a number of my planned posts so one session of research can shorten the time spent on several posts. Secondly, I can link between posts so that people who come to my blog for one article, may end up reading several articles from my series of posts as they are interested in that particular topic.
Connect Your Blog and Your LIfe
If there’s something you want to acheive in your life or something you’re really interested in, blog about it. You can do this in a number of ways. It might involve a challenge you set yourself (one that will catch your reader’s imagination). It could be running a marathon and the training you do. Or perhaps it is raising a certain amount of money for chartiy. Give up a habit such as smoking. Or do something bizarre for 30 days such as only spend £2 a day.
What else is happening in your life which might provide value or information that is relevant to your readers. Perhaps it is blogging about a day out, a recipe you are trying, an exercise goal you have or a new project at work.
Connecting your blog and your life can make blogging faster. You can take pictures and videos of what you are doing in your everyday life for your blog. It can help keep the momentum for your blog as you are really interested in what you are writing about.
If You Have 15 Minutes, Work on Your Blog (don’t check Facebook!)
Those 15 minutes here and there can really add up. You can achieve a lot in a short amount of time and you’re generally fresh to the task and enthusiastic. Short bursts of work can really do wonders (as can longer periods spent).
Write What You Feel Passionate About in the Moment
Sometimes you really feel like writing a post. It wasn’t what you have been working on but in that moment it really interests you. But there is a little nagging voice in your head saying, you should really be finishing another blog post or doing something else.
Go with what really interests you that day. You will write quicker and be more productive on that topic rather than forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do. On another day you will feel more like finishing off that other blog post or task and will be more productive at that time.
Apply the 80/20 Rule when Blogging
The 80/20 rule also known as the Pareto Principle is a great one to bear in mind when blogging. Essentially it means that 20% of the effort you put in will result in 80% of the results. You want to apply this rule to blogging to work smartly rather than harder. Cut down on the blogging activites that are wasting your time. Work out what you are doing that isn’t giving you the results when blogging and than cut down on that activity.
So here are some ways that it could be put into practice. Perhaps you are spending a lot of time researching your posts and you end up discarding a lot of the research. So that time was essentially wasted.
You could be spending ages creating the perfect pinterest graphic by for your post by changing colours and fonts. But really the first option you did was definitely good enough.
You may write a perfectly good blog post but spend ages rewording parts or moving around text when most people are just going to scan the article anyway.
There are some things that take time that are important. For example, checking spelling and grammer but it’s measuring and finding those tasks that are taking 80% of the time you spend putting together a blog post but which aren’t adding much value. And then cutting them out.