Manage a blog in part-time with these 5 productivity hacks

Blogging consumes a lot of time and energy, especially for those who manage a blog in part-time. Keyword planning, researching, drafting, proofreading, publishing, and marketing — All these are time-consuming, yet essential activities for building a good blog. I’ve experienced how challenging it gets to keep the editorial ball moving while you’re on a full-time job that leaves you enervated by the end of the day. During my college days, I was averaging around 3 posts a week, and now with a 9 to 5 job, I can write only 1-3 posts a month. What a miserable end of productivity!

I turned up to MyBlogU and asked fellow bloggers regarding solutions to this problem. My friends over there responded with some fantastic tips that I am going to share in this post today. I hope that this post will be of immense help for all the busy part-time bloggers to help them manage a blog successfully.

Tip 1: Carry an index card to jot down all spontaneous ideas

The first hurdle to managing a blog in part-time is to plan what to write. Here is what Matthew Gates of MyPost.io shares:

Carry around an index card and a pen with you. Whatever comes to mind, just write it down.

Matthew Gates

Raelyn Tan, another fellow blogger at MyBlogU elaborates on this idea and says that:

I use a tool like Evernote (notebook on the cloud, but a paper notebook would work too) to plan what I would post on my website ahead of time. I have noticed that the biggest inertia always results right at the start before we sit down and write something new. So knowing exactly what topic is scheduled for the day would at least give you more motivation to write because you do not have to think about what to write about for that day because everything has already been planned beforehand.

Raelyn Tan

I liked this idea of jotting down random ideas in one place. And, if you don’t like to carry around an index card with a pen every-time, you can always jot down the raw ideas on your smartphone itself.

Do you know? These days, you can even manage a blog from your mobile device. Here are the best free blogging apps for iPhone and iPad.

Tip 2: Draft many articles at once without publishing

Matthew further elaborates on the above tip and says:

Write a bunch of articles at once but don’t publish them. Once you have a good solid 10 articles, aim to write at least 1-2 per week, while publishing 1-2 per week.

Matthew gates

Spending at least one day out of a month just writing as many draft articles as you can is a great strategy to build content for your blog and manage it in part-time. Then we can aim for writing 1-2 articles every week and simultaneously publishing 1-2 during the same time. Matthew, thanks for sharing such a unique and interesting strategy.

Tip 3: Get organised with an editorial calendar

Here is what another fellow blogger, Chris Brantner, founder of Sleepzoo said:

As someone who has run several successful blogs over the years, I can tell you that one of the most important things you can do is to get organized. For me, that means having my content calendar planned out fully at least two months in advance, scheduling social media campaigns, and having a central place to track the progress of all important projects. The best tool I’ve found for doing all of this is Co-schedule. Co-schedule is a blog calendar tool that makes it incredibly simple to plan your content calendar down to the minute, create tasks, communicate with your team, schedule social media campaigns and automate social posts, and a whole lot more. When you’re well organized, you execute more successfully and get better results from your blogging.

Chris Brantner

Co-Schedule as a productivity app for bloggers has also been shared by one of my guest bloggers before. It looks promising, but I find it expensive. Perhaps, an alternative free way to plan your editorial calendar in advance is to use an app called Any.do. No doubt, Co-Schedule might be a powerful calendar specifically tailored for the content marketers, but given the cost versus utility comparison, I would settle with the premium version of Any.do, which costs only 3% of what Co-Schedule’s essential branded plan costs when billed annually.

Tip 4: Use social media management tools

In line with what Chris suggested above, I would like to add the importance of using social media management tools like Buffer app and Hootsuite. For part-time bloggers like us, such tools can be super productive to manage a blog efficiently. We should spend at least 1 day in a week (like either of the weekends) to add relevant posts to our social media feed and then schedule them on a weekly basis as per our preferred dates and time in advance. This saves a lot of time.

Tip 5: Solicit help from guest bloggers or hire writers

As a per-time blogger, when you are short on time but still want to manage your blog in good health, it’s fine to solicit help from guest bloggers. There is no paucity of good guest bloggers who will happily write fresh content for your blog. However, it’s natural for them to expect a reciprocating thanks in the form of a link or mention to their websites. You get fresh content and they get the desired exposure. That’s a win-win, and this is how the industry works. But you’ve to be extra cautious while dealing with guest bloggers as you may need to control spam and possibilities of plagiarism. Accept only those guest articles which are relevant to your blog niche, and before publishing make some due diligence by investing your time in proofreading – checking for language, grammar, consistency and most importantly, plagiarism.

Another option is to hire writers when you’re not comfortable linking to external websites as in the case with engaging guest bloggers. I’ve never tried hiring writers, but I’ve known some top bloggers in the niche like Neil Patel doing this. Professional writers charge on $ per word basis. You can easily find them on websites like Freelancer or even for a $5 gig on Fivver.

How do you manage a blog in part-time?

I compiled this post based upon my personal experience dealing with the problem and using the best tips and advice received from fellow bloggers at MyBlogU. Are you also a part-time blogger? What’s your time management strategy and how do you succeed at managing your blog in part-time. We look forward to seeing your comments below.