When I first started this blog almost four years ago (jeeezz) I was a second year university student. I started my blog because I was about to go into my second of university, and I’d transferred meaning that my second year would be at a totally new place and in a totally new city. With Henry working most weekends, I found myself pretty lonely and homesick. Writing a blog really helped me and distracted me from feeling on my own, of course back then, although hectic at some parts, the majority of my time was spent doing however I wanted. I would blog live and post a post whenever I felt like it and just blogged when it took my fancy. Even in my third year of university, amongst my dissertation and several work projects, I still always found time to blog, and would never dream of scheduling a bunch of posts. Also a year into blogging, I started to make YouTube videos, however filmed when I felt like it and edited very shabbily with good old Windows Movie Maker meant that I never really spent too long on them.
Fast forward to now, and well blogging is now my job which means I have a lot more time to blog and create content. However if you go back a few months, I worked full time alongside writing my blog. Though it was hard to fit everything in, I did find a way of trying to do everything within my time, and hopefully you’ll find it useful too if you work full time and blog!
Plan, Plan and Plan:
First things first when it comes to blog posts and videos, I make several lists. I write lists of ideas, these tend to pop up when I’m walking Frankie, at my desk, sometimes when I’m drifting off to sleep, and I will always pop down on the notes section on my phone. I’ll then come back to them when I’m writing posts and taking photos. I would make a calendar of blog posts which may sound very professional, but this just helps me to see what’s going on and what I’ve blogged about. I found some content calendar templates online and through Pinterest and just edited them myself to fit my blog.
Work Out A Routine:
First of all be realistic, I was burning myself out trying to write 5+ posts a week and working full time, this just wasn’t happening. I sat down and thought if my favourite blogger only wrote a post once a week, I wouldn’t stop reading, I’d appreciate how many posts they wrote. So I used to aim for 3-4 a week. I’m not one of those people who’s prepared to stay up till 1am every morning and just spend all weekend tapping away, I’m one of those people who needs sleep, lazy chill out time and a break away from the computer. So I’d try to just get as many posts up as I could and would try to stick to posting on certain days to keep a routine.
Schedule!:
I would always sit down at the weekend and whack out three or four blog posts in a couple of hours, it’s completely different to the way I used to work back at uni , but I found this is the most efficient for me. I would of course sometimes come home in the evening and write a post and sometimes I’d sit down at the weekend and spend 2 hours on one post. It happens. Sometimes I’d even write a quick post on my lunch break, but of course this didn’t always happen. Although I do miss the days of just writing a post and letting it be published there and then, this just wouldn’t happen anymore. I had to be organised or my blog posts would be very sporadic!
Take Photos In Bulk:
Once every couple of weeks, I have a mass photography session, I’ve been finding taking photos really hard, because I feel everyone has seriously upped their game when it comes to blog photography. I’ve never been one of those creative people who just knows where to place items in a pretty order, so I do struggle, however I just try to make my backgrounds white and clear and add a few props such as flowers, candles etc.. I usually take about as many photos as I need usually 100+ (wowza) and then I have a bank of photos ready to use alongside posts.
Using Handy Tools:
One thing I used to find a right ball ache was posting the links to posts through my twitter and social sites. So I’m going to share with you a big handy secret tool of mine, and be very honoured that I’m sharing this with you.. It’s a website called iffttt.. you create recipes so you link your blog to your twitter and every time you post a blog post, it automatically sends a tweet out. This saves me so much time and just means I have do one less thing (wahooo more time for naps) you can do so much on the website, I also change my instagram pictures to twit pics, as instagram isn’t very user friendly on twitter! Seriously so glad I found this website, so so handy.
Although I no longer have a full time job alongside blogging, these things all really helped me to manage time and make sure I still made time for my blog. I left my job for a few reasons but if you are organised although it’s hard, working full time and blogging can totally work, it’s all about the organisation and if you love blogging, it won’t seem like too much of a chore 🙂 do you have any tips for blogging when you have a busy schedule?
