Has this ever happened to you?
You are lying awake at night, not being able to sleep.
There is a heavy burden on your shoulders.
Then you feel it crawling down to your chest, making it hard for you to breathe.
For far too long have you consciously neglected the root of the problem, but now you realize that it doesn’t help.
Whenever you open your eyes, the problem is still there…
…and it’s growing.
You know that you have to face reality, even though it’s hard.
And finally you admit to yourself that if you don’t take care of the problem now, it will silently choke your dear blog to death.
What’s the monster terrorizing you at night?
Lack of time.
If you have felt this way, no worries. I’ve been there too.
Relax, there’s still hope.
You can cure this illness once and for all.
1. Decide to do something about the problem
Having been able to identify the problem is just the first part, but the problem doesn’t miraculous disappear by itself.
You have to decide to do something about it.
Notice that I didn’t use the words wish, want or try in the sentence above. Those words are for daydreamers.
I used the word decide, which means to cut off all other options. When you decide, the choice has been chiseled into a stone tablet.
You will see the plan through, no matter what.
Do you know who’s the most important person in your life?
If you answered, yourself, then it’s a high five for you.
*Slap*
Of course, you probably love your family more than anything in the world. However, only you can make the decision and take the control of your own life.
Are you ready to take charge of your life?
Good.
In order for you to do that, it’s important that you find your why.
2. Finding your why
Regarding any type of goal you set and any decision you make, your true why will be the most important factor when it comes to following through.
The stronger your why is, the higher is the chance that you will achieve the goal.
Let`s say that you have a little girl and she’s with you in the grocery store. She wants candy, even though it’s not Saturday. (When I grew up in Norway, we had a tradition called Saturday’s candy, which resulted in that we, the kids, were only allowed candy on Saturdays.)
At first, you say no to your little girl, because there is no reason she should get candy that day.
And we all know, that giving candy to your children every day, would only transfer the money from your kid’s college fund to the dentist.
Good for the dentist and double bad for your kids.
Having dentures and starting to work at McDonald’s, while your friends go to college with nice looking teeth, is a bad start for your kids’ teenage years.
Then your girl starts giving you the cute Bambi eyes, and you realize that you are only human, and that giving her candy just for today, couldn’t really hurt.
On the flip side, if your little girl wants to put her hands into the fireplace, it doesn’t matter how cute her eyes are, the answer is no.
Why?
Because there is a strong reason behind the decision. You get the point. You need to find a strong reason for WHY you should make more time for your blogging.
Maybe your situation is one of the following:
- You blog on the side, so you can earn money for your kids college funds
- You blog part-time in order to quit your full-time job, which you hate
- You have taken the leap and quit your job in order to do blogging full-time
No matter what the reason is, it`s crucial that it’s a very strong reason for YOU. A strong enough reason that will kick you in the butt, so you can make time for blogging.
Have you found your reason?
Great, let’s continue.
3. Analyze your current schedule
There are two parts of the analyzing process:
- Identify how many extra hours you want to free up
- Get an overview of your weekly schedule (include details on all your activities each day of the week)
Once you have set your goal, you know how many hours you have to free up from your existing schedule.
Since we can’t produce more hours per day, we have to prioritize differently.
Let`s say your goal is to free up 4 more hours per week.
Then it’s over to part 2.
A nice method is to use a spreadsheet (in excel) and make a detailed plan of ALL the activities that you need to do EVERY SINGLE day, each day of the week.
I will now show you a method that has increase my productivity by 100 %.
Prioritize the tasks using the ABCDE method
A :Tasks I must do – serious consequences if it doesn’t get done
B: Tasks I should do – mild consequences if it doesn’t get done
C: Tasks I could do – no consequences if it doesn’t get done
D: Tasks I delegate
E: Tasks I never do
Never do a B task before you have done all the A tasks, and you never do a C task before you have done all the B tasks, etc.
The 80/20 rule
Apply the 80/20 rule: you need to identify each day, which 20% of the tasks on your to do list will give you 80% of the results.
Example of Tuesday:
Time Activity Priority Amount of time
07-08: Activity 1 Priority C 1 hour
08-10: Activity 2 Priority B 2 hours
10-12: Activity 3 Priority C 2 hours
12-14: Activity 4 Priority C 2 hours
14-17: Activity 5 Priority A 3 hours
17-18: Activity 6 Priority D 1 hour
18-19: Activity 7 Priority E 1 hour
Total amount of working hours this day: 12 hours.
4. Reschedule
If we apply the ABCDE method I mentioned above, your day should look like this.
Example of rescheduled Tuesday
Time Activity Priority Amount of time
07-10: Activity 5 Priority A 3 hours
10-12: Activity 2 Priority B 2 hours
12-13: Activity 1 Priority C 1 hour
13-15: Activity 3 Priority C 2 hours
15-17: Activity 4 Priority C 2 hours
Total amount of working hours this day: 10 hours.
What happened to the tasks with priority D and E?
One task was delegated and the other eliminated. Perhaps you’re not able to move around all the tasks as you like, but you get the point.
Your schedule will probably consist of several smaller activities, and they will probably be harder to categorize (ABCDE). However, practice makes you better.
In the example above, you managed free up 2 more hours per day. That’s 10 more hours per week!
Let`s say that you only managed to free up 1 more hour per day, that`s still great. That gives you up to 5 hours more per week to spend on your blog.
5. Make the sacrifice
Everything has a price.This is the price for your extra amount of blogging hours. If your why is strong, this should now be an easy choice for you to make.
6. Work on your blog
Since you now have made a big sacrifice and freed up X amount of more hours for your blog, I have to say please…Let me say that again…PLEASE, for your own sake, do spend the time correctly on your blog.
Spend them on the most income generating tasks for your blog. Which would probably be networking with other bloggers, creating content and products.
7. Be proud and sleep tight
You have made it! Pat yourself on the back.
Now you can finally get a good night sleep.
To be quite honest. I didn’t really have the time to write this blog post today. But I made time.
Why?
Because creating content is one of the most important activities for bloggers.
How?
I rescheduled other tasks.
If I can do it, you can too.
You have the recipe. Good luck!
Do you have any experience with having too little time for blogging? What did you do to fix it?
