Blogger 101: How to Simplify Your Blogging Life

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Most bloggers like myself have started off this venture as a hobby - something to do on your free time. Eventually, as you get more readers and more opportunities come knocking at your door, it requires a serious commitment of time and effort. Even when you are doing blogging as a part-time venture, your schedule can be pretty hectic fairly quickly. Blogging looks a lot like this:

* Outfit planning
* Taking photos of your outfit
* Writing the post
* Promoting the post (across all social media channels)
* Networking and blog commenting
* Publishing posts to your social network sites
* Checking and responding to your emails, etc.

Suddenly, what would normally take up an hour or so in your day-to-day routine will look like a full time job of its own. Not so easy, right? It's hard to fathom that these tasks are only scratching the surface as far as your long-term blogging goals are concerned. You have to make editorial planning, brand negotiations, handling affiliate and partnership programs, and many more. There is so much to do!

With so many tasks to accomplish (on top of a regular day job), you could easily get burned. Poor habits and procrastination won't help either. Here are a few tricks that I've used to simplify my blogging life and get more done (in less time):

Batch Your Tasks

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I do this a lot. And it has worked wonders. When you have so much to do at once, you could easily neglect a few duties that you need to take care of. To avoid that, I do my post scheduling, photo shoots, and blog writing at once. This will help me accomplish more in less time, especially when I get some free time. This will allow continued posting on your blog and social media even when a few unexpected things arise in your schedule.

Scheduling

As I mentioned above, scheduling posts is one of the best things to happen to blogging (and social media). There are a lot of websites or apps that allow you to schedule your social media posts in your preferred time and dates so you do not have to be on your Twitter or Facebook all the time!

Figure Out When You're Most Productive

Some bloggers are more productive in the morning while others prefer working at night. Figure out which time of the day you are most efficient. In some cases, you have no choice because you have to depend on what is available in your schedule, but get as much as you can get done when you are in the mood.

Plan!

I admit - I am a little obsessive compulsive. I plan my activities at least a week in advance because I hate cramming! I do keep a little spreadsheet wherein I create a schedule of my post for the next week or two. That way, I don't end up scrambling for post ideas and I can brainstorm without worrying about not having anything to publish today or tomorrow.

Got more tips to simplify your blogging routine? I'd love to hear them!