Blogging, I feel, is ever changing. What works for you today might not work for you tomorrow, and an idea you were super excited about two weeks ago might make you roll your eyes today. You might have wanted to write about that idea two weeks ago but you just couldn't find the time and didn't want to hold up your already crammed-into-your-life blogging schedule. The trouble is, unless you're a really successful blogger who has hundreds of thousands of monthly hits, you probably are just using blogging as a hobby. And with most hobbies, they are made to be fit into your day-to-day life as best you can.
For me, I'm definitely in the hobby group right now. I would absolutely love for blogging to be my full time job, but where I am right now that isn't happening. Do I have some ideas that could take me to the next level? Sure. But I feel like there is some work to be done to put me in a position where that can happen before I implement those things. So while I'm working toward that level, I am trying to find out how to make blogging work into my life so that I don't feel like I'm not giving it my all.
I have to imagine that this is a problem that most bloggers have. Life changes on a daily basis and things can happen to make a schedule that worked for you last week not work for you this week. This is essentially what happened to me the past couple weeks. I've mentioned before that I work in an accounting firm and our busiest time of the year is January-April. With it being January, I found that posting three times a week wasn't working for me anymore, so I bumped it down to two, which will be my schedule for the foreseeable future.
Today we're going to talk about finding your perfect blogging schedule. First let's talk about a couple flags to keep an eye out for that might mean that you should maybe change your schedule.
1/ You're running out of things to talk about
Coming up with original content on a regular basis is hard. There are certain gimmes, especially for me. I love to show unboxings and do reviews on different things, but coming up with actual original content is hard. If you're feeling this way, or that you're just coming up with ideas you aren't loving just for the sake of posting, maybe try cutting down your schedule by a day. Sometimes giving yourself the time away to breathe and think about things can actually help you come up with ideas. As many other bloggers say, and I fully agree, you should be focusing on quality not quantity. You should really try to avoid posting things you feel "meh" about.
2/ You don't have time to focus on other things in your life
Working a full- or part-time job and blogging is a lot of work. I've done both. I feel like I've been blogging for roughly a million years, as I had a "personal site" in high school, a Livejournal in high school and college, and then a couple blogs along the way. This one is definitely the one I've focused the most of my attention on though, and honestly it was kind of starting to get to me. While I love blogging, there are a lot of other things I love, too. I love to knit, I love to play video games, I love to read. I've been making time to knit, but I can't tell you the last video game I sat down and played or the last book I actually finished. When I first started this blog, I wanted to talk about books and video games, but it's a little counterproductive to spend all of my time on the blog and then not be able to spend time doing things I want to talk about on the blog. So try to give yourself enough time to dedicate to blogging, but also to have a life and enjoy your other hobbies.
So, now that we've identified some things that can cause you to switch up your schedule, here are some things you can do to make blogging work for you.
1/ Bulk write and take pictures
This one is huge for me, mostly with the pictures and less with writing. I generally take one day on the weekend and take all of my pictures for the week. I plan out pictures for my blog, as well as what I want to share on Instagram and other social media platforms. This is such a big help because generally by the time I get home from work, all I want to do is sit on the couch and turn my brain off. I'm not so great at bulk writing, although I would like to be. I think it would be helpful for me to do advance writing when I feel really excited about an idea at a specific time. Often I'll write down ideas and then by the time I go to write them, I don't feel that same excitement that I did before.
2/ Schedule your social media posts
Social media is an equally important part of blogging as actually making your blog. Nowadays there are endless ways to get your blog out there so take advantage of them! But they don't have to take up all of your time. I only really enjoy using Pinterest and Instagram. I'm much more of a visual person, so Twitter and Facebook are pretty lost on me. I just don't care much for them. But, I should, and this year I plan on using apps to help me plan out Twitter posts, and Facebook itself to plan out those posts. As for Instagram and Pinterest, I like to be more hands-on with them and actually scroll through and pin things. I've spoken before about how I'm trying to grow my Instagram and I'm getting there. I hit over 500 earlier this month (huzzah!) and I'm actually growing a little faster since then than I have in previous months. I would love to hit 1,000 followers by my birthday in March so I have been paying extra attention to growing that. But, scheduling your posts certainly helps for both of those platforms as well, and programs like Tailwind can help you out with that should you be interested in making your life a little easier.
On a side note, I'll probably be doing another Instagram post soon because I've found some interesting things and approaches that I would love to share with you guys. Let me know if you're interested in the comments! While I am far from an expert and don't necessarily have the following of other bigger bloggers, I think you can never have too much advice on growing your following!
3/ Write about what you love
This one seems like a no-brainer, right? But I think that people can get caught up in the shuffle a little bit. You should have a vision for your blog that is cohesive and a total reflection of you. For instance, I definitely consider myself a total geek. I love to read comics, I love Disney movies, Harry Potter is pretty much something that comes up in conversation on a daily basis for me; but I also love makeup and talking about lifestyle stuff, so it's easy for me to make a blog about that. It gets tempting sometimes, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, to talk about the things that are "click bait" or things that typically get a lot of hits. It can also be tempting to jump at any and every sponsored post or collaboration, even though it might not have anything to do with what you love to write about. Things like that are very transparent, and it isn't fair to you or your current/potential readers to be anything but true to you and what you love. If you work hard and put yourself out there, people who love what you love will find you and come to you. It gets discouraging and sometimes you will want to give up, but trust me when I say that in the end, it will all be worth it!
Do you have any tips or tricks to finding the perfect blogging schedule or finding time to fit everything in? Let us all know in the comments below so we can be blogging scheduling pros in no time!
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