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5 Productivity Hacks for Bloggers

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By Abby Perkins

A blogger’s time is one of the most important aspects of their profession. The slightest distraction can be incredibly costly to their productivity – especially if those distractions are persistent. There’s no question about it – wasting time prevents bloggers from performing at their highest level.

However, there are productivity hacks that can help bloggers manage their time more effectively.

clean organized desk

1. De-clutter your workspace

The best thing any blogger can do is set up a dedicated work space that is free from any possible distractions. An untidy work environment can leave you preoccupied and unfocused.

When you establish a place of order and structure, your thoughts become clearer and your mind becomes more focused, allowing you to be more creative and stay on task. Keep the area you work in clean and uncluttered – and, if you can, make it completely separate from communal areas like the living room or kitchen.

2. Disconnect from distractions

Bloggers can be a lot more productive without the distraction of a cell phone or the constant buzz of incoming emails. Though these things don’t seem like a big deal, they’re often a bigger distraction than we realize. Download a service like Pocket to help you stay focused, especially if you find yourself frequently distracted by articles and videos when you really should be working.

There are also services like Inbox Pause and StayFocusd to turn off email notifications or block certain distracting websites during certain periods of time.

3. Take notes and plan ahead

Journaling is an effective way to get unstructured thoughts and ideas down on paper. Once you’ve written out your thoughts, you can more easily organize them into actual blog posts and articles.

It doesn’t require much of your time, but organizing ideas by developing a schedule will also help you become a more successful blogger by allowing you to plan your time more accurately. If you write ideas down as they come to mind, you’ll be less likely to forget them later, and planning ahead will help you be more productive the following day.

4. Outsource research and writing assignments

A blogger’s work can get overwhelming. If you find yourself with a backlog of writing and not enough time to do it, it can be beneficial to consider paying someone to do research or write blog posts on your behalf. Outsourcing your work helps you save time, while letting you maintain control and consistency over your work. You can relax or complete other duties while other people deliver results for your blog.

One thing to keep in mind – if you’re outsourcing content, make sure you and the freelancers you work with have a clear understanding about things like pay, author credit, content ownership and more.

5. Switch up your location

The human mind craves stimulation. Working in the same area every day can lead to burnout and stress. If it’s possible, make an attempt to work in a different location once a week or every other week. You could go work in the park, in the local library or in the corner of a coffee shop. Changing your location is an great way to gain a new perspective and regain your focus on writing.

Whether you blog for fun or it’s your main source of income, everyone can agree that there are never enough hours in the day. These productivity hacks will save you time and increase your efficiency.

What are your favorite blogging productivity tips?

Author’s Bio: Abby Perkins is Editor in Chief at Talent Tribune, where she writes about jobs, workplace culture, and HR technology.

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Is your productivity productive?

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“Does it generate revenue?”

This is one of the questions that floated around the room during our Genius Shared retreat in Chicago a few months ago.

clock says time lost cannot be regained

We were discussing goals, productivity, and action plans (things that send a tingle up the spine of every productivity nerd).

But many of us forget to apply the “does it generate revenue” test to our actions.

If you’re running a business, this has to be the litmus test for everything we do during working hours. Not that every single thing you do has a direct line to revenue, just that you get those things done FIRST.

Yes, you can write a blog post (just make sure you’ve optimized it with a call to action).

Yes, you can Tweet (just track results…have you created a social segment in Google Analytics?).

No, you can’t keep your personal Facebook page open on your desktop all day.

Yes, you can attend a luncheon for people in your industry (just go in with a plan to chat with potential partners).

No, you don’t need to check email more than 5 times in an 8 hour work day.

Yes, you can go for a run after you accomplish that one big revenue-generating thing for the day.

On a day-to-day basis, make sure that you’re investing time in the things that will keep your business moving forward.

What are you doing FIRST today? Does it generate revenue?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

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Five ideas to supercharge Q4 for your business

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Ah, Q4.

This is when you told that vendor you’d get back to her.

This is when you were going to have saved enough to give out raises to your staff.

This is when you were going to have published that e-book.

Remember January and all of its promises?

In the early part of the year, “we’ll take care of that in Q4” is an easy answer.

Now those IOU’s are coming due. It’s September.

Don’t sit back and cry into your pumpkin spice latte. Roll up your sleeves and fly through the finish line like a sprinter at full speed.

sprinters lined up

Five Ideas for Finishing the Year Strong

1. Re-read and update your annual goals document

Hopefully at the beginning of the year you started executing on a plan, working toward goals for the year. Have you been checking in on those goals and updating your progress? If not, now is the time to do a checkup. Depending on the type of goal, use analytics, sales reports, financial statements, or whatever will help you measure.

For goals that are on-track, high five yourself and your team. For goals that are languishing, huddle with your colleagues and figure out what’s happened. Ask these questions:

  • Is the goal still important? (perhaps something has shifted in your strategy that makes the goal unimportant
  • If it’s still important, do you need to adjust the metric? Consider whether your original goal may have been unrealistic.
  • If the original goal was realistic, and it’s still important, have the difficult meeting. Gather the team and ask hard questions about why things went off track. Is there a process that must be changed? Did you not align the right resources? Do you have a staff problem? Was the goal unclear? Work through these and come up with solutions that will get you moving toward achieving the goal with renewed energy.

2. Find the thing you’ve procrastinated all year and do it

If you have that sinking feeling that you’re ending the year with a whimper, ask yourself why. Is there something you really hoped to do, but failed to commit to as a priority?

Take that one thing, break it down into a few steps, and put one foot in front of the other.

Tell a trusted colleague about the task and why you’ve found it daunting. Getting input from an outside perspective may be enough to get you unstuck. There’s a really great app called Unstuck that can help too.

3. Start a project

This one sounds really counterintuitive, but it works.

Pretend it’s January first and tackle a new project. Breathe energy into your business by starting something that will take your business to the next level. Don’t fall into the trap of saying, “we’ll start that next year.”

4. Talk to all of your clients/customers before the end of the year

Talk about paying huge dividends. Challenge yourself to see every one of your customers or clients before the end of the year. It may not be feasible to travel to all of them, but it’s so easy to set up Google Hangouts or Skype conversations.

Taking this one step will build your relationships, strengthen your business, and end the year on a fantastic note. Reach out to your customers with no agenda other than saying hello and asking how they’re doing. Then listen.

5. Use the budgeting process to speak to prospects at the right time

The other magical thing about Q4 is that many companies go through their budgeting process for the upcoming year.

This is an excellent time to reach out to prospects or people who have expressed an interest in your services. Get the cost of your services built into their budget right now, and you’re ready to hit the ground running next year.

You also have an opportunity to act as a coach for a prospect at this time of year, helping them solve problems and end their 2014 on a high note. Make them look like a hero by providing advice at the moment they’re looking for it.

What steps are you taking to make sure you’re building momentum through the end of the year?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

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How to tame social media’s sound and fury

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“Out, out, brief candle! Social media’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (almost) Macbeth Quote (Act V, Scene V).

You’re building a business, right?

That means you should be spending most of your time making your product or services as amazing as they can be. You need to focus.

single black dot on red field

Social media is one little piece of your marketing puzzle, so it shouldn’t be absorbing large chunks of your day, even if you’re a solo entrepreneur who’s running everything.

“But I’m getting alerts across my screen all day long,” you say.

In the immortal words of Chef Gordon Ramsey: Shut. It. Down.

If you truly are building a business, you must create space for innovation, planning, face-to-face contact with customers, and other things that take you away from a computer screen.

Tips for Putting Social Media Back in its Place

  • Don’t let social status updates absorb time throughout the day. If you’re going to curate content, use scheduling tools like Buffer or Hootsuite, so that you can stay focused.
  • Start your marketing planning with your actual business goals, not with a new tool you just heard about.
  • Don’t get caught in the social media echo chamber. Be sure you read widely, on a variety of topics that support your business.
  • For each social network you use, have a reason why you’re using it. And be sure that reason is related to your business plan.
  • Stop saying social media is “free.” It’s not. Your time is worth money.
  • Dedicate blocks of time to your social media strategy, and the rest of the time shut off the alerts, close the Facebook tab, and set your phone to vibrate. You really don’t need to see the notification that Joe and Stacy are talking about Zac Efron on Twitter.
  • Remember that nothing is set in stone, particularly when it comes to social media tactics. Trust your own gut more than some “guru” who doesn’t know your business.
  • If you have a choice between Tweeting a customer and talking on the phone, choose the phone. Better yet, meet for coffee.

Above all, keep it in perspective. It can seem as though everything revolves around social media, but your customers just want your fantastic product/service, delivered with a smile. Everything else is just “sound and fury.”

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

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Train Your Brain Like a Boss

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One of the most important pieces of equipment you need as a business owner is a healthy brain. You have to be able to make good decisions, think creatively, and respond to new challenges on a daily basis.

We don’t understand a lot about our brains. For example, we’ve been told we typically only use 10% of our brain. According to this myth-busting video from asapSCIENCE, we use all of it, all of the time. (So we don’t have to worry about Lucy happening any time soon.)

My favorite way to keep my brain sharp is doing the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. It’s available in digital format, but I love the paper version.

But you’re not limited to puzzles; the brain training trend has resulted in a variety of cool methods to keep your mental facilities in shape.

Brain Training Apps

Lumosity is a brain training and neuroscience company that offers both web-based and mobile apps. They will design a specific training regimen for you, based on a questionnaire, and provide statistics to show your progress. The games within the apps are fun and challenging.

focus@will App claims to be able to increase your attention span by 400%, using neuroscience based music channels. Their research shows that by listening to a specific type of music, your brain will respond by focusing more deeply on the task at hand.

Fit Brains from Rosetta Stone (the language learning folks) is another website that offers games tailored to training your brain for problem-solving, concentration, and memory skills.

Brain Training on TV

Wait. I thought it was called “the boob tube.” Perhaps it’s not so stupid after all.

The History Channel’s “Your Bleeped Up Brain” is a one hour show (currently on hiatus) that offers a light-hearted take on brain-related research. Find out how your brain separates fact from fiction, why some people have better memories, and how humans are often fooled by simple deceptions.

National Geographic Channel has Brain Games, an Emmy nominated series that uses intricate experiments to demonstrate the inner workings of the brain. Many of the experiments on the show are also available on the interactive website. Do you know whether a lightning strike or a wild bear is more likely to kill you?

Brain Training in Your Living Room

We bought a Mindflex as a gag gift last year, but it turned out to be fascinating. You wear a headset that makes contact with your temples, and power the movement of a ping pong ball through a series of obstacles. You can also go up against an opponent and try to push the ball over their goal line while they push in the opposite direction.

Physical exercise has been shown to increase your brain power too. So while you’re doing your Zumba, you’re training your brain!

How are you taking good care of your brain?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Business Planning for the Time Crunched

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The other day, I caught myself after 7pm, listening to a business podcast, scanning through a research report that is relevant to my business, and periodically glancing over to my iPhone, which was buzzing to alert me about new emails and social media updates from my friends and colleagues.

Did I mention that the television was on in the background?

Even typing that paragraph, I’m getting a headache.

Pretty sure that none of those activities advanced my business one iota. In fact, they probably set me back because my brain was in a tortured, fractured state.

brain on Instagram

Deep breath.

Deep breath.

If you spend your “working hours,” roughly 9am to 5pm (haha) reacting to stimuli, you’re heading for a business rut.

How is your business going to move up to the next level if you’re spending your day putting out fires and your evening “catching up?”

You need to get ahead of the game and stay there if you want to innovate, use your creative juices, and make progress.

Practical Suggestions for Making Time to Plan Your Business

  • Schedule it. The same way you block out time for a customer phone call, make an appointment for your planning. Take a minute right now and block out one hour this week for business planning.
  • Stop multi-tasking. During meetings and conference sessions, leave the devices in your briefcase. Extract the full value of the relationships and information you invested in when you scheduled the meeting or registered for the conference. If you’re listening to a business podcast, really listen and take notes. There’s no award for doing the most stuff at one time.
  • Make a dashboard. Keep your finger on the pulse of your business metrics on a routine basis. Establish the numbers you need to track, and then pull them all into one spreadsheet. This will allow you to spot trends and take action before the fire flares up.
  • Narrow down your consumption. If you’re overwhelmed by your blog subscriptions, emails and social updates, hit the unsubscribe button on a few of them. Focus on quality, not quantity.
  • Move a big rock every morning. Start each day with a “win,” and knock off something that will actually give you progress. Do that before you answer the phone, before you check email, and before your colleagues start sending you Buzzfeed articles.
  • Have a business retreat You don’t have to have a large team, or go to a dude ranch for “trust exercises.” Plan each year to get away (even if it’s only virtually) and spend dedicated time working on the business. Evaluate the previous year, plan the upcoming year, and get your mind focused. Put an “out of office” message on your email, same with voicemail, and take a hiatus from social media. Emerge refreshed and ready to conquer the world.

How often do you step back and work on your business?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee