25 Productivity Tips for Bloggers: How to Get More Sh!t Done!

Do you struggle with getting things done? 

Would you like to know how to make the most out of your time so that you can start crushing your blogging goals? 

If you’ve been blogging for a minute, you know that it requires a lot of work. Even more so for those that work a full time job and have a family. 

In order to make the most impact with your blog, you have to be able to manage your time wisely. It’s not how much time you’re spending working on your blog that matters, it’s the amount of work that you’re able to complete while working on it. 

This is why I decided to compile a list of productivity tips for bloggers and other content creators who wish to see more results from their blogging efforts. It’s 2022, a new year, and a fresh start to becoming a better you and a better blogger.

Do you struggle to get things done?

The problem many bloggers face, and the reason why most bloggers give up is a lack of results, which is often caused by a lack of productivity. 

The truth is, most people have a hard time completing the more challenging aspects of blogging such as writing high-quality blog posts. It’s great when we are feeling motivated and focused, but what happens when that motivation goes away?

If you really want to become a successful blogger you must be willing to make sacrifices. I struggled for many years with productivity. I would sit in front of my computer for hours and hours working on my blog, but for some unknown reason, I wasn’t producing any results. 

It would take me weeks to finish a blog post. I struggled with perfection. I struggled with distractions. It would take me forever to complete any task I was trying to complete. 

It was depressing and I definitely wasted a lot of time, but at the same time, those struggles are what developed me into the confident and productive blogger I am today. By gradually implementing these important productivity tips and techniques into your own life, you’ll begin to see more and more results with your blog. 

What causes a lack of productivity?

In order to become a more productive blogger, understanding what exactly is holding you back is a good place to start. Here are 4 common problems that might be affecting your productivity. 

Distractions 

Blogging definitely has its perks, but it also comes with its fair share of distractions. Checking social media platforms, watching tv, browsing the internet are all culprits that cause a lack of productivity. Pretty much anything that takes your attention away from your work.

Analysis paralysis

Analysis paralysis is when someone overanalyzes and overthinks a situation until they become ‘paralyzed’, resulting in the inability to take action. This is often caused by a lack of direction or consuming too much information. 

Lack of direction

Some bloggers become overwhelmed with the various tasks that blogging entails. They might know that they want to have a thriving, money-making blog, but they don’t have a clear vision of how to achieve this. 

Without a clear actionable step-by-step plan on how you hope to achieve your blogging goals, it’s easy to find yourself stuck or lost on what you should be working on.

Information overload

This is the state of feeling overwhelmed by the volume of information you’re consuming to the point that you become lost or confused. This can happen by following the advice of too many people, especially if they contradict each other. 

There is no best way to create a successful blog. Just choose one source to learn from and get to work.

25 Best Productivity Tips for Bloggers that want to get more done

Tip 1: Plan the night before

Planning your day out the night before prevents you from wasting precious time trying to figure it out as you go. Rarely does a good blog post manifest out of thin air, rather than being the result of a good deal of forethought.

A good practice to adopt when writing content for your blog is to sit down the night before and decide on the three things you would like to accomplish the next as well as any other, the estimated word count, as well as to gather any research materials you might need to make a more robust post.

This planning can also extend to the more technical aspects of your post.

What time is it going to go live?

Are you going to leverage social media and promote your content through your Facebook posts?

What are you going to send to your email list?

Sorting these details out in advance will help jumpstart the writing process the next day, as well as avoid potential technical headaches when it comes to getting your post onto the web.

There’s not too much to it. Choosing the 3 tasks that you would like to complete the next day is the most important part. If you already have a blog schedule, this should make it that much easier. 

Tip 2: Set small goals

People often struggle to find success with their blogs because they aren’t getting the important work done. A likely cause is that they are experiencing overwhelm.

For instance, you know that in order to have a successful blog you’re going to have to write blog posts right? And if you’re new to blogging, you might have realized that writing blog posts can be quite a daunting task. Instead of trying to knock out an entire post in a day or two, spread it over four or five days instead.

• Day 1: Keyword & topic research, structure your post  
• Day 2: Write the content for your blog post 
• Day 3: Search Engine Optimization, publish
• Day 4: Content promotion

This can be done with any goal in life. Once you’ve set your goal, break it down into smaller goals. Then take those small goals and break them into daily tasks. That’s it.

Try not to think about your blogging goals in their entirety, but rather focus your attention on your current task whether that be writing a blog post, promoting your content, or working on your email marketing.

“If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves.” – Emily Dickinson 

You’ll find out that by following this method of consistently completing smaller tasks, everything else will fall into place.  

People far too often don’t reach their goals because they set them too big. There’s nothing wrong with setting big goals, you just have to break them down into smaller bitesize chunks so that they are more easily achievable.

Watch this uber inspiring and powerful TED talk by author, investor, businessman, pilot, and world record holder, Stephen Duneier on how to achieve your most ambitious goals.

Tip 3: Prioritize tasks

Once you’ve finished planning for the night and setting up your goals, identify what tasks need to get done in order of urgency. Some people prefer to start with the easiest tasks and work their way up to the more difficult tasks in their day, though this is a poor choice.

It makes more sense to tackle the largest challenges at the start of the day when you’re at your zenith in terms of energy and creativity and saving your smaller tasks as a sort of victory lap rather than a warmup round. Starting with your big tasks also allows you enough time to complete them if they prove more challenging than you initially thought.

Tip 4: Exercise regularly

One way to increase productivity is to incorporate regular exercise into your routine. Blogging, for the most part, is a very sedentary job. We spend so much of our day (unless we have a standing desk) sitting down that we end up not exercising as much as we should. This often leads to decreased energy, concentration, and productivity altogether.

According to helpguide.org, “exercising regularly is one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce the symptoms of ADHD and improve concentration, motivation, memory, and mood. Physical activity immediately boosts the brain’s dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin levels—all of which affect focus and attention.”

In fact, research has found that exercise leads to:

• Sharper memory and thinking
• Reduce anxiety & depression
• Higher self-esteem 
• Improved quality of sleep
• Decreased stress
• Increased energy and concentration 

Exercise can be any form of physical activity whether it’s walking, running, yoga, crossfit, or swimming. The most important part is that you’re doing something. Even if it’s a 10-minute at-home workout in your living room or a brief walk in the evenings. 

Perspiration during exercise releases endorphins in the brain that makes you feel good. And when you feel happy and energized, you’re more efficient and effective. Which results in increased productivity and blogging success!

Tip 5: The Pomodoro technique

This productivity tool is perfect for those that struggle with staying focused by temporarily eliminating all distractions.

The Pomodoro (tomato in Italian) technique is a time management technique developed by an Italian college student named Francesco Cirillo. This technique was developed from Cirillo’s struggle to maintain focus on his coursework. He used a tomato-shaped cooking timer to commit himself to work for ten minutes at a time, eventually working his way up to 25-minute sessions. 

How to use the Pomodoro technique:

1. Set a timer to 25 minutes
2. Start the timer and work on your task with absolute focus
3. Once your timer is up, your 5-minute break starts. During this time you can check social media or email, grab a quick bite to eat, whatever you want.
4. Repeat for 4 sessions  
5. Take a longer break (15-30 minutes

Building focus is similar to building muscle. In the beginning, 25 minutes might be a bit challenging so feel free to start with a shorter amount of time and gradually build your way up to the full 25 minutes. 

The idea behind this process is to set an interval of time in which you laser focus on your task, while also allowing time for breaks and recharging. 

By setting your focus on one task for a short amount of time you avoid multitasking. Setting small goals within the allotted twenty-five minutes and planning makes all these aspects synergize more effectively as well.

Tip 6: Systematize

One of the best tools for having a consistent workflow is to work within a system. In brief, a system is a process that is deliberately made to be repeated multiple times for the same outcome. Systematizing is just a set of steps arranged in a way that can be repeated for a consistent result.

My philosophy is if you repeat something more than once, create a system for it. This comes in handy if you ever have someone else working on your blogging business with you. You can simply refer them to your blogging’s standard operating procedures. 

One example of a system you would is to create your blog posts. Instead of trying to remember what you did last time, you would use the blog post template that you created.  

The goal of systematization is to turn your working process into a system that allows you to reach a uniform workflow. While there are many examples of systematized workflows, it is important to craft one that fits you and your resources best. 

Luckily many of the points previously covered in this article are some of the building blocks of a systematized working process and will go a long way in aiding your productivity. 

Tip 7: Stop multitasking

As the world begins to move faster and faster, our time becomes more valuable than ever. It might seem like a good idea to try and take advantage of your time by performing multiple tasks concurrently, and in some instances it is. This is not the case when it comes to writing content for a blog, however, as multitasking can easily lead to distractions and a poorer quality of work. 

Concentration is easily the largest casualty when it comes to multitasking, so instead, you should keep your focus narrowed to one task at a time to maintain a consistent quality of work. Here are some ways to curb your multitasking habits.

Tip 8: Outsource

One of the best ways to save time on a task is to have someone else take care of it. While delegation may be more relegated to someone who has an entire team at their back to support them, outsourcing is available to anyone with enough money to spare. 

If you find that you’ve fallen behind on writing posts for your blog, make use of outsourcing sites like Fiverr or Upwork to find someone you can pay to write it for you. This allows for the task to be completed while still saving yourself precious time. One caveat to this is that it is wise to be somewhat scrupulous with who you decide to outsource writing work to. Ask for samples of previous work and check to see if they have any reviews on their profile page that speak to their quality. 

If you have a team, then this also applies to when you delegate tasks. It is always important that whoever is assigned to a task has the skill set to complete it.

Running a blog is more than just writing, there are also web design and back-end web management aspects that need to be considered. While being able to take care of these aspects yourself can save a pretty penny, having to scramble every time there is an issue with your site might cut into your valuable writing time and detract from the content you post. 

Hiring someone who is well versed in the technical side of blog running or working with an easy system such as WordPress can save heaps of time if you’re willing to shell out for their services.

Tip 9: It’s Ok to say No

No is a word that many see as uncomfortable, but it is often necessary in a world where there is always someone or something that is trying to grab your attention. Being able to turn someone down is essential when you want to remain in control of your time and productivity, but it also must be done with care. 

When you find yourself having to decline someone’s request, make sure to do it politely to preserve the relationship you have with that person, whether it is a personal or professional one. Have an honest explanation ready as well in case they try to push back on your refusal or be prepared to present that person with an alternative option. 

If someone wants you to write a blog post for their site, explain that you have too many lined up on your own site, and suggest they seek out a freelancer instead. Alternatively, you can also postpone what they are asking of you. This is still a form of saying no but it is more like saying ‘no for now’. 

If you must resort to ‘no for now’ just be prepared to make good on your promise. Being able to say no in this way allows you to retain control over your time while also remaining in the good graces of those to who you find yourself having to say no to.

Tip 10: Stay Positive

Blogging might seem easy at the outset, but it can be easy to become discouraged by a perceived lack of engagement from your potential audience. This is not an uncommon feeling, but it is important to remember that your blog is one in a sea of millions. So it could take a long time to build up the audience and recognition it likely deserves.

Being swallowed up by negativity can cause your productivity to grind to a halt, so keep a positive outlook when working on your blog and you will eventually reap the benefits that inspired you to start blogging in the first place, whether it was for financial reasons or just to get your thoughts and feelings out there. 

Consistency and productivity are the best tools you have when it comes to making a successful blog, so keep your chin up and stick with it!

Tip 11: Have a Why

So many people set a new year’s resolution to get in shape but quit just 3 weeks in. Simply wanting to get back into shape or create a successful online business is not enough. You must have a strong reason to motivate and push you past the obstacles and challenges that you’ll inevitably face. 

If you don’t have a strong why it’s going to be tough. You should come up with a compelling reason that will get you out of bed in the mornings, to stay up late, or sacrifice other parts of your day to work on your blog. 

It might seem difficult in the beginning, but as you continue to push through, you’ll find that it will become easier and easier to do the different things you’re supposed to do. Especially once you start seeing results.  Whatever your reason is, it should include something along the lines of…… because I have to. People are often resistant to change until they have no other choice. 

Having a strong why will keep you focused on your goal while increasing productivity.

“In order to achieve goals you have not achieved before you have to become someone you haven’t been before.” – Jim Rohn

Tip 12: Focus on results

While it’s nice to have an aesthetically great-looking site, it’s not going to make much of an impact. Most beginner bloggers fall into this trap of spending hours and hours picking out the perfect font, colors, layout, etc. It’s perfectly ok to work on these things, just be sure to spend more time and effort on the more vital aspects of your blog.

Examples of tasks to focus on:

• keyword research
• writing new blog posts
• updating old blog posts
• content promotion
• email marketing
• creating lead magnets
• creating digital products

Tip 13: Use a planner

In my opinion, this is a must-have for every blogger. Planners are a fantastic tool that helps reduce stress and overwhelm while keeping you on track with your blogging goals. 

New bloggers often find themselves overwhelmed with what they need to do when they need to do it, and in what order they need to do it in. Once you’ve created a blogging schedule that works for you, go ahead and write them into your blog planner. By writing things down, your brain is free to focus on the actual work instead of struggling to remember everything as well. 

Here is an example of how someone might use a planner for blogging:

• Monday: Topic research / Write blog structure
• Tuesday: Write blog post 
• Wednesday: Optimize post for SEO
• Thursday: Edit blog post and publish
• Friday: Promote your new blog post
• Saturday: 
• Sunday: Plan for the following week

You can even dedicate certain days of the month to work on things such as updating your About Me page, changing the color of your layout, reviewing analytics, or any other less vital aspect of your blog. 

Do yourself a favor. Make life easier and get a planner.

Tip 14: Wake up earlier

If you find yourself not being able to work on your blog as much as you would like to, you might want to try getting up earlier. Early morning hours tend to be the most productive time of day because there are fewer distractions, leaving uninterrupted time to yourself to focus on your blogging tasks.

Tip 15: Treat your blog like a job

If your goal is to eventually turn your blog into a full-time job, you have to treat it like it already is. And in a world full of obligations and distractions, it’s easy to get sidetracked. Part of treating your blog like a job is taking it seriously.

What would you say if a friend texted you while you were at work and invited you to hang out? You would probably tell them you can’t because you are at work. 

Working on your blog should be no different. 

1. Wake up early
2. Focus on completing your daily tasks
3. Stick to your schedule

If you want a successful blog that drives traffic and makes money, treat it like a job and you will shift the odds dramatically in your favor. 

Tip 16: Minimize clutter

Decreasing clutter in your workspace also decreases distractions. 

An organized clutter-free space allows you to focus on your tasks and not what’s on your desk. While you don’t have to clear everything off your desk, try to at least create a favorable work environment that promotes productivity. 

Tip 17: Listen to music

Listening to music can be a fun tool to keep you in a groove and improve productivity levels. In fact, a research study conducted by English psychologist Dr. Becky Spelman found that listening to music can increase your productivity by a whopping 15%. 

In an interview with The London Economic, Spelman said, “Music has a very powerful impact on the brain. It affects mood, mental performance, and physical performance. Many people find that listening to certain types of instrumental music can help them with their productivity levels. The music can function as a sort of ‘white noise’, canceling out potentially distracting ambient noise.

I personally prefer to listen to classical or at least music without lyrics so I don’t get distracted by singing along. Youtube has a ton of great channels dedicated to music for studying. 

Try working with and without music to see if it makes a difference. Similarly, experiment with different types of music to see what works best for you. If you find that you get your best work done without music, then do you.

Tip 18: Start with your most important tasks

Choose 3 tasks that you would like to achieve for the day and then choose to tackle the most important task FIRST. Most important is the one task that will help you get closer to your blogging goals, whether that is to increase blog traffic, increase email subscribers, or increase blog revenue. 

Most people choose the easiest tasks first and then wonder why they’re not getting the results that they’re hoping for. Blogging is very simple, but it’s not easy. It requires hard work. And part of that hard work is completing those more challenging tasks. 

Tip 19: Get rid of distractions

Distractions can put a halt to your productivity faster than you can check your social media. Seriously, there are not many things that can stop productivity in its tracks like a good shiny distraction. 

Taking a quick break to check your Instagram feed might not seem like a big deal, but tiny distractions like this will break your focus and kill any momentum you had going. 

According to Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California found that it takes an average of 23 minutes to regain concentration after an interruption. 

Try this. Take a sheet of paper of something to write and have it near you. If you get distracted at any time while you’re supposed to be working on your blog, write it down. Checking social media, texting, watching YouTube videos. 

Do this for a few days and you might find that you are being distracted more than you think. It’s ok to take breaks to give your brain a rest. It’s actually recommended. 

Tip 20: Done is better than perfect

By definition, perfection is the action or process of improving something until it is faultless or as faultless as possible. 

While it’s nice to strive for greatness, don’t let it prevent you from making progress. Many bloggers, in the beginning, want to come off as professional as possible so they spend too much time being overcritical of their work that they never hit that publish button. 

In case you need to hear this again…..

If you are a new blogger, DO NOT compare your work to the works of seasoned bloggers. It is very likely that those articles have been updated multiple times already, and look nothing like they did when they were first published. 

SimpleBlogger’s 3-step method to blogging success:

1. Write the blog post 
2. Click publish (even if you’re not happy with it)
3. Routinely revisit and improve blog post 

Every time you come back to your old blog posts, you’ll be coming back to them with more knowledge and more experience than before. Making incremental changes is the key. 

And before you know it, that blog post that you once thought was so terrible and cringy, is now a pretty damn good article. Pat yourself on the back!

Tip 21: Prioritize tasks

Once you’ve finished planning for the night and setting up your goals, identify what tasks need to get done in order of importance. Some people prefer to start with the easiest tasks and work their way up to the more difficult tasks in their day, though this is a poor choice. Do not do that!

It’s much more beneficial to tackle the largest challenges at the start of the day when you’re at your zenith in terms of energy and creativity. Save your smaller tasks as a sort of victory lap rather than a warmup round. 

Starting with your big tasks also allows you more time to complete them if they prove more challenging than you initially thought. 

Tip 22: Use Google Analytics

Once you’ve written 10 – 20 blog posts, check your analytics to see which of your articles are performing the best. See if you can figure out why that particular post is outperforming the rest and then try to duplicate that going forward. 

If you notice that many of your blog posts aren’t performing well at all, ask yourself:

• How did I promote the blog post?
• What is the word count for the top 10 ranking articles in the search results?
• Is my keyword too competitive at this time to rank for?
• Did I optimize my blog posts for the search engines? 
• How long has this blog post been published?

The truth is, an underperforming blog post can be a result of multiple factors. The important part is to eventually understand what makes a great blog post and then try to improve over time. 

In the beginning, you might not have a lot of traffic to even be able to analyze your blog posts. That is completely normal. Till then, just go back to writing more blog posts. Also, try not to get caught up with your analytics. While it’s a great tool that allows you to improve, don’t let it distract you from your daily tasks. Traffic and money will come in time. Trust me. 

Tip 23: Sleep

Another way to boost your productivity is by getting a sufficient amount of sleep each night. Similar to exercise, sleep improves your food, brain function, and overall mental health. To perform at your best, between 7 and 8 hours of sleep is recommended each night. 

For those that drink coffee….

Did you know that when we consume coffee, the caffeine binds to our brain’s adenosine receptors, keeping us from feeling sleepy? A cup of joe in the morning can be a great way to jump-start your brain. Just make sure you’re not replacing sleep with it. 

Note: If you wake up in the morning still feeling tired, it might be a sign that your body isn’t getting enough sleep.

Tip 24: Believe in yourself

I find that most bloggers never achieve blogging success because they simply don’t believe in themselves. New bloggers often experience what is known as impostor syndrome, defined by Wikipedia as a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. 

If you’re experiencing self-doubt when it comes to blogging, check out my post on how to overcome impostor syndrome and start blogging confidently.

Doubting oneself is normal behavior. Especially when you’re new to something which makes sense. You just haven’t taken enough action to build up your confidence.

“Doubt is only removed by action. If you’re not working then that’s where doubt comes in.” – Conor McGregor

As long as you stick to completing your daily tasks, results will follow, and slowly you’ll become more and more confident in your work. 

Tip 25: Be consistent

In my opinion, this is the single most important factor that determines success. It’s easy to work on your blog when you feel like it. It’s another thing to work on your blog when you don’t. This is when having a strong WHY is so important. So that you continue to put in the work regardless of how you feel. 

It’s more than ok to take a day off every now and then. Sometimes taking a day off can even be beneficial. The important thing is that you TRY to remain consistent. Even if you’re only making incremental progress. While completing these small tasks day in and day out might not seem like much, over time they add up. 

After writing a small archive of blog posts, periodically revisit them and try to improve upon them. 

• Write a more enticing introduction
• Add a lead magnet if applicable
• Add affiliate links to products/services mentioned
• Add images
• Increase word count if needed
• Include an infographic
• Link to existing blog posts
• Include a video

There are many things that can be done to improve old blog posts. You don’t have to do it all at once either. If you’ve visited any successful blog or website, chances are those blog posts have been through many updates so do yourself a favor and don’t compare your own blog posts to those that have already been through multiple revisions. 

Consistency. That’s the secret to blogging success. The simple process of improving your blog content a little at a time. 

Conclusion

It really comes down to how much you want it and how serious you are about blogging. To be able to produce the most results for your blog and make the most out of your time, you have to become a student of time management. 

Once you start implementing these tips into your daily routine, your productivity level will increase, and you’ll be able to complete tasks in less time.

You might find yourself a bit resistant to change at first, but it definitely becomes easier. It’s like building a new habit. Just stick with it, embrace the blogging journey, and the results will follow. Good luck!

If you’ve been blogging for a minute, I’d love to hear your opinion. Have you found that any of these strategies have been working for you? Feel free to post any other productivity tips for bloggers that have helped you produce more results.

Even if you haven’t started yet but still have some questions, ask away!

Leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you.