1 way and 7 tips to manage yourself to manage your time as a blogger

Blogging is a profession now. A lot of professionals are turning away from the core industry and becoming a professional blogger. Blogging is no more a hobby, it is a profession that has clearly shown some wonderful results for many. But blogging is not easy when it comes to coping with the competition. Blogging can seriously give you sleepless nights as the profession needs dedication while growing and after that. Blogging deals with multiple things at a time, and time and tide waits for none. Time management for bloggers is a serious topic of discussion that many bloggers struggle with.

Being a blogger is challenging but not impossible to be. Blogging is a practice that needs you to be disciplined at first place. Discipline begins with being punctual and respecting the time you’ve got to turn things right in your favor. In this post, you’ll learn how to manage your time as a blogger and clear your task list on a daily basis.

How to multiply your time?

Time is money. If you want to see yourself as a well-established blogger and an influencer then you definitely need to be time conscious. Missing out the deadlined will simply open doors for your competition to rule out your presence. It is liking giving away your power up front. We are powered by more tools, tips, tricks, checklists, calendars than ever before but still somehow fail to cross the finishing line on time.

Undoubtedly we are moving faster, working for longer hours yet not caught up. Today we have an endless number of videos and books on time management but still, the stress level is an all-time high. Time management these days is no more logical it is emotional.

Our feelings of guilt, fear, anxiety, worry, and frustration dictate how we choose to spend our time as much as there is on our calendars, to-do lists. While there is nothing like time management, time flows whether we like it or not. There’s only self-management to be in line with time. The whole theory of time management revolves around improving one’s efficiency, doing which will leave you will more time. So indirectly you are managing time by directly managing yourself.

A theory given by Dr Stepehn Covey named Time Management matrix, which had X axis was Urgency and Y axis as importance.

Source: Stephen Covey’s time management matrix

This is the theory that we have been using so far to prioritize our tasks. Nothing wrong with prioritizing our tasks, as it is as important as time in today’s world. But the problem with the prioritizing is that it doesn’t create more time for you. Time management is all about efficiency and this model fails at providing efficiency to your time.

The world is now shifting to three-dimensional thinking, where the third dimension is Significance. This three-dimensional model deals with multiplying time. It brings your focus to the significance of the tasks that you’ve listed for the day. Urgency is how soon does it matter? Importance is How much does it matter? and Significance is How long does it matter? This significant thinking will get you enough time in hand, but not today.

Time multipliers look for answers to the question “What can I do today, that will leave me with more time tomorrow?” and this way you schedule your tasks in a way that will find you more time to produce even more time.

You’d ask me, “how do I multiply time?”

It’s simple and straight, you just need to allow yourself to spend time on doing things today that will give more time tomorrow.

The idea behind this significant calculation is that eliminating things that don’t matter today. If it doesn’t matter today, it definitely will not matter tomorrow. And by eliminating such things today, you are creating more time for yourself tomorrow. This way, you will be creating more time. And the cycle continues.

Number 1 way better time management for bloggers

Okay, that was all about multiplying your time. Now you will see what is the number 1 way for time management for bloggers. No doubt there are experts will expert ways to manage yourself for time management, but not all ways will work for you. You have to come up with something that suitably works for you.

Having said that, let me tell you about my schedule before I got used to this method – that I call 1 by 2. As a pure beginner, with zero knowledge of blogging, I used to do the random publishing with zero results. As I grew as a blogger, I ended up doing one blog post a week with 2-3 days of research. Again that was not targetted well, as I was not aware of search engine optimization. Then came the major breakthrough, the 1 by 2. A friend of mine helped me design this method.

What I do in this method is divide my day into two halves. The first half is solely dedicated to research on topics. Depending upon the topic it usually takes anywhere between 3-4 hours (sometimes 5 hours) to research on that topic. After a thorough research, it’s time to join the dots. I make sure to have least sized points so that I can build on that fastest. This is basic stencil where I decide the time frame depending on my availability for work. You can use this method to flexibly get your work done. Just divide the day into two halves- Divide and rule.

As per my schedule in this framework. I wake up at 5 in the morning start my work by 9, research till 2. Break from 2 to 4, begin work at 4 write till 9. I pre-plan my week and the topics for the upcoming week. So that I can spend less time on deciding the topics for the day, for throughout the week and save time during the day. Remember the 3-dimensional thinking? Yes, this is the 3-dimensional thinking. Here’s a catch, if the topic I am writing on is new or something I am not exposed well. I will do just one post per day. Alternatively, if the topic is familiar I go for 2 posts a day.

This is purely my own version of this way. You can do the customization as per your needs. This way has helped me achieve my daily targets efficiently. Most importantly I am consistently producing quality content for my website and for my client’s too.

Now to keep up with this way, I have some tips for the same. Let’s look at it one by one.

7 tips to master 1 way

#7 Increase mouse speeds

Sounds basic but this has proven a really helpful way to save a hell lot of time. Every time you scroll from one diagonal end of your laptop/machine to another end for any reason, it takes time. It really does, you will realize it once you start using the fastest speed on your mouse. Also, use a smooth mouse on a gripped surface so that you don’t have to lift mouse every now and then.

You get me right? that irritating mouse which has a poor scroll or maybe a good mouse is used on a poor surface. Either way, you will waste time.

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