Productivity Tips for Bloggers
So as I’ve been growing and rebranding my blog and business I’m on a constant need to try and discover new things. Which is mostly awesome because I do like learning and growing. I started to realize a problem today in that I was becoming more and more overwhelmed. I was having too much coming at me in too many ways and places that I felt like I wasn’t really able to take much in and not actually learning and growing as much as I could be. Which I don’t like.
Information overload: How I’m trying to take back control of the information
We live in an always-on society. So between my laptop and my phone and my iPad I’m pretty much always connects. Then on each of these I have some combo of email, twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and now I’m on Periscope. It was becoming too much. I want to be connected but not controlled by the internet and my business. So I’m taking some steps to gain back some of my control.
1. Cleaned up my Facebook Groups:
I don’t know if everyone does this but I kind of become a Facebook Group addict. It was cluttering up my newsfeed and the really great groups that I get the most out of were getting lost. So today I went in and I left like half of the groups I was a part of. I went from 50 groups to around 20. So more than half I left. I wanted the groups I stayed into all be ones where I was excited to stay in and feel like could most benefit my blog and business. I’m excited to really focus in on just the groups I want to instead of being bombarded with posts all day every day. Also, my notifications would always be like 50+ and that is a lot to manage. So fewer groups I’m hoping means more interaction and connections which are what I really want.
2. Trim the Fat in my Inbox:
I also was realizing that my inbox was filling up with too many things that I didn’t really want to read. I hated getting on every day and having tons of emails to go through. Not email that I need to respond to but newsletters and business letters. So I am unsubscribing from a lot of emails right now. So I can get the most out of my emails that I do receive. I would rather have 15 newsletters that I really enjoy getting and learning from than 100 newsletters that I might open and skim. So that is what I’m working on now, not having email overload.
3. Schedule out my Pinterest Pins:
This has been such a game changer for me. I have been using Tailwind for awhile but am trying a free month of Boardbooster so I can compare the two and see what works the best for me. I have to have a Pinterest scheduler. I get a lot of blog traffic with Pinterest and to get the best traffic I need to be pinning around 100 pins a day.
Starting with Boardbooster has been one of the best investments in my blog because Pinterest brings in a lot of traffic. You can get started today with a free trial and then they have monthly plans from $5 a month and up.
4. Continuing to limit my focus on just two Social Media Platforms:
This is so important especially for bloggers and online entrepreneurs. There are one million social media platforms and if you try to do them all you won’t be very good at any of them. So stick with one or two and get that one going good, then maybe add another. I mostly stick with Pinterest and only do a minimal amount of posting on other platforms
I do spend a little time on other platforms maybe 15-20 minutes a day scheduling posts to Twitter or Facebook but it’s not much and not where my focus is at. Focusing on Pinterest has helped me really learn what does and doesn’t work for me and I’m really growing that platform much better and faster than anything else is.
5. Set time off for yourself: With so much technology and information at our fingertips, the best way to avoid information overload is to give yourself time off and away from it sometimes. So I will take a break for a little while. Turn off notifications on my phone, read a magazine or a book. Just step away and calm my mind.
Don’t get me wrong I love learning and blogging so much. I spend hours a day blogging and learning about blogging and it’s because it is my passion. I just was realizing that too much of my time was dealing with information I didn’t need or really want.
There are only so many hours I can work and I will do more and get better if I use those hours in the right way. So cutting out the extra emails and facebook groups is going to make a big difference in how I spend my time in my email inbox and on Facebook. I can get the information that I really need and use it. I also suffer less from information overload when I’m online.
