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41 Productivity Tips For Bloggers To Keep You Going in 2023

Productivity tips for bloggers are something I wish I had come across when I first started blogging.

It is easy to become a blogger but becoming a productive one is another question.

Despite the fact that blogging has a proven return on investment, most people give up after a few months, mainly because it takes so much time and effort.

At the start of my blogging journey, I sometimes felt like a headless chicken running – trying to write, edit, and publish my content!

But I lived, and I learned, and then blogging changed my life!

productivity tips for bloggers
Image by 8212733

And I want to help you do the same (in much less time than I took). So here are 41 productivity tips for bloggers that will set you on the right foot!

At a glance, the productivity tips for bloggers that we’re going to be looking at are:

1. Analyze How You Spend Your Time Currently

2. Ask A Third-Person Opinion

3. Bite The Frog – Do The Hardest Things First

4. Bookmark Important Pages

5. Break Down Your Time

6. Celebrate Big And Small Wins

7. Check Emails Once A Day

8. Close Unrelated Browsers

9. Compare How You Spend Your Time To Your Goals

10. Create An Outline For Your Article

11. Create Templates

12. Create Well-Defined Steps When Writing

13. Curate Content

14. Disable Mobile Push Notifications

15. Do The Same Things At The Same Time Every Day

16. Don’t Multi-Task

17. Download Productivity Apps On Your Phone

18. Eat Good Food

19. Find Your Groove

20. Keep A Notebook For Ideas

21. Keep Motivations Visible

22. Keep Your Files Organized (On The Computer)

23. Keep Your Workspace Clean And Organized

24. Learn New Things

25. Learn Your Keyboard Shortcuts

26. Line Up Daily Tasks

27. Make A To-Do List

28. Mind-Map Your Ideas With A Goal In Mind

29. Outsource

30. Pivot!

31. Repurpose Your Content

32. Review Your Week And Improvised

33. Rise Early

34. Schedule Your Posts

35. Schedule Your Social Media

36. Set Aside Time To Plan, To Write, And To Edit

37. Set Aside Time To Write

38. Stay In Your Lane

39. Take A Break

40. Turn Off Distractions

41. Use Tools To Keep Track Of Your Progress

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41 Productivity Tips For Bloggers:

productivity tips for bloggers
Image by Darkmoon_Art

1. Analyze How You Spend Your Time Currently

The first step to becoming more productive is to understand how you currently spend your time. 

Take the next week to jot down what you do in a day and analyze that. 

Where are you spending the most time? Where do you end up wasting time? Are you doing more than you should? Are you prioritizing the right things? 

Find the culprit in your unproductivity and fix things from there. 

2. Ask A Third-Person Opinion

One of the best ways to save time is to ask for help. 

Especially when it comes to proofreading or editing, chances are you’ve read your post so much you will no longer be able to spot a mistake.

So, ask a friend to proofread your final copy!

3. Bite The Frog – Do The Hardest Things First

I’m a firm believer in this. Get the hardest thing out of the way and your day will go easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy! 

The fact is, we procrastinate when a task is difficult. 

If you’re an introvert, for example, you might dread making a confrontational call. But the more you put it off, the more your other tasks are affected. So best to suck it up, do the dreaded deed and move on with the rest of your day! 

4. Bookmark Important Pages

Bookmark important pages for later! I can’t say this enough, cos I’ve witnessed people going to the search box for the 10th time the same day and going through all the motions every time. 

Just bookmark pages you frequent and cut through the clutter! 

A super useful tool I use is One Tab – a Google Chrome extension that saves all your opened tabs in one click.

 What I do is open frequently used pages, like tinyPNG, Canva, and wordhippo, save them on One Tab and lock the group so I can open them up in one click every time. Try it!

5. Break Down Your Time

One of the best ways to be productive is to break down your day into specific activities and then block the time accordingly. One of the top productivity tips for bloggers is being aware of how you use your time.

What am I talking about? Simply put, break down your tasks. 

For example, in a day I might do the following: read email, edit articles, coach new writers, feed the cat, tell the cat to get off my chair, eat lunch, eat dinner, attempt an online dance battle with my siblings, shower, and cycle. 

Now I have to do a proper time blocking for each of these activities and stick to the time!

Sounds easy but when we’re so used to doing random things at random times, it might need a bit more practice. But I know you can do it! 

6. Celebrate Big And Small Wins

While we all have big goals we’re working towards, it’s important to remember to celebrate the small wins too. 

So you want to make $50K a month from your blogs, all well and good.

 But before you get there, remember to celebrate an extra $500 that wasn’t there the previous month, an increase in web traffic, new affiliate programs, and anything else before reaching the big goal! 

7. Check Emails Once A Day

Remember how we set checking emails in a time blocking? That’s exactly what we need to do! 

Set aside one specific period to check emails in a day and ONLY check emails during this time. (I check my emails after midday)

This is an easy action to ignore as we’ve been programmed for instantaneous communications, but unless you’re saving lives, the email can wait.

8. Close Unrelated Browsers

Who has seen that meme that goes something like:  ‘my mind is like a browser, I  have 100 tabs open, and I don’t know where the music is coming from? *sorry if I butchered it* 

Well, that is what happens to our brains when we open 57 tabs for god knows what reason. Just keep the ones that you’re currently using and close everything else to avoid actual and mental clutter! 

9. Compare How You Spend Your Time To Your Goals

productivity tips for bloggers
Image by Jan Vašek

Spend time to reflect on how you’re spending time to reach your goals.

 Are you working towards them correctly? Are you spending too much time on something that won’t contribute to your goals?

Reflecting is one of the top tips for bloggers that help you step back and look at what you’ve achieved to determine what your next course of action should be.

10. Create An Outline For Your Article

This is so basic it’s definitely at the top tips for productivity for bloggers! Strangely, I came to find out not all bloggers do this. 

Creating an outline will save you from writer’s block and help create a solid foundation for when you start writing the article. What I do is create a structure of your article first, and then I move on to the introduction and the conclusion. 

I do my outlines in batches and when I want to write, I have my structure all lined up for me!

11. Create Templates

This is one of the best productivity tips for bloggers. 

Have you noticed a pattern or style when you write certain types of articles or emails? There’s your template! 

For email marketing, for example, you can save a tonne of time by creating templates and then just plugging in relevant information every time you need to send them out. 

Even for blogs, you can create templates for different types of posts like review posts, testimonial posts, or informational posts. 

12. Create Well-Defined Steps When Writing

What are your steps when you start writing? Don’t know? Time to establish them!

Creating well-defined steps when writing could look like: determine a topic, research keywords, research topic, gather information, write an outline, draft, etc. 

Having established steps help keep you in focus and not skipping steps which eventually uses up more time. 

13. Curate Content

Instead of spending hours planning and trying to come up with topics and ideas, you can curate your content from around the web.

Websites like Reddit, Quora, and Medium can give you insights into what topics are relevant to the internet community now. You can then share or expands on those content. 

14. Disable Mobile Push Notifications

Another one of what I would say is in the top 5 productivity tips for bloggers is to disable push notifications on your phone and enable “Do Not Disturb” mode. 

You will be surprised at how much more you can get done without the incessant notification tones from your phone. One notification is usually enough for us to pick the phone up and get lost in there which is why we’re canceling the source of distraction so we can work better.

15. Do The Same Things At The Same Time Every Day

What we’re trying to do here is create a habit. When you’re used to doing something at the same time every day, it will become second nature to you. Doing this will help you get daily tasks sorted ina an orderly manner, without procrastination, and allow you to focus on the rest of the day better. 

16. Don’t Multi-Task

Multitasking is often seen as a positive attribute. Well, I’m here to tell you otherwise! 

Doing many tasks at once can spread you too thin and make you lose focus on the tasks at hand. As a result, you end up taking additional time to complete the task. 

Focusing on one task at a time will give you better clarity and focus, allowing you to complete your tasks faster and more efficiently. 

17. Download Productivity Apps On Your Phone

Now here’s a good use for your phone – you can download the many productivity apps available for free to help you. 

From apps-blocking apps to notetaking apps, time management apps, and more, the resources are endless to help you stick to a more productive lifestyle. For these apps to qualify as part of the productivity tips for bloggers they need to increase your efficiency and simply tasks in some way.

Some of my favorite free apps are:

  • Evernote – super useful for notetaking and it syncs within the app so you could make notes on your phone and open them up on your laptop later
  • Harvest – time tracking app that doubles as an invoicing app. You can track time and expenses being spent on a particular task by generating timesheets – insightful if you’re billing clients or even wondering how many hours do bloggers work.
  • Hootsuite – a social media scheduling app, Hootsuite is great for planning out all your content, scheduling them, and letting the app do its magic when the time comes. You can schedule the same post across different streams so no need for multiple postings!

18. Eat Good Food

productivity tips for bloggers
Image by ExplorerBob

Have you ever heard of the term “you are what you eat”? 

You might not expect this to be included as one of the productivity tips for bloggers but it is one of the most crucial. The idea is that the better things you consume in your body, the better your body will be and the better output you will have. There are specific types of food you can consume which will help boost your brain energy, in turn making you more productive. 

19. Find Your Groove

Try some experimenting and find out the type of music that draws out the best concentration and motivation for you. This is included as one of the productivity tips for bloggers as it’s about keeping you focused and not so easily distracted by what is happening around you.

Some may thrive on loud music with beats while some may need more soft instrumental sounds. Maybe your groove is no groove at all. Put on some different playlists this week (or none), and see what brings out the most productive you.  

20. Keep A Notebook For Ideas

There’s a concept called Free Writing which means to just write without stopping, letting ideas flow. You needn’t care about grammar, spelling, or even subject – basically, just write whatever comes to mind.

It’s technically brainstorming in sentences. 

Keeping a notebook handy for free writing will help get the juices flowing. Whenever you think of something, just write them down and you can set aside time every other day to go through your ideas. 

While note-taking apps help, sometimes you just need a pen and paper! I love this leather notebook for jotting down ideas while looking extra classy at it 🙂

21. Keep Motivations Visible

It’s important to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing. I keep my motivations visible with family photos, quotes, and even post-its on my laptop for my short-term goals. 

If you have sayings you resonate with that keep you motivated, you could also incorporate them into your decoration. For example, some framed motivational posters or quotes wall art

22. Keep Your Files Organized (On The Computer)

Let’s be honest, how cluttered is your computer desktop right now? If it is already super organized, kudos to you! Not many people keep their desktops clutter-free. I’ve seen people with 100+ documents on their desktops.

When your files are all over the place, you take longer to locate them. 

Yes, even if you use the search feature. So why waste time when you can categorize your work and put them all in folders? Whenever you need something, you know exactly where to go. 

While we’re at it, name your files properly too. Say I’m writing an article called “why blogs are good”, I would have my outline, article, and images all with the same suffix in a folder called “why blogs are good”. 

23. Keep Your Workspace Clean And Organized

Similarly, you want to keep your physical workspace clean and organized in order to increase your productivity. A messy workspace where you have to hunt for your highlighter for the third time that day just won’t cut it. 

An organized workspace also helps you stay focused on your task at hand. 

Working on your blog? Put away anything unrelated like your handbag (that’s suddenly going to remind you you need to shop) or your passport (that’s going to prompt you to search for flights or check out digital nomad communities for your next destination).

Both are useful things but not what you needed to be doing at that time. 

24. Learn New Things

Learning new things allows you to be better and faster at blogging. If I compare my time to write an article now to when I first started, it’s a world of difference!

Picking up SEO, getting better at Pinterest, and taking up additional courses have helped me hone my skills and cut down my hours.

If you’ve googled how many hours a week do bloggers work and not liked the answer, learning new things will help you trim down those hours.

25. Learn Your Keyboard Shortcuts

This tip is so simple but often not looked at. Keyboard shortcuts actually increase your productivity as you don’t have to keep swapping between your keyboard and your trackpad or your mouse. 

There’s an extensive list of keyboard shortcuts you can learn but here are some of my favorite ones when I’m working on Google docs:

  • Ctrl+C – Copy
  • Ctrl+V – Paste
  • Ctrl+A – Select all
  • Ctrl+B – Bold text
  • Ctrl+K – Adds a link
  • Ctrl+Alt+0 – Apply normal text
  • Ctrl+Alt+2 – Apply Header 2
  • Ctrl+Alt+3 – Apply Header 3

26. Line Up Daily Tasks

Similar to time blocking for work, you need to line up your daily tasks.

Maybe daily things you do are going to the gym, taking a walk, reading a cheeky romance novel… things that are not necessarily under the “work” category. But you can still schedule them in so you can stay focused on what you need to do and get your daily things done productively as well. 

27. Make A To-Do List

If there’s something you need to do, jot that thing down! We are all guilty of thinking that we will remember things only to realize we’ve forgotten to run the laundry yet again when we run out of socks to wear. This is one of the game changing productivity tips for bloggers that will help clear your mind to focus on the tasks that need to get done instead of trying to keep track and remember everything that you need to do!

And that’s just one of the 100s of things we need to do in a week, personal and blogging work included. Making a to-do list and keeping it all organized in a planner will help you stay productive. 

28. Mind-Map Your Ideas With A Goal In Mind

Some people are more visual and need to see things presented more graphicly. You might be one of those people and that’s where a mind-map can help you. 

Start off with the end goal and then start branching out the smaller ideas in relation to the goal. Mapping these out will help move along the process when you’re writing your articles. 

29. Outsource

As you grow your blog and it gains more traction, you might find it hard to keep up with all your tasks. Enter outsourcing. You can outsource the administrative part of your work, graphic work, or even the writing itself. 

Outsourcing does take a bit of work in the beginning as you need to train or find someone who does things the way you want them to, but it’s well worth it in the end. Some sites you can find freelancers for outsourcing work are Fiverr and Upwork

Outsourcing frees up your time to do more high-level work or work you’re truly passionate about without fussing about the little things.

30. Pivot!

There will be times when things don’t go your way or you’re trying to fix something and it’s just not working out. This is when you take a deep breath and go the other way. 

With blogging a lot of us face tech issues that we’re not equipped to deal with. So think about alternatives, different plugins, or hiring help. Or perhaps you’ve hired someone for a task and they’re not performing as expected, time to cut that tie instead of stressing about it and just move on to the next one!

31. Repurpose Your Content

Repurposing is taking content and updating or transforming it. A blog post could be a youtube video, Pinterest post, social media post, and vice versa all the way around. 

Look at what you have and how you can upgrade the content or use it on another platform to save time. 

32. Review Your Week And Improvise

When you first start putting things in motion to increase productivity, you might feel a little out of sorts trying to get into the new schedule and groove. 

Review your week and see what has worked for you and what hasn’t. 

From there, you can improvise. Being productive is all about finding what works for you and that may change over time so always reflect and see what you can improvise 

33. Rise Early

The early bird gets the worm, right? Starting your day earlier gives you a head start on the day and overall makes you more productive. Being up and about before the hustle and bustle of the day starts gives you your own space to do your best work.

Many successful people swear rising early makes them more productive, there are even books about them – like this one on the 5 am club. Try it and see how it changes the way you work. 

34. Schedule Your Posts

Is it important to post a blog regularly? Yes.

Why is it important to post a blog regularly? You want to keep traction and have enough content so people keep coming back to your blog i.e. keep your audience interested! 

But I know, it’s not easy. Luckily for us bloggers, there are many apps and sites that can help with this. You can easily batch your content and then schedule them so they go out automatically while you’re taking a stroll in the park. 

35. Schedule Your Social Media

Again, scheduling in advance will save you a tonne of time. Ain’t nobody got time to post on social media daily, across several different platforms! 

Facebook allows you to schedule posts in advance by using the clock icon in the left-hand corner of post drafts. You can also schedule your post on Instagram for business. 

If you use the Business Suite, you can save time by scheduling your posts on both Facebook and Instagram and managing those posts together. Twitter can also be scheduled with different scheduling tools. 

And of course, the previously mentioned apps like Hootsuite can help you schedule across all platforms at once. The best part is, that all these tools will have analytics to help you understand and engage with your audience better.

36. Set Aside Time To Plan, To Write, And To Edit

productivity tips for bloggers
Image by Jess Bailey

Working in batches helps you create momentum for the particular task, get into a rhythm and perform your task better. 

Imagine (or think about if you do this currently) writing an article but doing the outline, and then writing, followed by editing, proofreading, adding pictures, and posting it all on one go. Phew, I’m exhausted just thinking about it!

But now imagine batching your work so that you’re writing 5 outlines at once and then writing the articles and moving forward with the rest of the tasks. You’ve given yourself space to focus on the exact tasks without breaking your rhythm. 

Just think about the different browsers you’d have to keep open if you don’t practice batch work! 

37. Set Aside Time To Write

A writing schedule helps you stay on your goals and keep track of your progress. You just need to pick a frequency that works for you and block that as writing time. For example, a weekly or bi-weekly writing time. 

Of course, the more you write, the more traffic you will attract but you need to keep it at a pace that works for you. It’s important to know if you can keep up with the frequency, and produce quality content. 

38. Stay In Your Lane

One of the vital pieces of advice my driving instructor gave me, also applies to the blogging world! Actually, I’d say life in general as well but let’s stick to blogging specifically. 

Blogging is such a public and open space that you can always see how others are performing. Maybe a new blogger has better traffic than you or maybe your arch-nemesis is now making $10k more than you. But why does it matter?

Focus on yourself, and your journey, and don’t let the timeline or success of others deter you from achieving your goals. 

39. Take A Break

Aha! Bet you didn’t think you’d see this as one of the productivity tips for bloggers, did ya? 🙂

Taking a break is just as important as working. So many bloggers quit due to the burnout from blogging, which is sad cos as time-consuming as blogging might be, it shouldn’t burn you out. 

Planned breaks will help take out the stress of it. Plan a walk, a Netflix catch-up, coffee breaks, playing with your pets, anything that isn’t work, into your day so that you can assure yourself you’re giving yourself time to breathe as your work.

40. Turn Off Distractions

Some distractions are welcomed and not intrusive, like my cat jumping on my lap as I write this article. But some can lead you down the rabbit hole. Think: mobile phones! 

You get one notification from your friend sending you a video of a lion and monkey beings friends and next thing you know, it’s been two hours and you’re reading an article on Darwin’s theory of evolution. We’ve all been there!

So the best thing to do is turn off your phone, your email notification, and everything else while you concentrate on your task at hand!

41. Use Tools To Keep Track Of Your Progress

Now that you know all the productivity tips for bloggers, it’s time for you to keep track of your progress! 

You have your pick on what tools you want to use cos there are so many! Something as simple as Google Calendar also has analytics on how you spend your time weekly, hours in meetings, focus time, people you collaborate most with, and more. 

This isn’t an exhaustive list but here are some tools you can consider:

  • Harvest – Use for invoicing time 
  • ProofHub – Use to plan and track projects
  • Timely – Use for virtual task planning – great for collaborations!
  • Timeneye – Use to integrate with Microsoft apps
  • Timing – Use to track personal productivity 
  • Toggl Track –  Use for simple time tracking

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How To Become A Blogger

I truly think the one thing you need as a prerequisite is a passion for writing. And if you’re already here reading this article, I’ll bet my money that you have it! 🙂

Becoming a blogger is not at all complicated. In fact, you can become a blogger over a weekend in 8 simple steps:

1. Choose a name

2. Set up hosting with Bluehost

3. Install website builder WordPress

4. Pick a theme

5. Design a logo

6. Install essential plugins

7. Learn how to get paid

8. Start driving traffic to your site

Easy right? You can get the step by step here

List Of Things A Blogger Does (To Keep You In Check)

Now that you know how easy it is to become a blogger, what about what happens daily for a blogger? Blogging is not just writing and posting an article on the blog. Bloggers do SO much more than that.

Here’s a comprehensive list of what bloggers do for you to understand more about the blogger life:

  • Writing blog posts
  • Editing blog posts
  • Proofread blog post
  • Schedule blog post
  • Schedule social media to promote blog post
  • Schedule pins to promote blog post
  • Write weekly newsletter to promote blog post
  • Updating blog posts
  • Replying to comments 
  • Creating digital products
  • Research
  • Guest blogging
  • Staying in touch with the latest updates
  • Photography/ source for photos

How Do Blogs Stay Productive?

How to Become a More Productive Blogger in 10 Easy Steps

  • Pick a writing frequency and schedule your writing
  • Don’t overcomplicate tasks
  • Limit distractions
  • Plan, write, and edit in batches
  • Take a break
  • Write blog posts in advance
  • Plan out an editorial calendar
  • Repurpose your content

How Do I Get 1000 Views On My Blog?

This is How To Get 1000 Visitors To Your New Blog Every Day

  • Create great blog content 
  • Brainstorm keywords and research the high-traffic keywords using Keysearch 
  • Create an attractive headline
  • Create lists using your keywords
  • Create a visually attractive blog post
  • Master Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

What Skills Should A Blogger Have?

The best 10 blogging skills to become a successful blogger are:

  • Online networking skills
  • Photo editing skills
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  skills
  • Skills to set and track goals 
  • Social networking skills
  • Traffic conversion skills
  • Writing skills

What Are Three 3 Must Haves For A Company Blog?

Content, community and conversion are the top 3 key elements that make a blog successful. These are the main things along with having relevant ideas and writing great content for your blog

Final Words

I recognize that being a productive blogger isn’t easy, and again, I’ve been there myself. But keep your eyes on the prize, and it will become easier.

And it’s also perfectly understandable that you might not be able to practice all the productivity tips for bloggers that I’ve given. Some people are night owls and simply can’t rise early, for example. So, pick what would work for you.

Importantly, if you get overwhelmed, making relaxation a habit and giving yourself time to unwind will help you cope with stress.

Did you spot any tips that you will be practising right away? 

What other things do you do to become productive? Let me know in the comments – I’d love to hear from you!