By 
When you begin blogging, losing an hour of sleep to perfect a post or skipping lunch to spend time commenting is a pleasure. Post ideas come thick and fast. And more published posts mean pageviews and readers, so publishing more is better, right?
Sure… until it’s not. Until work starts piling up. Or you get sick. Or a friend is in from out of town. Or you have to bake three dozen cupcakes for Sally’s class — by tomorrow. Sometimes, we all get trapped under a beam in the burning barn (metaphorically) and can’t get to the computer. When that happens, how do you find time to blog without turning your creative outlet into just another obligation?
The barn thing was figurative. If your barn IS on fire, it’s totally fine to take a blog break. Also, please call 911.
One: cut yourself some slack
Feeling guilty about blogging never helped anyone write a compelling post. If it’s getting tough to fit your ideal blogging schedule into a newly busy life, go easy on yourself; we all have ebbs and flows.
You can take a break without starting from scratch upon your return. Give your readers a heads-up, and give yourself permission to take time off before your blog becomes another stressor. Turning your blog into an obligation puts you on the fast track to killing the fun.
Two: manage your expectations
When you started blogging, your personal goal was two long, substantive posts a week. But you didn’t realize how much fun interacting with other bloggers would be. You got infatuated with CSS tinkering. Life dropped another project in your lap. Whatever the reason, those two posts aren’t happening.
And you know what? That’s fine. While it’s true that regular publishing helps establish a blog and retain a readership, “regular” can mean lots of things: daily, weekly, monthly, whatever. Trying to enforce a publishing frequency that doesn’t fit your life leads to a tumbleweed-strewn blog. Take a realistic look at the time you can devote to blogging, and use that to set your expectations. Don’t set yourself up to fail! You wouldn’t do that to kids or dogs, so don’t do it to yourself.
Three: think about features
A little structure can help make blogging more manageable. Combining a regular feature with other posts takes some of the publishing pressure off — especially if the feature is less time-intensive, like a photo post or link roundup.
Plus, regularly scheduled features are great for keeping readers coming back again and again, and no blogger ever turned down repeat visitors!
Four: create an editorial calendar
Even if you don’t want to run regular features, an editorial calendar allows you to take control of your publishing schedule and time — and luckily for you, we just told you all about them! Since you create the calendar, it can be as flexible as it needs to be. Take your schedule into account and plan quicker, less intense posts for busy weeks.
Five: schedule time
We put out a call on Twitter asking how you find time to blog, and this was the first response:
Adding “blog time” to your calendar is a simple way to carve out space for blogging, as long as you honor that time — otherwise, re-scheduling your missed blog appointment just becomes another source of stress.
Blog time needn’t be a big chunk of your free time; ten or fifteen minutes is a great, doable place to start. As our erstwhile commenter put it:
Six: go mobile and/or write offline
You don’t have to be at your computer or connected to the internet to blog. Keep a sticky note open on your computer desktop while at work or doing other things, and sock away a few sentences or post ideas when the mood strikes. Download the WordPress mobile app and draft posts while you’re on the subway or in line at the post office (or publish short posts or photos while you’re out and about).
Heck, go totally analog and keep an actual sticky note on your desk to jot down ideas — anything that helps the words flow once you have an internet connection.
Seven: take advantage of drafts
You don’t have to pen a perfectly publishable post every time you sit down at the computer, and you shouldn’t let that fallacy — “Oh, I don’t have time to finish a post now, so I’ll just wait until later” — keep you away from the keyboard. Drafts and posts-in-progress are your friends.
At a conference several years ago, popular food blogger David Lebovitz admitted that he had 40 active drafts sitting in his dashboard at any given time. You don’t have to be an overachiever like David, but drafts are a useful tool. Have an idea but no time to write? Start a draft. Have another one? Start another draft. You can either take your daily blogging time to work on them until you’re ready to publish, or use them as a head start when you have a bigger block of time for writing (plus, you’ll have a variety of topics to choose from, and can pick the one that moves you).
Not this easy. Some things are TOO easy.
Eight: give yourself an easy A
If you haven’t been able to post in a while and it’s getting to you, try a lower-effort piece to keep the conversation going and buy yourself some time. Link roundups, reblogs (with your own commentary), or a post highlighting another blogger you love can bridge the gap between other pieces. As long as you’re true to your voice and point of view and offer your own take, these can be just as substantive as wholly original content.
Anyone who tries to use blogging as a get-rich-quick scheme will be sorely disappointed: building a good blog and attracting a community takes consistent time and effort, and there’s no magic formula where publishing every day leads to overnight success.
While viral lightening does sometimes strike, blogging truly is a “slow and steady wins the race” endeavor. Use these tricks to find the balance between carving out time to create and turning your blog into a job, and set yourself up for success in the long haul.
If you’ve got any tricks for making time to blog, we’d all love to hear ’em!
Enjoyed this? You might also like:
- Quick Tip: Stay Regular
- It’s About Time: On Editorial Calendars (and Why You Might Need One)
- Going Serial: The Power of Intervals
- The Ghosts in Your Dashboard
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The Daily Post 
So relatable! I am not, what one would call, a true “blogger”. Rather, I am a rookie at this, I enjoy writing and reading, and hope to be a writer someday; I figured blogging was a good way to start and keep up with my literary hobby. So far, I find it quite difficult to make time for it, or rather to find a balance, since I can get so consumed with writing. Thank you for sharing these tips, they do seem quite useful; and for the CCS feature, which honestly, I had no idea about :S
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Very fun and helpful post!
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Great tips shared here! Love it!
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The tips are great! I have been pretty busy lately and finding time can be a true challenge.
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Sound advice to a new blogger like me. Thank you:-)
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These tips are really nice. I have such problems having time to blog, being a full-time student, part-time salaried tutor, and writing a novel. But implementing these will probably help exceedingly. Thanks!
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Funny, I just posted something about this today LOL!
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That’s a great post! I can related when I first started blogging long time ago. There are times that I want to write, but then I got no time to do so. So I would write down that I want to say in a blog, but I think this post helps if you want to post, but have no time to do so. Jot down some ideas and when you do get that chance, let the creative juices flow.
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The tips are great (and addiction can be such a correct word to use!) but the comments and follow up conversations are also useful to me: this is good, almost cooperative blogging and I have learned a lot about the art and craft of what we are all doing while reading and getting my head around these pots.
Thank you all.
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I post M, W, and F on my main blog, monthly on my secondary, and weekly on another blog to which I contribute. My main blog sometimes runs out of steam. When that happens, I take a favorite photo, share it, and write exactly two short paragraphs about it. I write anything, as long as it relates to the photo. I find that these are great stopgap posts, and they also really help me when I feel like I don’t have something to say.
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That’s a great approach — thanks for sharing!
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soosooo true. the biggest problem is having ideas but not having the possibility to write them down. and later they are lost…
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Do you have a phone on you@itchyfeetx ? Quickly punch it into your phone’s notepad app or carry post-its and pen with you always. I usually do that and come back home peel the post it into my blogging notebook 🙂
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Jeepers! A good read before this happens.
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I finally managed to schedule my posts – new post at noon every Monday – and it helps me feel satisfied as a blogger and I hope it has made my readers feel more fulfilled too.
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Whenever you feel the urge, grab it like a Portkey before it disappears. Our lives are so busy and addled, you have to squeeze it in whenever you can. I force myself to sit down and at least try it every morning at the same time, but sometimes it doesn’t work. This week, I had the house to myself for a half an hour and wrote at a different time than I normally do, and managed to eke another one out. This is a great topic, thanks for posting it.
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You really resonated with everyone – myself included. As a new blogger who got inspired by Blonde on a Budget it is great to ear your advice. Our chronically busy lives are always a challenge no matter what we choose to focus on.
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My tip for finding time to blog (or finding time for any other task, really) is to unplug the TV. Literally. It’s amazing what can get done when that box goes dark!
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Thanks for the tips and encouragement. I will definitely use them.
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This is so true the other night I stayed up till 2am finishing a post despite the fact I was up at 6 at work. I guess I felt that as a new blogger I better prove my dedication I shall definetly be easing off the keyboard a little bit from now on
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I love the occasional 2AM writing binge, when the words are really flowing — but if your blog requires nightly sleep deprivation, you’re not going to be able to keep it up for long!
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Perfect thing for me to read now as I’m recommitting to my blog (for the umpteenth time). I usually get overly ambitious (“Hey! I haven’t posted in eighteen months and have no good ideas… I’m going to post something new every day! Yeah!”) and crash and burn as a result.
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It’s definitely a challenge to manage your own expectations, especially once people start reading and responding and you’ve got a positive feedback loop — I struggled with that on my last personal blog. Balance is key!
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Thanks– it’s so hard to keep that in mind! Hopefully, recommitting with more manageable goals in mind (in light of previous experiences, both yours and mine) will help!
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Wow this arrived at the perfect time for me, great advice!
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These kind of posts are great to reaffirm how I have gone about things. Thanks
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Something must be in the atmosphere; had this happen to me earlier in the week, too 🙂
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Hello, this is very helpful for someone like me.I just started blogging for a month now, and all what you have said, gives me an idea on how to make it right. Thanks a lot.
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Blogging is like other passions –a ratchet high of fun and achievement. Then dips, troughs before climbing upward slowly. Then a person finally finds some better balance with blogging.
I take advantage of any Muse inspirations where I’ve written 2 blog posts within 2 wks. BUT I don’t publish them and preschedule them since my blog is for me, to only publish 1-2 times per month.
What keeps me inspired to blog is that in mind, I’m giving the best of myself to blogosphere, a digital footprint for loved ones and those who care to read …maybe long after I am gone. So I have enough stories and pics to share ahead. 🙂
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Also a great tip — write when the muse visits, and save the posts/schedule them for later.
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This was such a helpful post. Thank you for the tips and inspiration!
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Blogging has help me redevelop my love of interviewing! I love personal pieces of people doing amazing things!
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These highlight some great points I run into often while trying to maintain some semblance of a travel blog. I’m certainly behind on destinations simply for the fact that I move faster than I type.
You’re advice is appreciated.
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Really using the drafts feature is an excellent suggestion. Also, just being realistic with our lifestyle and schedules saves unneeded frustration. My biggest issue at times is my commitment to reading and commenting, visiting really, with my favorite bloggers. Sometimes I’d actually rather see what “they” are up to then talk about myself. Thanks for great suggestions.
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You can also regulate this a bit — when I started blogging, I’d set a little daily goal: visit five sites, or leave three substantive comments. If I had time to venture further into the blogosphere, great; if not, I knew I’d did something to contribute.
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great tips. i never knew i would be a blogger. just started. have had no visitors. so i comment a lot to other blogs. i don’t write anything of substance, just spew random thoughts. do people want substance? my thoughts have worth to me, but like the saying goes. “just because it happened to you, doesn’t make it interesting.”
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Different people want different things, and that’s the beauty! Write what moves you.
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Blog writing not pocketed in memory
Thoughts occur immediate and here
in shower,in roaming,in sleep,in shopping
Do’nt recur at leisure the pity we lose th’grip.
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