This post was written by Jennifer
Batch Processing Your Blog
Last week all my child care help fell through, leaving me no childless work time. It sucked, because child care or not, I’ve still got a load of client blogs, some articles, and my own blogs to work on, only now, far less time to get it all done. On the up side, it made my brain start scrambling for solutions. On another up side, or maybe more the lucky side, Darren posted a very timely post that you may have seen; How Batch Processing Made Me 10 Times More Productive.
This was just the right post for me to read last week because it made me realize I go about blogging time a little backwards. What I normally do is estimate how much time I’ll need to spend on each project, or blog per week, then I divvy that time up. What I started considering after reading Darren’s post, is that maybe I should divvy time up first, and work blogs into the time frame I absolutely can afford, not the time frame I think I need.
Example: I have 6 blogs that need around 28 posts each per week, 1 blog that needs 5 posts a week, and 2 others that get around 7 posts a week. Previously, I’ve been thinking this way, “I NEED 50 hours a week of work time, and that includes posting, networking, all that jazz.” What happens when I think this way is I run out of time, and I’m working 50+ hours a week, which leaves me little free time.
Solution: For the last few days I’ve been timing my posts - how long it takes me to write them. I’ve also been logging my networking / other task time. (a simple hand timer works good for this). I realized that on a good day, when I’m in top notch shape, 28 posts take me around 4 - 5.5 hours to write, depending on the blog. That’s a mix of short and mid-length posts. If you do the math that works out to around 34 hours of writing time. If I tack on a good 8 hours of networking and other blog tasks, that’s still only 40-43 hours per week of total work time. I win some time if I use this system. Yay.
My new plan: Since I timed myself, I know what I can blog on a good day. I decided to allow time for blogs, not make time for them. I’m giving myself a set amount of time each week to post at each blog. I’ll just set a timer and work for the alloted time. If I get done great; if not, well that blog’s time is spent, and I better pick up the pace, right? Because clearly each blog can be managed in the set time frame. I think this move should save me time, and allow for more me time.
How do you divvy up blogging time? Do you allow a set amount of work time per blog or project?
If you haven’t seen it, you really should read the batch processing post linked above. It’s one of the best blogging posts I’ve read in a while.
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3 Responses to “Batch Processing Your Blog”
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6 blogs each requiring 28 posts per week? Wowza!
This cannot go underrated because sometimes when we read about so and so making XXX amount of money blogging, people don’t realize that alot of work goes on behind the scenes.
I could be wrong but i think alot of people are under the impression that (most bloggers) have one blog, and write one post a day, and make a gazillion dollars a week.
This is simply not true, blogging is alot of work, and pretty much all the bloggers i know, have multiple blogs (some personal and some network) and each blogs multiple times per day, plus all the social networking, SEO, promo, etc.
Jenn, you definitely have your plate full, and this is a good discussion. As to make more money, we essentially have to take on more work, but time is not on our side.
Let’s see what others chime in with.
Those blogs need 28 posts a week; they don’t require that many. Only one, contract wise requires 28 posts a week. The reason I say need, is because I like to make money at work, and since some of my pay is PV related, around 28 posts is a good amount for traffic jumping (at these blogs).
But you’re not wrong. At this blog, I don’t think people think you have one blog and make millions, because this blog is about network or client blogging and no one I know making a living blogging this way has just one blog - we talk about it a lot. Blogging is real work, if you want to make a living.
[...] the end of June I noted that I was considering batch processing my blogs. On July 3rd, I put this plan into [...]