Whether you know it or not, there are some phenomenal things you can do in order to increase your overall blogging speed and efficiency. This post is geared towards helping you cut down the time you spend writing each blog post without sacrificing quality. By reading this post, you learn how to maximize your efficiency as a blogger. Incorporating these tips into your blogging can really give your blogging producitivity a much needed boost!

1. Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm

Whenever you’ve got some freetime to watch T.V. or listen to music, don’t be afraid to think about your blog - have a brainstorming session! Always carry around a small notebook and pen for when new ideas come to mind. If you have some extra time to dedicate towards blogging, feel free to have a brainstorming session. Write, write, and write some more. Write every idea that comes to mind, even if it’s bad. By writing every idea that comes to mind, you won’t “get stuck” when creating your list. If you haven’t yet checked out my posts: 6 Places To Think Of Blogging Ideas & 6 More Places To Think Of Blogging Ideas, I highly recommend that you give them a read and test to see how well they work for you! I have personally found that being in the shower works exceptionally well for me when trying to think of new ideas. When having a 10 minute brainstorming session, I sometimes think of 20 ideas for posts and am able to layout several key points within each post. I highly recommend you incorporate a brainstorming session into your blogging routine if you don’t already. It will save you a ton of time when trying to strain yourself to think of ideas!

2. Narrow your brainstorming list to ideas that fit your blog

After you’ve had a brainstorming session or two, it is important to narrow down the large list of ideas to the concepts that best fit your blog. First, I recommend eliminating all irrelevant ideas. If you’re currently running a blog about making money online, yet have ideas about exercise and fitness on your list, give them a nice scribbling over or “X” through. After you’ve eliminated all irrelevant ideas, review your remaining ideas and look for those which cannot be used to write a full blog post from. If you can combine a few of your weaker ideas into one bigger article concept or into a numbered list post, great! If not, draw a thick line through those ideas as well. However many ideas you are left with, you can successfully use to plan out some future postings. Remember: Though you may have a large list of 50 items, chances are good that most of the items on the list you won’t be able to write a full post from!

3. Plan ahead with Google calendar

Once you have your narrowed down list from your brainstorming session, you can successfully plan out your future postings for a few weeks, maybe even the entire month - depending on how long your list. Begin writing one post idea for each day of the month on a calendar or online with Google calendar if you like to do planning online. It may take multiple brainstorming sessions to fill up an entire month: everyone is different and certain days are more productive than others when thinking of new ideas! If you are going to write a series of articles (”article series”), leave a chunck of time open to complete the series. It is generally better to write a series of articles in-a-row rather than posting a few articles from your series at the beginning of the month, a couple in the middle of the month, and a few at the end. If the series is scheduled to be 10 posts - make it 10 days in-a-row! Realize that laying out a gameplan on a calendar will help you stay organized and always have something to post about. Google calendar is very self-explanatory and easy to use: I recommend giving it a test run if you haven’t yet.

4. Choose a designated chunk of time for blogging

Once everything is laid out and all of your ideas are organized on a calendar, it is time to choose a designated chunk of time to do your blogging. I recommend choosing a chunk of time that you know will work for you everyday without interference. I personally recommend choosing the morning: before work, before school, before all other activities during the day. Why the morning? You don’t need to worry about blogging the rest of the day and you can focus on other areas of life. Blogging shouldn’t take up your entire life and there’s no need to be frustrated with “not having enough time for blogging” later in the day. If you can work it out, try blogging from an early time like 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. Make this time part of a blogging ritual that you automatically do day-in and day-out. If morning doesn’t work out for you, pick another time during the day when you think you won’t have much outside interference or distractions. If you can sit down and blog away for a couple hours each day, you will be successful. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should blog everyday: everyone has a different writing style and posting frequency.

5. Outline your post before writing

When writing your post, you may notice that you sometimes “get stuck” and don’t know what dimension of your current topic to blog about next. I recommend making a short-outline that highlights the key points of your article before starting to write. Outlines have boosted my productivity and definitely have increased my blogging speed. I really don’t have to do any critical thinking while writing my article if I’ve got a nice outline sitting infront of me! Keep the time in perspective when creating an outline though. If you go too in-depth with each key point, you are wasting time. During an outline time, you may want to do some reasearch if you aren’t familiar with every dimension of the topic that you are blogging about. Without doing a bit of research on a topic before writing, you may be missing a lot of necessary information that you weren’t previously aware of. What I have had the most success with is writing my post topic, doing a bit of thinking, titling key points, and then writing each article from start to finish without a pause.

6. Find a comfortable working environment

Working in a comfortable environment that is free of distractions is key to increasing efficiency. If you are sitting inside a Starbucks blogging via wireless internet on your laptop, it’s probably much more difficult to write a quality article in a short period of time: customers will be talking noisily, your mocha will be tempting to sip throughout writing, and who knows what else you may not enjoy. My guess is that in a workroom with a nice desk, comfortable chair to fit your back and butt’s needs, and your high-speed secure internet connection, you will be much more comfortable than at a place like Starbucks. Your office is also probably much less noisy and much more comfortable to work in than anywhere else. Why waste time in a place that isn’t comfortable when you know you’d be more efficient while working from your own desk?

7. Work as fast as possible (set a timer) - I always recommend setting a timer at 1 hour and trying to set a new landspeed record while typing up your new blog entry. I choose 1 hour because it is just the right amount of time to take for writing an entry. If you set aside a scheduled gap of 2 hours, you will have extra time for editing, adding pictures, linking to your previous posts, writing your next post outline, blog promotion, etc. Always try to work under the time limit that you set for yourself - force yourself to produce good material in shorter periods of time to keep yourself from procrastinating. I also recommend setting a timer that beeps or buzzes that will notify you when your hour is up. Some articles will definitely take longer, others may take less, but 1 hour gives you a realistic time margin to blog under! What you should be aware of: when I say “work as fast as possible,” I do not mean lower your quality of work to get it done quicker. I mean that you should force yourself to stay focused and keep your fingers typing without getting distracted from your content. In absolutely no way do I want you to speed write an article just for the sake of “doing it under 1 hour!” Know this: write quality content, but push yourself to do it quickly.

8. Never write half-heartedly, give each post all you’ve got

While trying to work in under 1 hour, it is important to give each post every ounce of energy you’ve got. Putting in that extra bit of work will pay off and definitely looks more professional than doing half-hearted work. At the end of the day, and end of each post, you know whether or not you cheated yourself or your readers out of extra content. I cannot tell whether a short post on your blog took you the same amount of time to put together as a post on Problogger’s blog. Only you, as the author of your blog will know whether you gave each of your posts 110%. What should be of importance is the amount of satisfaction you get from writing awesome content vs. just writing a so-so post. I want to clarify that just because a certain post gets more comments than the others, does not necessarily make it your best post. I’ve had several posts here at AndrewPavelski.com that I think should’ve gotten more comment attention, but didn’t. The point that I just made is that only you can tell what your best effort and work is. It is obvious that some people are more gifted at writing than others, but blogging is not all about being a great writer - blogging is about putting forth effort and being honest with yourself! Give each post everything you’ve got, don’t hold back, and time will fly by ;)