Last year most of the tips I shared had to do with organization and time management. You can find all of the posts on this topic by clicking on the “blogging” tab in my blue menu bar. Please feel free to read the posts you may have missed earlier in the year and share them on your social channels so that they can help others as well.

#5 Time Management for Bloggers Part 3-Household Responsibilities

#4 Time Management for Bloggers Part 2-Social Media

#3 Printable Social Media Checklist

#2 Your Blog Needs Social Sharing Buttons

This post has had tons of social media shares and is just a few pins away from 100!

#1 Time Management for Bloggers Part 1-Writing

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Before I share my daily schedule with you, I want to talk about what I see as the major areas that most parent bloggers need to manage, all of which I will touch on in this series.

• writing
• social media
• household responsibilities
• family time

Today I am going to focus on the task of blogging and over the next few weeks I’ll write about the others so make sure you are subscribed so you won’t miss a single post!

Writing

Editorial Calendar

As a full time blogger I am writing 5-10 blog posts a week. I could not do that with out an editorial calendar. After trying many different types of editorial calendars I found out what works best for me. A dry erase calendar and a paper calendar. I print out monthly paper calendars from CalendarLabs.com for 6 months and fill in all of the weekly posts I do (aka Mouse House Monday, Win It Wednesday and Friday’s Recipe posts) I won’t have the exact topic for Monday’s & Wednesday’s posts that far out but at least I know where I stand. Next I decide which weeks are going to have themes and write that in the left margin (Easter, Mother’s Day, Summer Vacation etc). Now I use custom imprinted wall calendars to add in any upcoming sponsored posts, giveaways or series I have committed to writing. Once that is done I add the current month to my dry erase calendar. Each category of post I write is color coded so I can see at a glance what is coming up. This calendar hangs right over my desk so it is always in sight when I am working.

Future Posts PlugIn

A few years ago a friend of mine introduced me to Future Posts Calendar plugin for WordPress. It adds a calendar onto your WordPress dashboard so that you can see when you have posts scheduled. It may sound like a silly thing, especially if you have a good editorial calendar but, since I write movie reviews which are often embargoed by the studios until specific dates, sometimes months after I have screened the movie this plugin comes in very handy.

To-Do List

Since you have an editorial calendar, your next step is to break your writing tasks down into individual tasks and schedule them throughout your week. I have tried several to-do apps to organize my blogging tasks but I have found I do best with old fashioned paper and pen. I like to make my weekly to-do list on Sunday so that I can dig in on Monday. You can use a small notebook and put each day on a separate page if you like. I choose to use the FREE printable “This Week” page from The Harmonized House Project. I write in my tasks for each day and I enjoy getting to cross them off as I complete them.

Dedicated Writing Time

What ever your schedule you will get more done if you have dedicated writing time and the whole family knows about it. My dedicated writing time is 11am-1pm M-F. Do I often write other times? Yes. This is not the time to edit photos or do research this is writing time. My “office” is in my bedroom and usually the door is ajar or open but when I am writing the door is closed, my phone is on silent and everyone knows not to bother me unless there is a fire, a death or lots of blood.

Dedicated Planning and Prepping Time

This is the time when I edit photos, create pinnable images, research posts, create outlines etc. If all of my prep work is done then and only then will I use  this time for additional writing time.

My Schedule

My schedule probably won’t work for you. I am sharing this so that you can get an idea of how I work in blocks of time to accomplish my goals. Over the next few weeks I’ll be going into more detail about what happens during each part of my schedule.

8:00-9:00am Linkys
9:00-10:00am Social Media
10:00-10:30am Breakfast, Facebook games and/or chat room
10:30-11:00am Daily Chores
11:00am-1:00pm Write
1:00-2:00pm Social Media
2:00-2:30pm Lunch, Facebook games and/or chat room
2:30-3:00pm Daily Chores
3:00-5:00pm Prep time for posts you will write tomorrow.
5:00-6:00pm Social Media
This is my optimum schedule. Due to other commitments I only follow this schedule in it’s entirety on Monday, Thursday and the first and third Wednesday. The other days I edit it to meet my needs and writing commitments.

I hope this post has been helpful to you. If you have any comments or questions please leave them in the comments for this post. My goal with this Time Management for Bloggers series is to help you be a more efficient parent blogger.

Other posts in this Series

Time Management for Bloggers Part 2-Social Media

Time Management for Bloggers Part 3-Household Responsibilities

Time Management for Bloggers Part 4-Family Time

The post Time Management for Bloggers Part 1-Writing appeared first on The Mom Maven.

We all know that to bring new readers to our blogs we need to be active in social media. When I started blogging back in 2008 my main focus was Twitter and then Facebook. Later we all added Facebook fan pages, StumbleUpon, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram! If you don’t have a plan in place, and a handy timer, each of these social media sites can become a huge time suck and suddenly the day has flown by and you didn’t accomplish your goals.

I have created a printable Daily Social Media Checklist so that I can stay on task and reach my goals while spending time on all seven social networks listed above. My upcoming Blogging Time Management post will go into specific details of how I schedule things but for starters, I’ll explain how the checklist works.

My Daily Social Media Goals

My overall goal is to share my posts on all of the major social networks, share posts from others and engage in conversations with others. I do this by focusing on 5 a day. Here is an example of what I want to accomplish in a day on Twitter:

• Share 5 posts from other people-they can be in your tribe, niche or from linkys
• @ message 5 people to engage in conversation
• Follow 5 new people
• RT 5 tweets from other people
• Share that day’s post from your blog 2x
• Share an old post from your blog 2x

By following a similar pattern for all of the social media outlets you will be active without taking too much time out of your schedule.

How to Use the Daily Social Media Checklist

1. Start with a fresh list each day. You can print a new one or laminate it and use a dry erase marker or grease pencil to mark off items as you complete them.
2. As you add your posts to linkys, mark down on the sheet as you comment, pin and share posts from the linkys.
3. Each morning as you visit each social media site set your timer for 10 minutes for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and 5 minutes for Instagram and StumbleUpon. During that time your goal is to interact as much as possible, without wasting time.
4. Using your checklist as a guide try to complete at least half of the tasks for that media outlet.
5. When the timer goes off close that tab and move on to the next site.
6. Once you have completed your morning hour of social media move on to other tasks for a few hours.
7. In the afternoon or evening. Come back and repeat steps 3-5 again and try to finish your checklist.

I hope you find my Printable Daily Social Media Checklist a handy tool. Please feel free to Pin this post or share it with your friends using the social sharing buttons on this post. If you have any questions or comments please leave me a comment on this post so we can chat!

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