I worked 80-120 hours a WEEK for 3 1/2 LONG years!
If you would have asked me back then, what I thought one of the major secrets to my success was, I would have said, putting in the hours was my best productivity tip.
Simple.
Working with little to no sleep to create and build your dream.
But I was wrong.
Now…I work how many ever hours I WANT to work. I’m not set to a schedule or a time frame that I HAVE to work. I can take MONTHS off and be JUST FINE in my business. While I definitely don’t recommend doing that while you are growing, I did actually take one entire year off from blogging in the past and just worked 5-10 hours to maintain it. That year, I still managed to earn $130,000.
So, how does a single mom of two, go from working 80-120 hours a week to working whenever she wants and still maintain sanity, life, kids, and income?
Here my #1 Secret To Getting More Done…
#1 Secret To Getting More Done
Wanna know my unique secret?
I. BATCH. EVERYTHING!
Let’s say you’re working on your posts for your blog. You want to get to a point where you are 3-6 months ahead in scheduled posts. Because life WILL come up and you want to be prepared. You don’t want to be behind the 8-ball when it does. You want to be ahead of the game. How do you do that?
Scheduling ahead.
I can already hear your thought…but scheduling ahead is a LOT of work to do all at once. How can a person possibly schedule that many posts ahead of time and maintain their life NOW?
Again, by batching.
For my blog, I do multiple topics, which I feel is super important. We should NOT niche down!
So, I’ll take my editorial calendars and write in all the posts ideas I want to do.
Next, I’ll start to focus and work on ONE topic at a time.
Let’s say, I want to work on printables first. I do at least one printable post per month and if I want to batch my work, let’s say I’m trying to work on getting ahead, say three months, I will need to complete four printable posts total. I will complete all four of those types of posts in one day. It goes a lot easier and faster because I’m doing the same kind of work.
Then, I’ll start another topic. Let’s say, blogging posts. I’ll write all those posts as I am moved to do so. When I write the posts, I DO NOT clean up errors, add links or pictures or anything else. It’s just free-flow writing. After I’ve gotten all those types of posts written, I’ll go on to the next topic until all my posts for this month and the following three months are all drafted.
This way I know if something major comes up (like life), I will be mostly done with the post if it’s last minute.
The next step after drafting all the posts is to go back through and start finalizing them.
I’ll go in and add pictures, do my SEO, add appropriate links, use spell check, check for grammar mistakes, etc. I’ll finalize the post and schedule it. I’ll go one by one and finalize them all until they are all done.
I NEVER, EVER start a post from start to finish in one sitting. It’s actually a rule I have for myself.
Why?
Because I tend to write when I’m swayed by emotions.
Sometimes, I’ll literally be CRYING as I’m writing or maybe I’ll be in a prideful mood, a PMS mood, a happy mood, and so on. Going back and finalizing the post at another time, when my emotions have died down, always works the best for me. I’m able to be myself, show emotion, be raw and real with you, all while doing so in a professional (and controlled) manner. By the way, usually the PMS mood posts get trashed. lol. But I still have to get out my emotions. Call it…free counseling. 🙂
If I’m in a writing mood that day, I’ll write. If I’m in a mood where I just want to create, I’ll work on free printables or take pictures to use later. In fact, I take many pictures all at one time too. I literally have over 600 pictures I’ve taken for this blog, sitting there, ready to be used in future posts! I just download them to my computer in a file and let them sit until I’m ready to use them for a post.
When I’m finalizing a post, I’ll go through my folder and see what I have available and what will work.
Since everything is batched out, I’m able to concentrate my overloaded and scattered brain on ONE thing at a time and really go a lot QUICKER than trying to bounce between a bunch of different types of projects.
I’ll take one day and get through all my emails in that day. I’ll taken another day and just photo shoot everything. Maybe another day is writing. I’ll write a few posts, maybe 5,000 words that day. Whatever I’m doing that day, it’s based on what I feel like doing and batched out. So, what you see as the end result is a cohesive blog post, but, it’s been batched out for months in different segments.
I’ve found that when I’m, say in a writing mood, and try to take pictures, it doesn’t work. My best photography doesn’t come out of me when I’m in a writing mood and vise versa. I do my BEST WORK, my most efficiently QUICK work when I’m in that particular mood. I’m very much a free spirit and I don’t like to be put in a box.
The same is true with social media. Yesterday, I was working on scheduling all my Instagram posts for two months. Again, batching.
I went through my printable sheet I created for Instagram and added in all the quotes pictures first. Then, I added in all the free printables. Then, I added in all my popular posts. Then, my new posts. Then, random pictures and so on down the line. For each post, it’s the same mode, the same mindset. I’m not shifting around and having to re-calibrate my mind between each topic. My mind can go faster that way and therefore, I’m getting more done in less amount of time.
By scheduling ahead and by batching out my work, I have gone from 80-120 hours a week to whatever I want. Because I’m ahead and when I DO work, it’s batched.
If you get batching down, you will be a lot more productive in your blogging career.
You say, “Yeah, but Sarah. You don’t understand. I can’t possibly schedule ahead. I have no time NOW in order to batch ahead.”
If you’re thinking that, to you, I’d say, you make time for the things that are important to you. Every time you say, “Yes” to one thing, you have to say, “No” to another.
When I was working that many hours (80-120 week), a lot of it was spent on Facebook. I simply got off. Did my traffic go down? A little bit. But I have so much more time now to invest in OTHER traffic-generating ways, that I get more traffic now than I was spending all that time on Facebook.
Is getting off Facebook right for everyone? No. It’s not. But perhaps you can keep yourself logged out. If you go to a site where they ask you to log in using Facebook, they usually always let you log in with Google too. So, I simply log in with Google instead of Facebook. No time suck!
I’d suggest starting with batching things first in increments, THEN work on trying to get ahead in your blog. Batching is THE #1 secret to getting more done. It will literally transform your work week once you get it down. Give it a shot. Try to batch out one thing and see how it goes, then another and another and another.
Perhaps you’re on your email all day long. Stay logged off and just check it through out the day, instead of getting instant alerts. Batch out your emails. Start slow, but methodical. Batch out one thing at a time and I think you’ll begin to see real improvements in your time.
And when you get really good at batching, you’ll start to see other areas in your life in which you can batch out too.
For example, just now, I’m getting ready to go yard saleing. I have to eat and touch money to put in my wallet to prepare. I was going to go eat and wash my hands, then do the money later. But I thought to myself, what if I do the money now, get that ready, THEN go eat, then I only have to wash my hands ONCE, instead of twice.
Now, I know something like washing your hands is incredibly trivial, and it probably only saves 30 seconds, but I’m telling you this, so that you start training your brain to batch everything. Because those 30 seconds do add up over the course of your life. It’s a new habit you need to form and the more batching you do, the more time you’ll have.
When all my friends are complaining they don’t have enough time, I’m sitting over here like, “What’s the problem. I’m bored. All my work’s done. I’m going to the park and soak up the sun!”
I hope this post has been tremendously helpful to you. It is just but a small part of the massively in-depth things I will teach you about in my course, Honest Bloggers Academy.
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Do you have any tricks to make yourself more productive working from home as a stay at home mom (SAHM)?
