Top 10 Blogging Balance Tips and Tricks for Weary Moms
Blogging balance can seem non-existent because blogging can become all-consuming if you let it. A bloggers work is truly never done! There is always more that can be done to further your blog as a ministry or business. With professional blogging, the more time you have to put into it, the faster you can accomplish your goals!
This is great if you are a diligent, hardworking blogger. It can become a very lucrative career or outreach ministry. However, because the work is never finished, and running a successful business of ministry is time-consuming and takes energy, effort, and time – you can lose yourself, the precious time you get with your family, and your sanity in the process.
There are many demands that require a homeschooling moms time, especially if she is working from home as a blogger on top of homeschooling her children. Being a wife, mom, homeschool teacher, and blogger are all full-time jobs! But you can wear all of those proverbial hats with some pre-planning for balance.
Here are the top 10 blogging balance tips and tricks to help even the weariest homeschooling mom blogger.
Tip #1 – Set Your Priorities
It’s easy to say something is a priority, but making your time reflective of that takes a lot of grit and determination. Once you have determined what your priorities are, you need to make sure you are keeping them in check. Set your priorities and keep them!
There are lots of things that should occur before working on your blog. Checking your e-mail before you roll out of bed is a great way to burn yourself out! Spending some quiet time with God should happen before beginning your blogging tasks. You could also read something you enjoy for a few minutes before sitting down to dig into your work.
Related reading: 3 Priorities Bloggers Must Not Neglect
Tip #2 – Put Your Family First
Your family should never take a backseat to your blogging work. You need to spend time with your husband. Don’t neglect date night for blogging! That’s more fun than blogging anyway! You can use your blog as a tool to bless your family and others without burdening your marriage or your family.
Take some time to play with and enjoy your kids – they won’t be at this same age and stage in life for long! Eat dinner with them and sit beside them. Take them to the park and chase them, or take them out to their favorite coffee shop and chat (depending on what season of motherhood you are in 😉 ). If your mom calls you asking to go out to lunch, go! If your grandma wants to stop by and see the kids, let him! Blogging can be worked in around these special times with your family.
Tip #3 – Don’t Neglect your Other Commitments
Another important part of homeschool mom blogger life is homeschooling! Being your children’s teacher is important, and homeschooling should be a frontrunner to blogging. I am not saying that your kids can never take a day off while you are working on your blog but teaching and training your children should come as a higher priority than finishing your blogging work. With a little planning, you can accomplish both homeschooling and running a blog successfully!
Tip #4 – Set a Work Schedule
Having a set work schedule is essential for balancing blogging with mom life. You can do this just as if you were working outside of your home. This can seem trivial because you can work anytime and you only have to answer to yourself, but it is still your job! Set a schedule that is reflective of that.
Your schedule can be set weekly, monthly, every 6 weeks, or even quarterly. If your day to day schedule has to change often, your blogging work schedule can change right along with that. If you haven’t set a blogging work schedule before, try doing it a week at a time, then tweak it as necessary. Once you figure out what works and what doesn’t you can plan out larger chunks of time. The longer you can set a schedule for, the less time you have to spend planning it out and thinking about it.
Tip #5: Chunk Your Time
Time blocks or “chunking your time” simply means that you focus on one task during a block of time. During this block of time, 2:00 – 3:00 pm, for example, you will be focusing on this one single task. You can do this with anything but it is especially handy for blogging work time.
You can use time chunks to add blogging work time into your family’s daily or weekly routine. If you naturally have time before your kids wake up in the morning or after they go to bed, spend that time blogging. If your kids still take a nap or have quiet time to themselves every day, add your work time then. Or if your husband takes the kids to the park every Thursday afternoon anyways, you can spend time blogging then.
Whenever there is a stretch of time that your family won’t need you, you can use that to work blogging tasks into your routine naturally. Also, utilize extra time for chunking that is already built into your day. Keep your priorities and your schedule in mind when chunking your time!
Tip #6: Set Goals
Setting goals gives you something big to aim for, but it doesn’t have to be huge. If you don’t aim at anything, you will hit it every time! So allow yourself to dream a little and set some goals you will work towards attaining. Maybe it’s a specific number of email subscribers or pageviews, or maybe your goal is a specific blogging task you’d like to accomplish. It can even be a specific amount of monthly income that you’d like to attain.
Goals can be as big or as small as you’d like them to be. Whatever your goal is, set it and run towards it. Don’t give up until you have surpassed all of the goals you have set for yourself.
Tip #7: Create an Editorial Calendar
Editorial calendars are great for organizing all of your blogging tasks. Use these to list which posts to publish, what to promote, and what emails to send. You can also list affiliate marketing, guest posting, social media promotions and any other blogging tasks you want to schedule in advance.
If you have never created an editorial calendar, they can seem daunting, but having one to work from is phenomenal! In one planning session, you can do all the decision making for what to work on and when. That way when you have a scheduled blogging session, you can get straight to work instead of deciding what needs to be done.
Tip #8 – Plan to Plan
Sometimes you have to make a plan to plan. Setting aside some time to make a plan is important. Take one of your time chunks and use it as a planning session. You can use your planning time to make your schedule, create your editorial calendar, and set your goals!
Set some time to reevaluate your plan after a few weeks. Keep doing what is working and scrap what is not. Adjust your schedule, editorial calendar, and goals as needed.
Tip #9 – Multitask
Becoming a skilled multitasker will serve you well while being a homeschooling mom and blogger. Accomplishing multiple things at a time can help give you more time to “get it all done.” When your children are at dance lessons or soccer practice, you can spend some time knocking out your blogging tasks.
While the kids are napping or are occupied with independent schoolwork or reading time use that time to blog. While you are cooking dinner, folding the laundry, or loading the dishwasher you can listen to blogging podcasts of work through blog courses to hone some new blogging skills.
Tip # 10 – Be Flexible
Because you blog, you are able to work from home. You are your own boss and you set your own hours so you can be flexible! If you have sick kids or need to take some time off, you don’t need permission. You are bound to answer to or serve your schedule, calendar, or goals. Use them as tools to further your blogging business or ministry, but remember that you are able to be flexible!
Tip # 11 – Take Care of Yourself
Lastly – because we as busy mamas often put this last – is your commitment to take care of yourself. You need to sleep and drink water to stay alive. Sometimes it feels like those are the last things that you ever think about. But remember to take care of yourself so that you can serve your family and do the things you enjoy doing, like blogging!
