Finding Time to Blog

Let’s talk about finding time to blog.

Technical bloggers tend to be busy professionals. So much so that I often hear remarks such as, “I would love to do so, but I simply don’t have the time needed to blog”.

Some even start a blog, only to stop updating it after the initial enthusiasm wears off.

“I don’t have time” is a lie

The truth of the matter is that you have the time. In fact, you have the same amount of time as the most brilliant and prolific people you can think of. 24 hours per day.

The difference is in how you choose to allocate your time. When people say, “I don’t have time to blog” they don’t mean that. What they are really saying is, “Everything I’m currently doing throughout the course of my day is a higher priority to me than blogging”.

With a few exceptions, that’s a lie. If you analyze the average day of most people you’ll find plenty of genuinely wasted time. (And I don’t mean time that is intentionally allocated for relaxation, which is entirely justifiable.)

Few amongst us have their day so finely organized that they genuinely allocate all of their time to doing more important things. Proof of this comes from asking people about exercising. Many will tell you that they don’t have the time, yet it can be easily argued that exercising should have a higher priority than many things that we do in the course of our daily lives.

There is a gap between what we should prioritize, or even willingly admit that we intend to prioritize so as to hit our goals, and what we actually end up spending our day doing.

What gets scheduled gets done

For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume that blogging is something that you, consciously, consider to be worth prioritizing to some degree. Obviously, it won’t come before things like your current job or your children, but it should rank higher than watching TV or casually surfing the web for at least one day a week.

The first step in finding time to blog is to make it a priority in your mind. View it as something that’s important enough that you can wholeheartedly commit to it. You should care enough that you feel a little sad if you fail to follow through with it.

The second step, and this is the real secret, is scheduling a time to blog in your calendar.

Don’t blog when you feel like it. Don’t blog solely when you’re inspired. Simply set a regular time each week in your calendar and do it.

For example, if you post once a week, create a two-hour event in your calendar. That’s usually enough time to write at least one post.

Set calendar reminders so you don’t forget. I like to default to a 1-day reminder, a 60-minute reminder, and then another one at the actual scheduled time.

This way the day beforehand, I’ve already started thinking about ideas for my post in the back of my mind.

An hour beforehand, I’m reminded that I need to wrap up whatever else I’m doing to get ready for my scheduled blogging time.

When said scheduled time arrives, my calendar app goes ding, and I’m ready to start writing.

If you finish your post sooner, start another. Fill those two hours with purposeful, dedicated blogging.

You can do it

As you write, new ideas for additional posts might come to you. If this happens, be sure to jot them down in an idea file (be it digital or paper). It’s always nice to sit down for your scheduled blogging time and have a list of post ideas to choose from.

If you’re genuinely a super busy person, it’s okay to do one hour instead of two. And if you are so busy that you struggle to find 60 minutes during the weekdays, dedicate an hour on the weekend instead.

If you post more than once a week, you might want to have two or three writing sessions of an hour apiece scheduled throughout the week. Even then, we’re still talking about very manageable amounts of time.

Blogging with any degree of seriousness is work, make no mistake about it, but it can – and should – be enjoyable.

As time goes on, you will most likely start to reap many benefits from creating great content. This, in turn, will further fuel your passion for writing about the subject matter of your interest.