When you have a full time job, a family, and you are running a blog, you have to learn how to manage your blogging time.

Writing a blog post, blog commenting, SEO, designing your website can be a full time job.  If you are trying to get all of those things done and at the same time have all your other obligations, it can become overwhelming.  Along the way, you’ll need to take steps to manage your time and find the time to do all these things without burning out.

As you may know, I run this blog while juggling multiple responsibilities.  Aside from a high stress profession that has busy moments that take me away from my extracurricular activities at times, I also have a family, a 3 year old boy, and now another little one on the way.  Between all of these things, if something were to give, it would be blogging first.

But I want to make the effort to remain dedicated to this blog and continue improving my skills and knowledge in this awesome field and pass that knowledge on to all of you.

So, what do I do to make the best of my time and ensure that I can keep going?

 Set Your Priorities

The first step is to always set your priorities straight.  It’s really easy to get caught up in your hobbies or other activities and they can easily end up getting in the way of the things in your life that are really important.

Figure out which things are important in your life and place your priority on those things.  Then ensure that when you are figuring out how to manage your time, you manage it in order of priority.

If your family is the most important thing, then keep that in mind when you have to choose between blogging and spending quality time with your family.  The same goes for your work, play and other activities.

It’s ok to skip a blog post every once in a while.  It’s not ok for me to neglect my family.  So when I have to make a hard choice when things get super busy, I keep those priorities in mind.

Set a Reasonable Schedule

Setting a reasonable schedule for your activities is the first step towards building up good work habits.  If you have a set time that you’ve committed to your blogging activities, you can avoid interfering with your other responsibilities while maintaining consistency.

For example, I try to write my blog posts in the morning when I first wake up.  I’m an early riser and wake up before the rest of my family.  Generally, I can write a blog post before anyone else wakes up and then continue about the rest of my day without having to take time away from them.  At the same time, it’s become a habit for me to write in the mornings which is good for maintaining my consistency.

Having a schedule will go a long way towards managing your blogging time wisely along with all your other activities.

Write Your Posts in Advance

Usually, I like to publish posts as I write, however when I know that there will be a busy period coming up I will write several posts in advance.  That way the work is done when I have spare time.

WordPress provides the ability to schedule publication of posts in advance.  This is particularly helpful during busy periods or if I know that I will be away from the blog for a few days.  I can write several posts and schedule them for publication ahead of time.  The posts will be published each day according to schedule and the blog continues running as usual.

If you work full time, the ability to write posts in advance and schedule them for publication allows you to write a weeks worth of posts on the weekend and publish them throughout the week.  Then during the week, you can focus on your other job.

Accept Guest Posts

Taking the time to think out a thorough guest posting policy and writing out a post with instructions on how to submit a guest post to your blog will pay dividends.

Guests posts are win win situations for everyone.   The guest author benefits from extra exposure and at the same time, you free up some time for yourself as well as having the benefit of providing different perspectives on a subject from outside writers.

While it does take some time to maintain quality control and editing, it is still generally quicker to review and publish a guest post than it is to write a complete post of your own.

However, the most important thing is to take some time up front and have a really well thought out guest posting policy.  Even if people contact you with an inquiry without having read your guest post policy, it saves a ton of time to be able to refer them to your written out policy than to have to explain it over and over again in emails.

When All Else Fails, Take a Break

When all else fails and you are just completely swamped with everything else, it’s ok to take a break away from your blogging activities to focus on your other priorities.

Blogging should be fun for you.  Even though it’s a full time job in and of itself, you should enjoy it and be passionate about it.

If you begin to feel overwhelmed and discouraged and feel yourself fraying at the ends, it’s ok to skip a day or two of posts.  Your blog will still be there when you get back.

The most important thing is to stay passionate and fresh for your readers.

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About Richard  (243 Posts)

Richard is a full time professional, husband, father and blogger juggling all the responsibilities of life and running a blog. Richard enjoys writing about life and online money matters.