So you are overwhelmed. There’s so much on your plate. There’s way too much in your mouth than you can chew.
You have content creation on one had - and too many other things on the other hand. You simply find blogging to be something very complicated.
You ask yourself if you can really handle it all by yourself. You start to think if blogging is really for you. You doubt your skills and your ability to blog.
At the back of your mind, you think if you should quit because blogging is just too complicated.
Well, I’ll say you have made it complicated, because as far as I know, blogging isn’t complicated. But it is possible to make it complicated.
Some bloggers even think that blogging should be complicated if it has to be useful to their readers. They think that they should work really hard to make their blog/business useful to their customers.
Well, it doesn’t have to be. You can always keep it simple and manageable and yet useful to your potential customers. Let me discuss how you can do so!
#1 Have clarity and plan accordingly
If you have been reading my blog regularly, you know I’m harping a lot on this topic. Blogging without clarity is tough and so very complicated.
Without clarity you don’t know where to put your nice efforts. Of course, you could be working really hard all day and even some nights. But since you don’t clearly know your destination you won’t be able to work on things that matter. Rather, you could be wasting time on things that don’t really matter.
This leads to complication obviously. This can also lead to frustration because you won’t get the results for the amount of work you do.
And in turn this forces you to quit quite early. Which is why you need to have clarity first before you start blogging - let me say that again - BEFORE you start blogging. This way you can simplify things a lot and save a lot of time.
If you feel lost at this point, don’t worry.
#2 Use the right tools
Most of the time, bloggers complicate things by either using the wrong tools or too many tools for a particular task. You don’t have to use all the tools that you come across every day.
You might be doing well with one SEO tool (for me it’s SEMRush) that you use on a regular basis. And then you might encounter lots of other SEO tools (the shiny ones) that might promise you to solve your SEO challenges - you can see such shiny things pop up everyday.
But you don’t have to use that tool too, if you are already happy with what you are using.
I am not against trying out new tools. In fact, I do that all the time, because without trying out new tools you won’t know if some particular tool will give those sneaky features that you want (and that your current tool doesn’t have).
At the same time, you shouldn’t complicate stuff just because there’s so much shiny stuff out there. For one, you could end up spending a lot of money for unwanted stuff. Second, you will complicate your working schedule a lot if you have too many tools - you will have to open multiple tools to get one job done, and you will have your data scattered all over the place.
For me this is insane and I found myself struggling to connect the dots with whatever I am doing. Obviously, this is complication, isn’t?
#3 Know what your readers want
This is quite close to having clarity. But somewhat different too. If you don’t know what your readers want you are going to complicate blogging. That’s for sure!
Even if you have clarity with what you are going to do with your blog, if you don’t know what your potential customers want, you will beat around the bush a lot.
You might be publishing content that is of no interest or usefulness to your end reader. So think about this. How much time and effort do you put in creating such content? And if it turns out to be a waste, you are really complicating your business.
Keep it simple - know what your readers want and only put your time, effort and investment in creating something (content or a product or a service) that vents your readers wants or solves their problems.
This way you will keep your business simple - just create what’s most needed/wanted and make money off it.
And when you do it this way, you can be sure that you are devoting your best efforts towards something that is most sought after by your readers - so you can simplify what you do, yet reap great benefits.
#4 Batch process tasks
Be it writing blog posts or replying to emails, batch processing makes things a lot easier. There are two important benefits with batch processing.
For one, it is totally against multi-tasking. And I hope you know multi-tasking is quite a bad thing.
I’ve been believing all the time that I was being extremely productive when I was multi-tasking. But I came to know I was wrong. And that I was putting myself through tough situations when it comes to doing “work”.
When I switch back and forth between different tasks, it generates a lot of heat in my brain. I get tired and exhausted very soon when I am multi-tasking, because when I switch between different tasks I switch modes. That is not an easy thing! It takes a lot of energy off your brain and exhausts it quite soon.
The second thing with batch processing is, I don’t have to break the flow of what I’m doing. If I’m in the mood of writing, then I should make optimal use of that energy of mine. I should write copy - whatever copy that will directly benefit my business.
It could be blog posts, email newsletters, sales copy - whatever!
I should not be trying to strictly write a few number of words and then stop because my “slot” is over! And then switch to Twitter or Facebook to do social media marketing.
But you don’t always get the “mood” to do something, which is why you need to “schedule” your batch processing time.
Schedule a big chunk of time for writing one week’s blog posts (once or two times a week). Then schedule a chunk of time for social media marketing (could be everyday or every other day depending upon how much you need it for your business).
#5 Have an editorial calendar
I recently talked about the importance of having an editorial calendar. And also the challenges associated with sticking to an editorial calendar in this post > On sticking to (or accepting) your editorial calendar.
An editorial calendar saves you a lot of time and simplifies your blogging work. It is because, most of the time, you might be stuck with content creation.
You simply might feel overwhelmed with other tasks at hand and unable to find the time to write. Or sometimes you could experience writer’s block where even if you get the time you don’t know what to write about.
Having an editorial calendar makes your job easy - it help you to stick to a schedule and you know upfront what you should be writing in the coming weeks. This takes guess work out of the equation.
In order to have an effective editorial calendar, make sure you have a means to capture blog post ideas. I use Evernote to capture blog post ideas whenever they occur to me (and they occur to me at strange times!).
And I use Scrivener to write blog posts in the order they would appear in my editorial calendar (I make folders for each week inside the current year project).
#6 Don’t try to do everything yourself
Bloggers are usually solopreneurs. They start off that way and prefer to stay that way! May be because they want to save money, or because they want to keep everything in their control.
But over the time, when your blog grows, your task list grows as well. You get to deal with lots of administrative issues, financial maintenance, increased content creation, dealing with enormous number of emails and so on.
At some point, you have to understand and accept the fact that you don’t have to do everything by yourself. You can either get help from your peers or just find a way to outsource tasks that you don’t absolutely need to do by yourself.
For me, I am not comfortable with outsourcing content creation, managing finance and email management. I don’t want others to know about my income/expenditure, and I don’t want to give away my email password to someone else.
But I can outsource website maintenance. And that too, I have an in-house manager (in a paid position) to help me with administrative and technical aspects, and this person is a member of the extended family which is why I’m comfortable outsourcing certain tasks to him.
Your case could be different. So just find a way to deal with those mind numbing tasks. If you can free up some time by delegating certain tasks, you could focus more on tasks that you love to do, or tasks that absolutely need your attention.
Are you ready to blog the simple way?
As I said already you can really keep it simple when it comes to blogging. You don’t have to keep it complicated in order to maintain the standards.
In fact you will be able to serve your readers well if you are not overwhelmed by the complications involved in blogging.
If you are overwhelmed with blogging, you will burn out and might start to think about quitting. That is not what you want, right?
If you apply my suggestions in this post I am sure you can make blogging simple, because these worked for me!
Hi, Jane, I really like the thrust of this post, you’ve nailed it.
Getting into the flow and creating a batch really helps me whenever I’ve happened to do that. I say ‘happened to’ because I hadn’t made a set decision to do that. But I understand now from what you’re saying that it would make the whole thing easier.
There’s definitely too much to do. You are so lucky in having a family member to take over some tasks. That’s the example I’d follow if I could. When it’s one person doing everything you have to focus all your time when a problem crops up. And it’s not so easy getting back in the flow!
Good point about not having to use every new tool! It’s so easy to get distracted. My motto for now is ‘If it works stay with it’!
Thanks for this post, have a good week.
Hey Donald,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here! And I’m so glad and excited that you found the advice useful!
Initially when I heard about batch processing it didn’t sound too attractive to me. And one can sometimes feel bored with it because doing only one thing for a long time might not be their cup of tea.
But it works for me and it can work for you too.
And yes, the shiny object syndrome - it is a curse. If something works, I just stay with it
Thanks for stopping by Donald
Have an awesome week!
Cheers,
Jane.
Hey Jane,
Burn out is very common among us bloggers. Especially with newbies, but they can definitely start off strong if they apply your tips here.
One thing I had to do a couple of years ago is go back to basics and get clarity. I had an idea but I wanted to narrow it down much more.
With that said I needed to be more specific on who I’m writing to. To do this I reviewed who was commenting, what were they saying and what questions they were asking. Also I made it a habit to check Google Analytics to see what posts is getting the most traffic and what keywords they’re are being looked up the most.
Outside of that I do lead a busy schedule. So do things in batches really helps out a lot. This was one of the points I made on my last blog post about making blogging less time consuming.
Thanks Jane for sharing these tips! Have a good one!
Hey Sherman,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. Indeed I did the same thing. I just stopped doing everything and got back to square one. I focused so I can achieve clarity with what I was doing, and then things changed dramatically.
I found that I’ve cut off lots of stressful activities that were not doing anything good to my business. Rather, I focused on stuff that really helped move my business forward.
Google Analytics really helps a lot with understanding the interest and behaviour of the audience that we already get. That information is priceless.
Thanks once again for stopping by. Have a great rest of the week
Cheers,
Jane.
Having an editorial calendar is one of the best strategies to make your blog active.
Often times, we ignore to update our blog posts at right times, by having a proper schedule, we can create a consistent blog posting frequency.
Great share Jane.
Anil,
Yes editorial calendar helps a lot in order to keep a blog active. It also simplifies the whole task a lot!
You are welcome Anil. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great rest of the week!
Cheers,
Jane.
Okay,
I will plunge back into blogging. I guess you are right! I made it too complicated because I am a perfectionist in everything I do! Ugh! I will try to “Simplify!”
Thanks for your wonderful pep talks in your blogs!
Have a Hug-A-Bug day!
Hugs,
Anna
Hey Anna,
Good luck with getting back to blogging. Yes, being a perfectionist complicates blogging a lot - I haven’t mentioned that in the post. Thanks for the nice addition.
Hope you do well with your comeback. Thanks for stopping by. Have a nice rest of the week!
Cheers,
Jane.
Thanks for the article. I particularly like:
#6 Don’t try to do everything yourself
It is so true, one tends to do everything by oneself. But when activities become increasingly large, it is time to hire or take help from a family member or a friend.
Hey Anand,
That’s right! There always comes a point when we need the help of others. At that time it is only wise to find some help rather than trying to do it all by ourselves.
Thanks for your comment.
Cheers,
Jane.
Hi Jane,
Great advice. I especially like #6. I have tried to do everything myself, and I have failed miserably trying to do it. And especially when it comes to website maintenance. I still haven’t outsourced it, but I will fairly soon. I just need to find the right person.
Hey Jens,
You are not alone with #6. I was hesitating to outsource stuff and was complicating things a lot. It was just 2 years ago I got the courage to take things to the next level.
As I said, it takes courage to outsource. When you give away all those important tasks and responsibilities to someone else, it feels really challenging to be calm and confident.
But that’s part of business
Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful rest of the week!
Cheers,
Jane.
Tushar says
Hi,
Excellent tips shared, I must say using right tools is really essential for every blogger out there because it will make the things easier and faster.
Thanks
Hello Jane,
I’ll say, knowing what your readers want comes in first… Blogging can be a lot easier and more rewarding when you know what your audience truly want from you.
Using the right tools for blogging is also important - the tools I use in blogging have been with me from way back, and I am still loving and using them (even when I see new ones). It is better to stick with what you know best then play with what you don’t know much about, right?
Thanks for such a wonderful post, have a blessed weekend ahead…
Hey Baba,
Yes! Thanks for agreeing on that point. Knowing your audience is the key to running any business and blogging is no exception. With blogging, it can cut down a lot of unnecessary efforts if we only have to create what our audience want!
And yes, the right tools help save lot of time. More importantly, the wrong kind of tools will lead to chaos and time waste.
I’m glad you liked the post
Have a wonderful week!
Cheers,
Jane.
Stephanie Huynh says
Great advice. Blogging can get overwhelming in a lot of ways. I don’t know how I’d survive if my husband didn’t help me with my site maintenance. I think it’s really easy to think the shiny new analytics tools can do more for you, but you’re right; it often times just ends up complicating things.
Hey Stephanie,
That’s true - blogging is not easy. It is overwhelming! I’m glad you had your husband help you with site maintenance - that is a BIG area to take care of! Which is why we offer blog maintenance service (http://www.besthostinganddesign.com/wordpress-site-maintenance/) as part of our business to help bloggers
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment. I highly appreciate that!
Have a wonderful week
Cheers,
Jane.
Al Mamun says
Hello, Jane Mam
You did a good job, Thanks for delivering some amazing tips.
i agree with that you mention in last part on your article.
Quitting is not way, newbies shouldn’t quit blogging because quitter never win.
Thanks a lot,
Happy Blogging
Have a nice day.
Hey Jane,
The point that sticks out the most for me in this post is clarity. I know when I started I was just all over the place. As I started to focus more on what I wanted to do I still wasn’t clear about who exactly my audience was. I think along with clarity you definitely have to have that all nailed before you dive in or you’ll be like me backpedaling a lot.
I’ve really been working on this a lot lately mainly because I’ve been way to general and generic in my content and haven’t been speaking to my target audience. If you don’t have that nailed down you’ll just be blogging for the enjoyment of it because you won’t really get great results. By that I mean clients or sales, it depends on what you do.
While I can relate to giving your readers what they want, I’m going about this another way now. I’m focusing more on giving my target audience what I know they need. So what I’m saying basically is I know what their pain points are so I’m speaking to them specifically to help them with those particular concerns. I guess I’m just at a different place now in my business that I’m structuring things differently.
All of what you’ve shared of course is important and you do have a way of explaining things. I think we all have to find our own balance though and of course it depends on why we’re here too.
Thanks for your awesome post, you always share great stuff.
Hope you’re doing well and have a wonderful week.
~Adrienne
Hey Adrienne,
Ha! So it seems most of us started the same way lol. I was all over the place too and my websites clearly revealed that to my audience - they saw me as some confused woman “trying” to do blogging. And that is not a good sign, right?
Clients or sales - yes those things don’t happen if we don’t get clarity with identifying our target audience!
And, I’m glad to know you are doing it a little different by providing your clients what they need as you know of! Not all businesses are equal and if this works for you, super duper great
I’m flattered - you like the way I explain things 😉
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving a wonderful comment. Have an awesome weekend dear
Cheers,
Jane.
Thank you, that’s a very helpful post. I have blog of my own, and I am trying to make each new post better than the previous one. And at some point it started to take so much time that I do not longer know whether it is better to sacrifice the posts quality and to spend less time or to leave them as they are and to edit posts when there is an acute shortage of time only.
Hey Valentyn,
It is a great attitude that you want to improve your blog posts! To be precise, you want everyone of your blog posts to be better than the previous one and that is an awesome goal!
I am sure, when it comes to quality, one should never compromise. You might even skip some publishing lots, if you can’t make it, but don’t ever compromise on the quality for the sake of publishing. Take your time, there is no rush!
You could read this post where I discuss something similar
>> http://www.besthostinganddesign.com/editorial-calendar/
Have a great weekend!
Cheers,
Jane.
Uttoran Sen says
Hey Jane,
Yes, simplicity is the key. Too much of complication will make life as a blogger difficult and quitting will seem like an easy option out.
I don’t use too many tools myself. So far I don’t remember using any paid tool - but might consider paying on stuff like buffer soon. Using unwanted tools and paying money for them is a complete waste of time and resources.
I like your idea about delivering what the readers want. And it isn’t too difficult to find out either. Just check through your popular posts - that got plenty of social shares, comments etc. That will give you a clear idea on what your readers want.
Excellent suggestions about outsourcing - if one chooses their outsourcing team well, it will only help to get more work done. It is just impossible to do everything ourselves, especially when work load increases.
thanks,
Uttoran Sen,
Hey Uttoran,
Thanks for stopping by to share your thoughts
I appreciate that!
Wow, I’m surprised you have not used any paid tools
I’ve used a lot of them, but I’m very picky about what I use. And I also book a refund if the tool doesn’t live up to the promises made in the sales letter.
You are right - just by looking at the analytics of our own blog posts, we can easily come to know what resonates with our readers, what they like and what they don’t care much about!
Outsourcing came to me as a very crucial business decision. Since then I am able to free up sometime for myself and work on ideas to take my business to the next level.
Thanks once again for sharing your opinion here
Have a wonderful weekend 
Cheers,
Jane.
Nanda Rahmanius says
Hi Jane,
Great post as usual!
I agree with everything you said in this article. Indeed, before we begin our blog, we must have clarity where you will take your blog. If it has been fulfilled, then your steps will definitely targeted.
I agree that we should not try any tool that you encounter in blogging. You must use the right tools and useful to you.
Well, now I still do it all by myself. When I felt that I had to look for an outsource to do something to me, but I still do it alone. It was my lack.
But, I will look for outsource someday. I did have a plan for it.
Thanks for sharing this with us, Jane.
Have a great week ahead!
~Nanda
Hey Nanda,
Thanks for stopping by to share your thoughts. I appreciate that.
Indeed once we get clarity our following actions become coherent and we find ourselves not wasting time in pointless stuff that don’t add the progress of the business.
And yes, using too many tools actually spoils the purpose. We usually end up more confused and more chaotic (and of course spending more too) than before!
On outsourcing - I wish you good luck. Don’t rush into it, you might regret it
Take your time to find the right person to moderately outsource your tasks 
Have a wonderful weekend Nanda!
Cheers,
Jane.
Blogging is a work of passion, dedication, commitment and interest. It is golden opportunity if someone if your family help you manage your blog as usually its you or your colleagues who work with you because they get paid for it.
Thank you for sharing these valuable tips to simply blogging.
Hey Gaurav,
Indeed blogging should involve passion and interest - without a dedication and commitment it is so very hard to cope with all the hurdles and challenges!
Yes indeed I find myself lucky to have someone right in my family and right beside me (literally) to help with my blogging!
Thanks for stopping by Gaurav. Have a nice weekend!
Cheers,
Jane.
linda schrier says
Hi Jane,
I can’t do it all myself. I honestly tried to do all the things I need to do with my blogging but it got to be to much for me. So now I outsource whatever I can. It makes it so much easier for me to accomplish all the tasks at hand.
I just had my blog outsourced to a web designer and he did a beautiful job. I also got myself a blogging coach and she is totally awesome.
It is so true that we need clarity. I didn’t even know who my target audience was. My blogging coach is helping me with this.
I am a firm believer in outsourcing jobs that need to be done and I’m glad you brought that up.
You have an awesome day!
Linda
Hey Jane,
Really great post here. You know, EVERYTHING you said here is correct and 100% accurate.
I especially like the tips about knowing what your readers want and not trying everything yourself. In the world of blogging today, the ONLy way you’ll be successful is if you actively know what it is your readers want. When you know that, you hold the keys to the kingdom.
Great post once again.
- Andrew