Working in Batches as a Blogger

Writing and marketing a blog has to be one of the most diverse occupations known to man, and one of the easiest from which to get distracted! As well as writing posts and answering comments, there are so many other tasks to take care of relating to research, dealing with email, “being around” on social media sites and so on.

Do you ever find a two hour blogging session has simply passed, without you actually achieving what you wanted to do? Do you find that some elements of the job are always running behind, whilst others (usually the ones you like) are going really well?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then you might like to try a method I’ve developed over time, a method of batching my work together, and sticking to one type of task and blasting through a list of jobs. As always, this isn’t a “rules” post, I’m merely sharing with you what I do, and I invite you to take elements from it which may benefit you.

The Issue

it’s the variety of the different tasks we do, which creates the problem. Switching from one task to another may only take a few seconds, but if you do it a hundred times a day, that adds up. And it isn’t just physically moving to a new tab in your browser either, it’s also the time the brain takes to ask “Where was I?” and process that information to decide “What am I going to do next?”

The Solution

Batching your tasks is the answer. Batching is simply carrying out one type of task at a time and sticking to it until it’s done. It takes some discipline and it means being brave enough to shut down applications like email and Twitter when you’re not working directly on them, but it will make you more productive

The Details

Here are some of things that I do:

• Email – I only open email twice on each blogging session. At the start of the session, and at the end. I normally work a 2 hour session. I work through my inbox and deal with each email once only. If it’s just information, I read it and archive it. If it needs an answer which i can do quickly, I do it there and then. If it needs an answer that requires other information, or if it requires me to do something, it goes onto my to do list, and the email gets archived. So the inbox is kept empty. I don’t leave the client open, as seeing new mails arrive with the pop up is distracting.
• Writing – when I’m writing, the only thing I have open is a browser in case I need to check something or find a link. I batch my writing, doing at least five posts on a Saturday and at least four on a Wednesday. Then I queue them up to go on the site when I want them to. I don’t tend to do drafts, I just keep going, keep editing on one post, until it’s totally ready to go. I think this is unusual, and a lot of people prefer to get something down, then go back to it and refine it. Whatever works best for you.
• Twitter  - I use Twitter a lot, and find it a valuable tool. It’s too easy to spend too much time there. I use it as a reward. I give myself a ten minute Twitter session as a reward for completing a job. I’ll visit Twitter when this post and one other are completed, and catch up with everyone.
• To Do List – It’s rare for me to have tasks on my list which are time bound – if they are they go into my calendar. Normally though they are things which just need doing when I can get to them. So I leave my to do list as middle part of each blogging session. I do a quick prioritize, start at number one, and work through as many as I can do on the time available. That way the important ones always get done.
• Reading, research and commenting – I go through my RSS reader in every blogging session. Stuff that’s just good reading just gets read! If I want to comment, I do it right away. If it’s something that warrants re reading or some action, I star it and create a new task on my to do list to remind me to do it.
• Phone Calls – I batch these as well, and do all my phoning in one session. The downside is I don’t answer my phone outside of these times, so often end up calling people back who have left a message, but it’s worth it for me in terms of time saved getting back to what I was doing. It does mean I use Skype a lot, otherwise the bills would be huge!

The Two Hour Session

So how does this all come together? Here’s a typical two hour session for me – remember I batch the writing so those sessions are pure writing twice a week. This is a typical non-writing session:

1. Email – 20 Mins
2. Twitter check – 10 Mins
3. Reading researching and commenting –25 Mins
4. To do list – 25 Mins
5. Phone Calls – 10 Mins
6. Email – 20 Mins
7. Twitter check 10 Mins

Generally I’ll do four  of these sessions a day. If I have no phone calls to make, it means I get an extra 10 minutes on my to do list. If there isn’t enough email to take as long as 20 minutes on either of the email sessions, then I get longer on Twitter, which is good! Otherwise, I’m quite ruthless, if I haven’t read all my feeds in 20 minutes, they stay there until the next session.

This isn’t all that I do, of course – for example I just redesigned the site and spent several two hour sessions just doing that, but the above is a typical idea for a normal blogging session day for you.

So that’s how I work it – I’m a naturally disorganized person, so it means I need to be organized, if that makes sense to you! How do you work your blogging time?

You may also want to read these:

1/ How I use Twitter

2/ Blogging lessons from geocaching

3/ What happens when you guest post on John Chow?