Blogging for Money – Time

Time… In the first post I made on Blogging for Money – The Basics, I listed “Time” as one of three things you need to make a blog succeed. Time is one thing a lot of us do not have much of here in the USA. When you add up work, family, and all the details you find that you have already been getting less sleep just to get everything done. So you are asking yourself, “How do I make time for a blog?”.

Creating time to maintain a blog is really no different then being a writer. When I first started in my writing career I was working 50+ hours a week, running a online retail business, and working on my art. I had little time to go hang out at the bar with friends or little time for a social life. Adding to that I was having to cut into my sleep quite often just to keep the retail business caught up. Monthly sales tax reports are a pain!

Finding the time to write short fiction was a challenge. I had read several books on writing and I got a lot of ideas from them on how to become a writer on such short free time. Here is a list of tips and tricks I use to always find time to get my writing done. Since blogging is writing, you will find these same tips work great for blogging.

• Put your brain on paper – That is right. The first thing I started to do is carry a pen and small spiral note pad with me everywhere. Yes I mean everywhere, even to the bathroom. You would be amazed at the work you can get done in the bathroom. Ten minutes in the bathroom can easily provide topics for 1-10 blog posts for you to write. It also works well for anything you are trying to figure out. I have a long list of domain names in mine. When I get to a computer I find out if they are taken and if not, I register them on the spot. Writing down website urls I see when I’m out shopping is another idea, which goes with another set of posts I will be doing on business. Even if you don’t get back to what you write that same day, write it down anyway. When you do get the free time, go back and review what you have written.
• The Hour Lunch – A hour lunch can do a lot for you. When I started writing I would actually go sit in my car, eat some fruit and write. Yeah, you don’t get to socialize, but you can get an hour of writing in everyday that way. Breaks at work also work well, in fifteen minutes you should be able to write one paragraph.
• Early Bird Catches the Worm – One idea that never really worked for me was getting up one hour earlier in the morning and spend it writing. You haven’t got the stress from that day still crushing your brain cells so you should get a blog post written with ease. Remember your note pad to get you going on an idea. This never worked for me because I’m a night owl, I usually do my blog posts and writing from 10pm to 3-4am. I only get about 5 hours sleep a night anyway and have found I’m so use to it, sleeping in is hard for me.
• The Culinary Writer – Yep, cooking dinner for the spouse and starving kids can still provide some writing time. Grab your pen and notepad on the way to the kitchen. Once you get dinner started, you do have time here and there to add to your notepad. Just don’t burn dinner.
• Turning the television off – Did you know all televisions have an off button? Yep, that is right! Amazing little button on the front of your television that will get rid of that distraction and give you 30 minutes up to three or four hours. Trust me, all sitcoms are the same with just the names and places changed. After about 100 episodes it will get canceled anyway. And you don’t need your soaps, they never end, there is always problems and someone is always doing something wrong. I didn’t say you had to live without television, but you need to cut down a lot. Once you get through the withdraw, you will find you don’t need it.
• Long drive to work – I know people who spend over an hour driving to work on way. While that would be hard for me, why not take advantage of that hour? No, your trusty notepad and pen isn’t going to work here. They do make tape recorders, voice recorders, and other recording devices you can use in the car while you are driving. An hour alone in a car can be a wonderful thing and produce a lot of work.

Well, I just showed you all that free time you probably have been wasting. If you really want the fame and riches that go with blogging, you have to make the time to blog. After reading this you should be finding yourself writing a little each day. Even if that little is only 10 minutes. It is a start.

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