Today, I asked my followers on Twitter what their biggest challenge as a blogger was. There were hundreds of responses, but the word that was me again and again was "time".
Finding time to blog is something most of us are struggling with at one point or another, if not every day. So today I thought I would share a strategy that I spent a week to keep me on track (one that actually worked!).
Okay, so Farmville is not a problem for everyone, but I suspect that we all have a corresponding distraction (or two). I have a few: Twitter can be my Farmville, Instagram, all kinds of Tower Defence game on my iPhone. A walk down to the lounge room to wrestle with my children may be another "… the list could continue.
None of these things are evil. Some, may in fact be useful, and a part of your company (which blurs the line and makes it difficult, because you can start being productive and wasting your time in the end). But everyone can take us away from what we do know we should be focusing on.
Finally, it comes to knowing what distracts you and eliminate it (or at least introduce borders around it).
It is easier said than done, of course, so today I would like to you about something I did recently in the week where I needed to be super extra productive and eliminate distraction.
What I wrote on the whiteboard that sits in front of me:
Okay, is this the sexiest productivity tips I can give. It is not an app to keep you on track, and certainly not any kind of research revealed that I made to productivity.
There are two issues that I decided to ask me all the time, this week in an attempt to keep me on track and away from the time-sucking distractions that pulls me away from those things that I feel I need to achieve.
My reason for asking these questions was simply that I realized that I needed to challenge myself to question my decision about how I spend my time. You see, I think that if I don't, but my day developed simply form a thing to another — and many of the activities that do not have the productive.
For example, let us look at Twitter. Twitter can be a good way to spend your time if you are a blogger. It helps you research articles to write about, it may be useful for networking with others in your niche and it's a good way to drive traffic to your blog (among other things). But it can also be a time-suck — it may be responsible for the day completely disappear.
Ask "Why do ye this?" which looks from Yigg news now with adjustable forces me to think about what I do on Twitter at that moment, and if it takes me closer or farther away from my goals as a blogger.
Answer it leaves me with few alternatives:
I realize that I waste of time and I do something else that is more productive.I realize that I don't use it effectively and refocus when using Twitter to move toward my goals.I realize that Yes, I'm using Twitter well and continue.The problem with this approach is that I tend to lie to myself sometimes. I suspect we all do …
"Of course I use Twitter productively right now. I am … Errr … build relationships with people … and … um … networks … and become better at communicating in short sentences … and honing my … social media skills … "
We are pretty good at justifying anything we want to do, don't we? Or am I alone?
So I ask myself the same question, but slightly different: "You have to?"
I know I'm sounding like my mom, but perhaps she was into something. Once again the question makes me consider how I use my time and I change either what I make, or continue accordingly.
Finally, "really?", which again is a bit of parental leave. But it is often on this point, has challenged me three times, that I realize that I'm fooling nobody – I really need to snap out of it and get back on track.
I am not saying that I have not been distracted this week at all (you only need to verify my Instagram and Twitter streams to know this is not the case) but what I have found is to simply ask me through the day on how I spend my tidJag has been more focused and more deliberate about how I spend my time.
This is what works for me. What do you think? How is track you and focus on what you need to get done?
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