“Are Your Recurring Blogging Tasks Making You Crazy?” plus 1 more

Are Your Recurring Blogging Tasks Making You Crazy?

Posted: 27 Sep 2012 01:05 PM PDT

This guest post is by Timo Kiander of Productivesuperdad.com.

What’s the one similarity between these blogging tasks?

approving comments on your blog
proofreading posts
writing and preparing your post to be published (finding images, SEO, setting tags and categories, and so on)
keeping yourself up to date with social media
writing guest posts
recording a video and uploading it to YouTube.

You don't know?

All those tasks are recurring tasks and you do them again and again. Unfortunately, no matter how tedious these tasks may sometimes be, they just have to be done in order to keep your blogging wheels turning.

On the other hand, these recurring tasks eat valuable time from other blogging-related tasks, for instance, from building your email list, creating relationships with other bloggers, or creating your own products and services.

A tricky situation, isn't it?

Do you know what you did today?

The feeling of poor productivity—even if you work a lot—can be strong if you don't know what blogging tasks you did, when you did them, and how long it took to do them.

If you don't have any stats on how long, on average, it takes to approve the comments on your blog, write a guest post, or record a YouTube video, then your blogging habits aren't as effective as they could be. Also, planning your next day's blogging task list is going to be difficult.

This knowledge is crucial if you want to make a steady progress with your blogging and get the tasks done on time. Especially if you have a very limited “time-budget” available (you’re working full-time, you have a family, etc.), you should know the best way to spend your time.

Having those tracking stats in a document in front of you is a real eye-opener for many people. If you don't know how you spend your blogging time and you still feel unproductive even if you work hard, then you should change your attitude towards time tracking—right this very minute!

Put your productivity into the fast lane

Time tracking is, first, about gathering raw statistics. Gather the time you spend on various blogging tasks for a several days.

Second, do some detailed analysis on the data you’ve gathered. Analyze the tasks and how much time you spend on each, on average.

Third, use that data to plan your next day.

For instance, if you are going to write a post for your blog tomorrow, then take a look at the stats you have and see how well that time block fits your next day's schedule.

Very quickly, you'll learn how to be realistic about your next day's planning. It's useless to have ten tasks on your list if you’re only able to complete four of them by the end of the day.

With the data showing you how much time you spend on the common blogging tasks, you’ll become more realistic with your day planning.

3 steps to a sense of accomplishment

1. Stop assuming you know how you work

Gather the facts that show how you spend your blogging time. I bet you'll be surprised to learn more about your blogging habits when they’re right there before you.

2. Log the time used

To gather an effective time log, take the following steps.

Make a list

First, list your common recurring blogging tasks and create a document that contains them all.

For instance, I have various tasks in my document, like writing a guest post, writing posts for my own blog, recording a YouTube video, uploading a YouTube video, approving comments on my blog, replying to comments on my guest posts, proofreading posts, and so on.

Track your time

Write down the following for the next seven days:

the type of task
the date when you did the task
the amount of time it took you to accomplish a task
any special conditions that helped you to do the task faster, easier, or better.

Once you have the data gathered, count the average amount of time for your different tasks.

For instance, if you write guest posts, you could see the pattern how much on average you'll spend on the writing. When I take a look at my time log, I see that it takes approximately an hour for me to write a guest post.

Understand that there are certain tasks which you can do faster

For instance, I listen to music when I write, when I approve comments on my blog or on guest posts I have written. Why? Because my time tracking experiments have shown that that helps me to do those tasks more quickly.

With simple improvements like this, you can make your recurring task faster (and easier) than before.

Set time boundaries

You can also decrease the time it takes you to complete tasks by setting clear boundaries on them.

For instance, I'm using a 15 minute time block for my daily Twitter usage. This means I'm not spending hours on Twitter or on Facebook and then wondering where my hours went.

3. Automate

Why not automate your time tracking? Try using a tool like RescueTime, which keeps track of how much time you spend on productive activities, what applications you used on your computer, and which websites you accessed during your work.

this is just my recommendation, but there are plenty of tools out there. Just give one a test-run to see if it's a good fit for you or not.

Your time is valuable

Recurring tasks are usually tedious—yet mandatory—tasks that have to be taken care of.

To make your time usage more effective, track these tasks and understand how much you time you spend on them.

When you track your time usage, it is much easier for you to plan your days—and sometimes even decrease the amount of time you use for those tedious blogging tasks.

Do you track the time you use for repeating blogging tasks? What tools do you use for that activity? Have you found tracking to be effective way to improve your blogging productivity? Share your experiences with us in the comments.

Timo Kiander, a.k.a. Productive Superdad, teaches WAHD superdad productivity for work at home dads. If you want to get more productive in your own life, grab 222 of his best Tips for Becoming a Productivity Superstar.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Are Your Recurring Blogging Tasks Making You Crazy?

Create a Professional Blog Logo on a Budget

Posted: 27 Sep 2012 07:09 AM PDT

This guest post is by Samuel of Internet Dreams.

I am a logo hunter! What that means is I almost always stop and look at a new site's logo. Almost like shooting at it, but with my eyes!

Believe it or not, this now has a profound influence on whether or not I feel I am going to enjoy reading the new blog, or want to check out this new site.

The logo of a site is like the cover image on that new blockbuster movie on the block. As the design of a blog is important in a visitor's eyes, the logo is that cherry to the top of the ice cream.

Because a logo can have a profound effect on a user, I decided to create beautiful looking logo for my blog. It was tough to think about how I was going to create it, though.

I thought of creating the logo myself, but I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to be able to create one I liked.

But that thought changed down the road, as you will read later on.

A novel solution

Many times, your creations, such as a new design or a new article, you won't really like. This is fine, since the sense others get from seeing our creative projects is different from ours.

To solve the problem, I decided to hire a designer to design a new logo for me. Nope, the logo didn’t cost me a million bucks. All I did was get a design idea for only five dollars from fiverr.com.

I am not going to lie to you: I did not get a fully done, professional logo out of the box, just for five dollars! But I got the idea and the design layout from Fiverr, and it was worth every single penny.

I will show you step by step how to get this done, and how you can do this yourself without another designer's help. Note that you will need to have some sort of knowledge of Photoshop to use this technique—but if you don’t, I’ve included some resources to help below.

1. Find a graphic designer using the reviews

This step could be the hardest part of the process. It’s important to make sure you hire a credible designer who gets the job done.

When I look for designers on Fiverr, I usually first send a message to the designer to gauge their interest. If they respond pretty quickly, I know the communication is going to be fine.

As you’re reviewing designers on Fiverr, look for the designer’s rating, and look at the reviews of that individual at the bottom of their profile.

2. Tell the designer what you are looking for.

You need to tell the designer what you want. Try to be as accurate as tell them as much as you can.

Tell them your ideas, because they will definitely need those ideas for their outline. But also tell them the colors and size you want, and give them some concept for the design—such as “excitement” or an object related to your blog.

This is the message I sent to the logo designer to explain what I was looking for:

Name: Internet Dreams

There will be no description for the logo. I prefer it be a text logo that is creative in a way. I really like a minimal design with the letters being the main focus. Design it dreamy in a way, but not too light either.

The color blue is the primary option. Experiment with different colors if you want. This is the website it is going on. Please try to make it stand out from that greybackground.

Message me with any questions, and thank you for doing this! :)

3. Don't expect it to look perfect, since you’ll finish the design yourself.

You are paying this designer only five dollars. Don't expect them to do the whole work and make a design worth hundreds like the other top logos out there. Remember, you get what you pay for on Fiverr.

I worked with the designer till the outline was exactly how I wanted it to be. This is how I received my “finished” logo from my Fiverr designer:

There’s not much color or texture in the initial design. But the concept of the design is what I really liked. So I took it from there myself!

4. Make the logo look professional with limited Photoshop skills

After receiving your initial design, always thank the designer for his fine job. A designer has certain skills in first thinking up the outline of a certain logo. So, thank him and give him a good review of his work.

Now, it’s your job to finalize the logo!

Don't freak out, or think you have to be a Photoshop guru. All you are going to do from here is select a font that you like, and add it anywhere on your logo.

The cloud in my logo is what I added to make it more "dreamy." Also I enhanced the look of the bubbles by using a free PSD created by a graphic artist.

If you don’t have great Photoshop skills, have a look at PsdTuts+. This is the website that I have learned many Photoshop skills from.

How’s your logo looking?

Nothing about this is hard. I am no expert in Photoshop, but I did learn some techniques along the way. Trust me: having a few basic skills in the use of Photoshop is worth it.

Your logo is the brand image of your blog. Many people will recognize your site by the logo you have on it. Not only the logo will be created by you, but also other aspects of the design of your blog will need to be enhanced, and you can do it with those basic skills.

If you do run into some problems on your end and do not feel comfortable to use Photoshop yourself, then that isn't a problem either. There plenty of places on the internet where graphic designers are waiting to finish your work.

Or, just hire the same designer again from Fiverr, and let them finish the job. It’s your choice!

Have you done any designing yourself for your own blog? If you did, tell us how it went in the comments.

The online world can be a very complicated place. There is too much information all over! My name is Samuel and I own Internet Dreams. Internet Dreams is a place where you can engage and learn how to set up and succeed with your blog or site. Internet Dreams talks about SEO, blogging, social media, and much more….. Follow Internet Dreams on Facebook!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Create a Professional Blog Logo on a Budget