Listen, I get it. I am a mom, too. And we moms are B.U.S.Y. Am I right? I don’t know about you, but I feel like I am running from the time my feet touch the floor in the morning until they go back under the covers at night. My brain is swirling with 50 things I need to do at one time.
Does your brain sound something like this?
“What are we going to have for dinner? Fish? But Lia hates fish. But Frankie likes it. Maybe I can give Lia… Oh, it’s trash night. Have to remember to clean the cat litter. Is it time for Luna’s walk? When did she last go out? I have to remember to… I forgot to switch the laundry! Shoot! Now the clothes are going to smell. I need dryer sheets. What about the dry cleaners? I need to go there. Wait, what’s for dinner?”
And on and on and on.
I have a feeling you know how it is!
So where in the heck can we find time to do all of this AND work on our blog? And what if you work too??
Listen, I know it’s not easy. I’ve been there. I’m still there with you! We have so many things on our plates. But it is possible. Here are 7 tips for us busy moms.
7 Blogging Tips for Busy Moms
1. Get up earlier. I know, I know. It SUCKS! lol You probably already get up earlier than anyone else because you have to make lunches or get the kids off to school. But I’m telling you, if you can get up an hour earlier (even 2 if possible), you will be so productive. Those early hours are absolutely magical (once you’re out of your sleepy-eyed stupor) and peaceful. I actually LOVE waking up early now.
I read a couple of books that helped me get up earlier:
- 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
- The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
2. Go to bed later. Maybe this is more your style! I love the early mornings, so going to bed later does NOT work for me. I’m falling asleep by 9:30! lol But my husband is a night owl and loves to be up at night. If that’s you, and you can be most productive after the kids go to bed, then go for it. Use whatever time you have to work on your blog.
3. Plan ahead. I know what it’s like to sit down at my computer to write a blog post, and then just fiddle around for an hour. When you have precious little extra time, there’s nothing worse than wasting it away. (Especially if you got up at some insanely early hour!) Jot down ideas so that you are ready and focused when you do free up your time.
One thing I love to do to get ideas is go to Pinterest and see what other people are blogging about. Then I look in the comments and I see what people are asking about. It gives me ideas of what I can focus on to help people with their problems. (That’s how I came up with this post.)
4. Work with your spouse. I don’t literally mean work with your spouse. Some people can do that, but others might kill each other! What I mean is, work with your spouse to free some of your time up. For instance, have your spouse stay home with the kids for a few hours on a Saturday while you take your laptop to a coffee shop to work. Or, if you don’t have a laptop, have him hang out with them for a few hours so you can work on your computer at home.
I recommend switching off with him and giving him some time too so that no one gets resentful. (And we all need time to do things by ourselves. This is 16 years of marriage talking. 😉 )
4. Visualize what you want. I wrote a post about how to paradigm shift, and in it, I talk about how important it is to visualize what you want. Not only visualize, but be crystal clear about it. What do you imagine your life to be like when you’re a successful blogger?
Do you imagine being able to be there for your kids when they’re sick without having to stress about work? Do you imagine being able to take nice 2-week family vacations every year? Do you imagine just being able to plan your day the way YOU want it? What do you see? Be crystal clear about exactly what you want.
5. Write down what you want. This is similar to visualizing what you want, but there is seriously something magical about writing it down. (I talk about that in the how to paradigm shift post too.) I learned about this powerful trick from one of my favorite books, Write It Down, Make It Happen.
Last year when I was still working, I sat down and wrote down what my perfect day would look like. I wrote that I would be home all day, working as a full-time blogger. I would have extra time for exercise and the flexibility to do it whenever I wanted. I would be home for my kids for whatever they needed. I would get to sit on the deck in the sunshine in the summers and work on my website.
ALL of that has come true. I am living my perfect day, every day. Writing it down does something. Of course, you’ve got to hold up your end of the bargain and ACT! Keep visualizing what you want and keep working on your blog.
6. Don’t compare yourself with others. I’m sure you’ve heard this advice before. It’s SO hard though. I know it is. But if someone is a full-time blogger and can write posts daily, but you’re working full-time and can only write 1 or 2 per week, you’re just not going to get to their level as quickly. And it’s OK. You don’t have to.
You can accomplish anything that successful bloggers have accomplished. If it takes you longer, who cares? The time is going to pass anyway, so why not continue to work at your dreams and goals? Don’t let other’s successes bring you down or make you feel like you can’t accomplish big things. Use their stories to make you excited and realize the possibilities.
7. Be consistent. The most important factor in the blogging world is consistency. If you can only write 1 or 2 blog posts per week, that’s fine. Just be consistent about it. Don’t write 2 posts one week, then 0 the next week, then 4 the week after. Make it consistent so that the search engines – and visitors – know when to expect your posts.
The truth is, the more content you write, the faster your blog will grow. So if you can squeeze more posts in, then do it! But if you can’t, you can’t. Consistency is key.
I hope these 7 tips have helped you! I have learned all of these from experience because I know what it’s like trying to squeeze in your dream job while doing 1,208,756 other things at the same time. But it’s possible. We all have the same amount of time in a day. Use it wisely!
I’m going to leave you with one of my favorite quotes. This is from the how to paradigm shift post, but I’m going to add it here too because it always resets my vision for what I want to accomplish as a blogger, and I hope it will give you that same excitement and motivation too.
“Set a goal so BIG and audacious that it’s actually WORTHY of you.” – Bob Proctor
Now get out there and do big things!
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Do you have any questions about these 7 blogging tips for busy moms? Do you have any tips or tricks that help you stay focused? What things are you good at, and which are you not good at? Leave me comments below!
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Your post has really been a source of motivation for me. I do get to do things that I’ve gave up on after reading your post.Although I’m not a woman but I’m into blogging and I have my nephews and nieces in my care because their parents work outside town so I do the major things like taking them to school,preparing their dishes and other things.But reading through this I’ve learnt the way I can do to this and still make way in my blogging.
Wow, you are so awesome for helping to take care of your nieces and nephews! That is a BIG job. So you still feel the struggle of being a work-from-home (almost) parent. It’s a lot of juggling. But yes, you can absolutely make it work! Give yourself the time to get it all done.
My wife runs a mom blog but she has not been able to spend enough time on her blog since our second girl was born 2 months ago. Thanks for sharing some useful tips and I would share these with my wife.I help her in domestic work but since I have my own job, I have limited time for her and our children.
I totally understand your wife’s struggle. But your baby is brand new and needs lots of attention. Perhaps when your wife can get a good night’s rest again she can get back to blogging. Best of luck to you both and congratulations on the baby!
Christina,
Excellent article for the struggling Mom blogger. Affiliate marketing, I think, is such a great opportunity for the stay at home Mom in particular. Balancing an already tough job to raise a family, blogging matches up well with achieving the work-life-balance goal.
Your advice on visualizing what you want is so important. It is so easy to drift when you don’t have a clear vision.
Partnering with your spouse/significant other is also extremely important. Supporting each other strengthens your relationship and will lead to success.
I am a semi-retired Dad that, along with my wife, raised two boys (now 34 and 30). The internet was in it’s infancy when we were young. My wife was a stay at home Mom. I only wish the opportunities available now were available back in the day.
Continued Success!
Rick
Thanks for your thoughts, Rick! I actually knew about blogging when my kids came along, but I struggled with it just like other moms. And we had to pay the bills, so I had to work full time. I wish I would have put more effort into it then because life would have been so much easier if I could have made money working from home.
That’s why I’m trying to help moms (and dads!) in that same boat now. I could have focused and done so much better back then. Instead, I got stuck in a gray cubicle and I feel like I wasted some of my life away there. I really want to help others avoid that.
Awesome post Christine,
I have deep respect for mom bloggers, knowing how hard it is to juggle time for family and work, I can only imagine how many sleepless nights you have to go through in order to finish your work. Just curious, when do you find the time to write though? I’m juggling between my work and my blog so I too am struggling to find time 😀
It can be a struggle for sure! But whether you’re a mom blogger, or someone like you who has a job and is a blogger, we all face that 1 major issue – finding enough time to get it all done! But everyone has the same amount of time in a day. You just have to juggle the most important things. You’re not going to be perfect at everything, and that’s OK.
I am lucky enough that I was able to quit my job last summer so that I could focus on my blog. I still wake up at 5-5:30 every morning though. Partially to enjoy more quiet time writing, and partially because that time of the morning is so nice!
Hi, Christina! I continue coming back to your blog because it has a lot of useful information concerning blogging. This one in particular has helped me to view some area where I’m lacking organization.
I personally find super useful what you mentioned in tip 5: Write down what you want. There is something powerful when we write these things down! Thank you very much for this post!
Great, Henry! I’m glad you found these tips useful. I love, love, love writing things down. I have read the book Write it Down, Make it Happen a couple of times, and it really makes you understand that power.