Daily Blogging Schedule That Works (Part-Time Blogger Schedule)

It’s the end of another busy day and, although you started your day early, and crossed things off your to-do list, you still feel like you didn’t get enough done. Then you remember your blog, and how you previously committed to working on it so that you can grow and monetize your blog.

Do you stay up late to work on you blog? Or wake up early to get things done.

Where do you even start when you don’t have a lot of time?

When it comes to blogging, there are literally hundreds of things that you could be doing at any given moment to grow your blog. These activities all fight for your attention, but you need to stay focused.

In this post, I will be sharing why you need a schedule for your blog and how to create a blogging schedule that works for you.

I’ll also detail my blogging schedule as a part-time blogger with a monetized blog, so you have an idea of what you can do to grow your blog even when you have limited time.

It’s going to be a long and detailed post, so get comfy. And if you need to pin this post and come back to it later, make sure to do that now!

The Importance Of A Blogging Schedule

It’s great and all when you decide to start a blog. You may know your blogging niche, have your audience, and know how to write amazing blog posts that they’ll love. You may even know how you’re going to monetize your blog. But if you don’t have a method of implementation, all of these things remain in your head.

I’m a huge advocate for creating schedules whenever possible. A great schedule is an asset that can help you to plan your daily activities ahead of time, so you can achieve your goals in the time that you have available.

In my experience, I found that in order to be consistent on your blog, you need to give your blog considerable time and attention in your life.

“Winging it” is not a blogging strategy. While it may seem like the more relaxed approach, it only leads to burnout.

In order to be successful, you need to push out content on a consistent basis. It’s not always easy to be consistent, especially with the demands of life. You need to have a clear plan for how you are going to achieve your blogging goals.

This includes laying out a blogging calendar so that you can plan your topics in advance.

In my experience, the hardest part about blogging is keeping up with all the different moving parts. 

If there’s one thing you need to know about being a successful blogger, it’s this: You do not want to be that blogger who sits at her laptop the night before a blog post is due, wondering what she’s going to write about.

An effective schedule will help you to:

• Show up consistently for your audience.
• Set realistic expectations for what you can achieve with your time.
• Ensure that you set aside time for the essential tasks.
• Avoid overextending yourself.
• Make time for other areas of your life (family, friends and hobbies).
• Achieve your blogging goals.

How Many Hours A Day Do Bloggers Work?

The number of hours bloggers work on their blog is actually quite varied. The exact number of hours depends on the individual, their goals, and their current life situation.

Convertkit did a really in depth study in 2017 which examined the working habits of bloggers amongst many other things. They surveyed 835 respondents.

They found that believe it or not, there are bloggers who work as little as 5 hours a week and are still able to make a 6 figure income from their blogs. There are also bloggers who put n a full 40 hours a week (or more) and may still not be able to make ends meet.

I believe that the number of hours you spend on your blog is only one part of the equation. There are many other determinants of success.

It makes sense that the more time you spend on your blog, the more potential you have for success. But that’s assuming that you are spending your time on the right things.

A Day In The Life Of A Part-Time Blogger

Full transparency, I currently run this blog while working a pretty demanding full-time job (as a pharmacist), hence I would be considered a part-time blogger.

My days are filled with me trying to balance all the different aspects of my full time job, life as a mom, wife, sister, friend, freelancer and also blogger.

I choose to spend a total of 20 hours per week on both my blog and freelance writing business. Its what works for me.

It’s difficult to manage it all and i’d be lying if I said that I got it perfect everyday.

But I feel that its really important to be transparent because I know that there are many other people going through similar situations.

Now if you’re wondering how the heck I get it all done, here is what my schedule looks like on a typical day.

My Typical Daily Blogging Routine

5:30 AM – 6 AM- Wake + Morning Routine

6 AM – 7 AM- Work on my blog 

7 AM – 8 AM- Drive to work

8 AM -4:30 PM- WORK

4:30 PM – 5:30 PM – Drive home

5:30 – 7:30 PM – Family Time (Dinner, give my son a bath, get him ready for bed)

7:30 PM – 8:30 PM- Night time routine, down time

8:00 PM – 10:00 PM- Work on my blog or business

As you can see from my schedule, my days are usually pretty full and I spend an average of 3 hours per day working on my blog.

Sometimes more, sometimes less. Although I try to stop working at 10 PM, if I have a deadline coming up, I’ll push through till 11 PM. I try to make 11 PM a hard stop. Once it hits 11, my laptop is closed and I spend the rest of the evening winding down and getting ready for bed. I wake up quite early, so it’s important for me to maintain my evening routine.

I’m in a season where I’m happy to combine my full time job with my blogging and freelance business.

It is difficult to be consistent with the schedule that I have. There are days where I would much rather binge-watch Netflix, but I remind myself of the purpose behind my blog and business. That is often enough to give me the motivation that I need to push through.

I would advise that before you even start a blog, you need to know and understand your vision for the blog. Set clear goals and know why you are striving for them.

It’s normal to put in a bit more time when you first start blogging in order to make things work. If you stick with it and don’t give up, you’ll see blogging success in due course.

How To Create A Blogging Schedule

The following steps will show exactly how I’ve been able to create a weekly blogging schedule that works for me and for my lifestyle.

Step 1- Set Clear Goals For Your Blog

The hardest part about blogging is keeping up with all the different moving parts. 

Before you can create your blogging schedule, you need to understand your vision for the blog and set clear goals.

These goals will act like a north start, helping you navigate till you achieve your goals.

Step 2- Identify all the blogging related activities that you need to do

Once you know where your heading, you can start to map out a plan to help you get there. Break your big goal into smaller tasks.

Your daily blogging tasks will look different from mine because we are all in very different stages of business. There are a few primary tasks that you should be working on as a blogger to grow your blog.

These are:

1. Content creation
2. Graphic creation
3. Marketing and promotion
4. Engaging with audience 
5. Administrative tasks
6. Networking

Take each of the blogging tasks listed above and start to make a list of all the things that you need to do under each category.

For instance, under content creation you can have:

• Keyword research
• Brainstorm ideas for blog posts
• Create a content calendar
• Write blog post
• Edit blog post

You can make this list as long or as short as it needs to be for your blog. 

Remember- the point of this is to come up with a hug list of tasks that you could be doing on any given day.

Step 3- Group Similar Tasks 

Once you have an idea of everything that you need to do for your blog, you can start to group similar tasks together.

This process is known as batching. By grouping similar tasks together and working on them at the same time, it allows you to be more productive. You can focus your attention on one thing instead of switching back and forth between different tasks.

Some of the processes that I like to batch include keyword research, outlining blog posts, taking photos for my blog and social media and even creating content for my newsletter subscribers.

Step 4- Schedule Tasks Ahead Of Time

It’s important that you schedule your blogging tasks ahead of time. Write down the things that you need to do in your favorite scheduling tool or planner.

One of the things that I always say is that if it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist. And if it doesn’t exist, it’s not going to happen. So whatever plan you have, make sure you are writing it down somewhere that you can refer to often.

This includes laying out a blogging calendar so that you can plan your topics in advance.

My Blogging Schedule For Success

Earlier, I shared with you my daily blogging routine and how I organize my days and designate time to work on my blog every day.

I’ll share with you a detailed outline of all the different blogging tasks that I do on a yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily basis.

Feel free to do the same or tweak based on your blog and what your current lifestyle will allow.

Yearly Blogging Schedule

• Full Content Audit– This is to review what worked well and what didn’t work the year before
• Set a vision for the year ahead – An important step for blogging success. I like to make a yearly vision board.
• Brainstorm product creation ideas – This is something that you should be doing if you plan to make money from your blog. It involves brainstorming ideas for product launches and services that you plan to offer throughout the year. Also, give yourself a reasonable timeline for each of these deliverables.
• Speed up the blog and fix any layout or formatting issues– A great thing to do especially as your hosting and domain likely come up for renewal on a yearly basis. Make any necessary changes to optimize your blog.

These are all things that I do only once a year. Most of these I do around New Years Day, but you can choose to schedule them whenever it suits you best.

Quarterly Blogging Schedule

• Track Blog and Social Media Analytics
• Review goals- Are you on track to meeting your yearly goals? If not what can you do to change things up? I actually like to have a general vision for the year and set goals on a quarterly basis. I find that this works best for me as a year is just too long to set firm goals.
• Create a content strategy for next quarter– Having a strategy is important. It helps you set a focus and create content that helps you meet your goal.
• Keyword research- I like to batch this activity and do it just once a quarter. It saves me time when I’m writing blog posts every week.
• Brainstorm content ideas for the quarter
• Fill in content ideas into a blogging calendar (or editorial calendar)

These are tasks that I do at the start of every quarter. It’s important for me to do these on a regular basis as it allows me to stay mindful of my goals. I can also adjust my strategy to do more of what’s working and less of what isn’t. As opposed to waiting till the end of the year for a reflection.

Monthly Blogging Schedule

• Track Blog and Social Media Analytics – This is usually just a quick look at the analytics and writing them down in my tracker.
• Pitch to brands– I rarely send pitches because I don’t have time. This is in my schedule, but low priority at the moment. When I’m able to, I make a list of brands or blogs I would like to collaborate with and reach out to them via email.
• Admin tasks– These include things such as cleaning out my inbox and my email list, sending invoices, bookkeeping, organizing my schedule in ASANA. I have a system whereby I focus on a set of tasks one day each month. For instance, on the 1st Saturday of the month, I may work on bookkeeping. I then set a recurring reminder to remind me every 28 days that it’s time to do bookkeeping again. The following week is for email clean-up and so forth.

Weekly Blogging Schedule

• Pin Creation
  • I create all my pins for Pinterest on the same day and schedule them to Pinterest using tailwind. This process takes me a maximum of 2 hours to complete. What I don’t get in that time just doesn’t get done. This is one way that I make sure I stay on track with my time.
  • I use Tailwind to schedule my pins on a weekly basis.
• Write Blog Posts
  • I try to write weekly blog posts. This is a frequency that I’ve found to be manageable for me. 
  • According to Hubspot, the ideal blog post length should be about 2500 words. I try to keep the majority of my blog posts around this length. Sometimes if I’m feeling inspired, I’ll write a lot more. Other times, I write less. I don’t want to fill my content with fluff just for the sake of meeting a word count target. The point is that I mainly try to write in-depth long form pieces of content. If you are doing that too, trying to push out multiple blog posts per week may prove difficult. Quality over quantity, but once a week is a good place to start.
• Photography
  • I batch shoot photos. I actually do this every 2 weeks and alternate with the editing of the photos. When I shoot, I’ll usually choose 2-3 outfits to shoot in a single day. That way, I know I have content for several weeks. I typically shoot photos for Instagram and use stock photos on my blog. This is just what I find works better for me at the moment.
• Edit Photos
  • On the weeks when I’m not shooting, I’m editing the photos that I took on the previous week.
  • I use Lightroom to edit my photos and using lightroom mobile makes the process so much faster.
• Plan Social Media Content
  • While I brainstorm content on a quarterly basis, I prefer to plan out my Instagram content on a weekly basis. I’ve found that life comes at you fast and what was relevant 3 months ago may not be so interesting when you are ready to share it.
  • This step involves choosing the captions, pictures and prepping them so that on the day of posting, all I have to do is post. I don’t have to think about anything else.

Daily Blogging Schedule

I choose to work on my business every single day- 7 days a week. Here’s what I do on each of those days.

Monday

• Client work
• Respond to comments and engage on social media

Tuesday

• Client work
• Respond to comments and engage on social media

Wednesday

• Client work
• Respond to comments and engage on social media

Thursday

• Write blog post for the week
• Respond to comments and engage on social media

Friday

• Edit and schedule blog post
• Graphic creation (Pinterest, social media, blog)
• Respond to comments and engage on social media

Saturday

• Admin tasks
• Learning (online courses, read books etc)
• Working on product creation + business growth
• Batch photography (or editing)
• Respond to comments and engage on social media

Sunday

• Write emails to my newsletter
• Schedule Pins to Pinterest using Tailwind
• Plan Instagram content for the week
• Respond to comments and engage on social media

The most important thing to remember about this is the fact that nothing is set in stone. Although I have this framework that I try to stick to, sometimes things change. I may need to work on a client project on a Thursday instead of Wednesday.

Having a schedule laid out like this also helps you because when you sit in from of your laptop each time, you know exactly what tasks you are going to be working on.

Daily Blogging Tips To Help You Organize Your Schedule

Here are some things to remember when you are creating a blogging schedule.

• Prioritize money-making activities
  • You know what activities make you money. For me, those are the services that I provide. I’m also working on creating products so I make sure to prioritize those activities. Even when I’m short on time, I know that I need to focus on my money-making activities.
• Avoid distractions when working
  • Blogging is fun. But it’s also hard work! So when you are working on your blog, take it seriously. Avoid distractions so you can get the most work done.
• Save time using templates
  • Keep in mind that for each blog post you’re likely doing a lot of the same tasks, so instead of keeping it all inside your head, why not create a template?
  • Really take note of your process, start to get an understanding of what goes into it, and create a template that you can follow each time you write. That’s what I did. You can grab my blogging template as well.
• Stay organized
  • I use ASANA to plan and stay organized. Find a system that works for you so that you can keep your schedule organized.
• Don’t give up
  • You might be tempted to give up because it’s too difficult- don’t. Stick with it and keep trying. IF you fall off your schedule, it’s completely fine as long as you get back up and keep trying.

Final Thoughts

A detailed blogging schedule is the key to staying consistent on your blog without burning out. It will help you get more done in less time. 

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