There tend to be a lot
of rules surrounding content creation. It must have value, it can’t be too
long, the information must be relevant, not to mention accurate, relatable,
accessible, easily understandable, and the list goes on. It’s way too easy to
get overwhelmed by all these rules and regulations. Overthinking your
content—is it good enough, interesting enough, or worth hitting the publish button
at all—is its own chore. But content creation doesn’t have to be this big of a
headache! In fact, content creation can be easy. You just have to know a few
simple tricks.
4 Tips for EASY Content Creation
Research, practice, and
learning the tricks of the trade are the best ways to make any job easier. So,
if you’re overwhelmed by your content creation to-do list, consider these
“tricks” to lighten your load:
1. Create a Content Calendar
Initially, this might
sound outdated. In practice, it’s a lifesaver! Rather than relying on your
memory or mood for the day, manage your posts effectively by planning them out
a week, month, or more at a time. By using a calendar, you can easily track the
frequency of your blogs, regulate your posting so it remains consistent,
organize themes and campaigns, keep track of topics you’ve covered in the past,
prepare for upcoming topics, avoid annoying repetition, and prevent creativity
burnout. While this planning tool might sound like an annoying amount of
upfront work, it will actually help you work less in the long
run and feel more organized while doing so.
2. Implement More Structure to Your Workday
Your brain is much more
effective when it’s allowed to focus on one specific thing rather than a
million different tasks. So rather than tackling your mile-long to-do list
randomly, schedule out your day/week to handle similar projects at the same
time. For instance, focus on answering emails, organizing your inbox, and
returning phone calls on Monday morning. Write your blog posts and email
campaigns Monday afternoon. Plan out your social media content and future
social campaigns on Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon, film and edit your
weekly video. By segmenting your days rather than fire hosing yourself with
your whole list of tasks the entire week, you’ll be more productive, and your
content creation will feel less overwhelming.
3. Schedule All of Your Posts
This point goes
hand-in-hand with the previous one. Rather than relying on yourself to come up
with a creative blog post every week, and a social media
post every day, and also a video whenever you can find the
time, use the various scheduling tools available and then move on! Take one
day at the beginning of the month to schedule out your social media content for
the remainder of the month. Take a few days to brainstorm and create blog
content for your website for the entire quarter. Pull out a few changes of
clothes and binge-record yourself all day for all your video content coming up.
Schedule these posts weeks, or even months, out so you don’t have to worry
about it again for a good long while (just be sure to set yourself a reminder
on that calendar for when you need to start brainstorming ideas again).
4. Repurpose Past Content
You might think that
hitting that “publish” button is the last step for your content, but think
again! Repurposing past content is one of the best ways to get more out of your
work with less effort. Any content you create can be repurposed to reach new
audiences or meet a new goal. Don’t waste anything, especially your time. If
you’d like to learn more about repurposing content, then you should join
my 7-day challenge and
find out how to grow your audience and increase your reach!
It’s unavoidable. As an entrepreneur, you will need to work in quite a few areas to keep the wheels turning in your business.
Marketing manager.
Accountant
Blog writer
Coach
Technical support staff.
While understanding that these tasks need to be performed, you still need to realize that not all tasks have the same purpose. For instance, marketing outweighs accounting, because without marketing, there will be no money to manage.
In addition, you also have to think about the amount of time it takes you for each task you are doing. If it takes you the whole day to tweak a design on your web page and delay sending an email to your list, you have basically lost a whole day without doing anything constructive
While it’s true you may have a nicer looking web page or website, you missed your chance to send traffic to your offer on your website.
Ah yes! In a perfect world, you would very easily put on your CEO hat and assign the tasks, but in actual fact, we don’t always have that choice. Usually, we need to be more clever and use our time more wisely.
Sort your Daily Tasks that need to be dealt with first
Everyone has their own special capabilities and expertise that they like and prefer to do. Perhaps you love to do Technical Support but dislike Marketing. One thing is very clear, you must put those tasks that will make you money at the top of your list. Whether it’s creating your own products, or contacting potential clients, or hosting a telesummit or something completely different. Pinpoint those specific money-making tasks in your business and make sure to put them at the top of your list each and every day.
Know the Difference Between Important and Urgent
In his classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey recommends prioritizing tasks based on a time-management grid. Every task is assigned to a quadrant of the grid, based on whether it is urgent, important, both, or neither.
Once you have classified a task on the grid, you’ll instantly realize what you need to be working on. As an illustration, marketing and planning are important but not urgent. A ringing phone is urgent, but not important. The sales page for your new program, which is launching tomorrow, is both urgent AND important.
Before you sort out your daily to-do list, think about where each of your tasks falls in the grid, and assign them appropriately.
Will you always be working on the ideal job for right now? Most probably not. Neither will you always use your time as ideally as possible. But by making a mindful attempt to coordinate and sort out your days, you’ll find it’s a lot less difficult and overwhelming to manage your small business.
After starting my own online business I had realized that life can get pretty darn hectic especially when working at home. I felt as though I was always busy and not getting anything accomplished. I’d be up late at night and wake up early in the morning trying to get it all done. There was no balance in my life and I’d end up exhausted and wondered were other entrepreneurs going through this too?
After doing research on the topic of time management, I started implementing what I had learned. Below you will find some of the time management tips I have used and hopefully they will help you too.
Start logging (writing down) what you do in a day, starting with your ideas, conversations and activities. By doing this you can start to see what you actually accomplish in a day, which also helps you recognize things that might be considered time wasters.
When setting up meetings you should assign a certain time of day (or a certain day of the week) for this purpose. I have certain days of the week where I meet with regular clients and certain days where I meet with new/potential clients.
I like to set up an appointment with myself and I block out spaces of my time on my calendar so I can get important tasks done and I try to spend at least half of that time in doing things that will produce results for my business. Though planning for interruptions should be considered too in case you have to re-prioritize your day.
What I prefer to do is schedule 30 mins at the beginning of each day to organize and adjust my calendar as needed. Before anything else gets done I check and arrange my schedule for the day. This helps me become a lot more productive.
Delegating has been the biggest time saver for me yet. Delegating less important tasks to employees allows me more time to work on my businesses priorities and get lots more accomplished.
Even though I recommend you schedule your day, don’t forget to leave some me-time in between. Don’t forget to give yourself breaks (you can even schedule those in if you like). For instance if you decided to block off 1 hour to write a blog post, don’t jump to the next task at hand once you’re done. You should take 10 to 15 minutes and move around, stretch, dance, do some jumping jacks or check on your loved ones and ask them how they’re doing. You can even do nothing at all and just stop and smell the roses.
We’re living in a fast- paced world in the digital age, where it appears there’s more to do and less hours to do it in. By taking the time to stop and plan your day, at the end you will be able to see what tasks you were able to accomplish with ease, and others you didn’t, therefore, giving you the perfect indication of which tasks you should delegate.
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
