You want to increase productivity on your small, growing blog, but how?

You’re a part-time blogger and you just don’t have the luxury of time.

Pop Quiz: What if you received a free pass from your job right now to work on your blog for 100 hours?  

Would that help you increase productivity and produce the results you seek?

Would that catapult you to reach pro levels in the upper blogging stratosphere?

Probably not.

You’d still lack many of the skills, knowledge and experience to transform from blogging dabbler to full-blown money-making machine.

So yes, us part-time bloggers starve and beg for more time, but is time really the problem?

I propose both yes and no.

Is Lack of Time the MAIN Problem Us Part-time Bloggers Struggle With to Increase Productivity and Achieve Dollar Results?

Sometimes lacking time disguises itself as lack of motivation so you choose to do something else.

Other times we poorly manage our time even when we have plenty of it.

Meaning we blow our precious few uninterrupted hours on our off days from our J-O-Bs on low priority tasks.

Instead we need to increase productivity on high priority tasks and learn the skills to help this happen.

We take action, we’re not lazy, by any sense, but we don’t take enough of the right action.

Yet, still we do struggle to find gaps of time in our busy days to invest in our blogs.

Below I identified areas that challenge me now or at some point did to increase productivity in order to take the next IM career step.

I seeketh the almighty holy grail of living the location-free lifestyle and earning affiliate commissions in my sleep.

Can you identify with any of these time wasters and motivation strippers?

Why You’re Time Broke to Work on Your Blog and the PRO TIPS how to increase productivity 

Fear of Wasting Time with NO Guaranteed Reward

Right now as I sit in the International Drive Starbucks and gaze out the window at the Seaworld’s Mako rollercoaster I worry about wasting my 2 precious hours before I have to scurry off to work.

Should I write a post or focus time on my affiliate bonus gifts, lead magnet opt-in videos or devote time to learn Facebook ads?

Bottom line: I don’t want to arrive to my J-O-B feeling like I accomplished nothing more than busy work that won’t amount to DOLLARS!

And fear of losing time on a project with no guaranteed positive outcome has certainly resulted in indecision and slowed me down before.

Prioritizing and scheduling what we need to do ahead of time leads to money-earning results sooner.

Do you fear wasting time?

Lack of Strong Motivation

How do we expect to stay focused on our almighty prize if we don’t have a powerful reason to fight through the frustrations?

PRO TIP: Glen Long at SmartBlogger.com suggests “A powerful motive puts fire in your belly and helps you to push through your uncertainty to emerge on the other side triumphant.”

A powerful motive puts fire in your belly and helps you to push through your uncertainty to emerge on the other side triumphant

Glen Long from SmartBlogger.com

When we feel like giving up, what will keep us going?

What do you want to achieve with internet marketing?

What’s your “powerful motive”?

Know Your Value Proposition?

How well do you know your target audience?

Everyone cannot be your target audience.

How well do we know what problem our visitors struggle with and what solution to suggest?

When someone visits your site how clear is your value proposition?

Does your visitor know exactly what reward they will receive from your content?

PRO TIP: We must write for “the one person” who finds our content valuable like Melissa Ringstaff writes at AVirtuousWoman.org.

How many hours would you estimate you’ve worked on content without a clear idea who you are writing for? 

Over the years I confess to hundreds of lost hours- ugh?

Months of wasted time.

You Don’t Schedule Blogging Time (or at least set it aside)

Do we schedule enough time in the week to devote just to work on our blogs?

Or do we instead just randomly jump in front of our laptops and throw some posts together hoping they will attract enough traffic?

Then we pray someone clicks on our affiliate links and purchases something.

PRO TIP: Dukeo.com suggests to schedule blogging time throughout your week even if it’s an hour in the morning or a couple at night.

How do you know when to spend time on your blog?

You Force Creativity…which results in poor quality content

Chances are even if you received those 100 free-pass from your job hours to work on your blog you’d force yourself to work faster, but only create subpar work.

Creativity naturally occurs over time.

Instead consider designing a system for creating content (or other projects in pieces) at separate times throughout the week because this will maximize high energy and focus.

Avoid creativity burnout.

I prefer to save various titles as drafts in my WordPress dashboard then return to create all the subheadings and finish with all the details at the end.

None of this is done in one sitting anymore.

I’ll even research statistics or other blogs to reference  at a separate time.

What system do you use to get your numerous tasks done?

Lack of Answers and Knowledge to Help Your Visitors

Sometimes you just don’t have the answers you need to help your visitors.

Time to research.

As good as it feels to hit “Publish” and put our content live to the world or finish landing pages we must invest time to research for valuable information and solutions for our readers.

invest time to research for valuable information and solutions for our readers

How often do you spend time researching for solutions to your visitors’ problems?

Set Aside Time to Learn from Other Bloggers

We’re part-time bloggers for a reason.

Simply we just haven’t learned enough how to earn a full-time living with our blog yet.

Even more motivation to devote time every week to study what successful bloggers do.

I personally subscribe to dozens of successful internet bloggers newsletters.

PRO BLOGGER RECOMMENDATION: One of my favorites is Stuart Walker’s blog NicheHacks.com regarding how to succeed in affiliate marketing.

Stuart offers some of the best free content for finding niches and email marketing.

You can even sign up for his Facebook group for free.

Numerous successful bloggers share ideas in the FB group from how to create money-making FB ads to how to create high-converting landing pages.

Some of the content will overwhelm newbies, but even the greenest blogger will prosper from the golden nugget advice on NicheHacks.com.

What are your favorite blogs to learn from?

Not Enough CTAs, No CTA’s or Weak CTAs

Poor CTA strategy plagued me for years.

Either I didn’t have enough call-to-action links to my affiliate landing pages, they didn’t stand out or they didn’t entice my visitors to click.

PRO INTERNET MARKETER RECOMMENDATION: SocialTriggers.com is the king site for learning CTAs.

I learned the power of the proper color schemes to make links stand out at SocialTriggers.com.

Neil Patel’s newsletters exemplify successful CTA strategy.

PRO INTERNET MARKETER TIP: Neil places at least 3-4 CTA text links in his newsletters and he words them all differently to split test which receives the most clicks.

Without Neil Patel I think I’d be lost.

What’s your best CTA implementation secret?

**Now It’s Your Turn…

What Tips for Increasing Productivity on High Priority Tasks DO You Suggest?

Please share your awesome idea below.