The scenario:
You block off a whole morning to do your blog post. In fact, “it shouldn’t take more than two hours” so you’ll have some time to relax before your afternoon appointments. Four hours later, at the end of your allotted time for this task, you are staring at a half- finished piece of work barely holding itself together, haven’t even picked out any accompanying photos or images, and you sigh as you close the window so you can get to your “real” work. Maybe you’ll have time to finish the post next week.
6 months later …
That blog post still isn’t finished.
How hard can it possibly be to get out those posts?!
Facing the hard truth:
Writing blog posts take a lot more time than you think. At first. It takes a lot of pre-work to get organized on your blog’s big picture strategy. Then you need to complete any research and ensure you have a quality topic to write about. Editing and adding final touches also takes time.
For your first few articles, I’d recommend taking that initial 4 hours of estimated work time and quadrupling it to a full 2 days. Even then, you might find yourself stretched to complete the task.
Getting into the routine of writing blog posts is a big chunk of the battle. It takes determination and discipline to take your initial idea for an article to completed form. The more you do it, the better you get. The quicker you produce your work. At some point, it becomes easy. After many tries, your blog posting starts to fit nicely into your 4 hours of allotted time.
Looking back and moving forward:
A task that should take 4 hours to complete now does. And the world makes sense again.
Question:
How long does it take you to produce a blog post from start to finish?
Hint:
Sometimes you need to tie yourself to the chair and not get up until the task is done. Throw away the time tracking and just finish it!
