To-Done! Working to live.

Be A More Productive Blogger 2

Posted June 20, 2005 —

Be a more productive blogger was quite a hit with y’all and it caused some very good discussion as well. I’m very glad to have give many of you ideas and I’m glad to say y’all gave me some good ideas in return.

Because of that post I started a new site, Successful Blog where I’ll focus on all sorts of issues related to blogging, and I’ve decided to write this follow up. I figured I had to know of more than 13 tips to becoming a more productive blogger, and sure enough, I have quite a bit more.

As a bonus, this time I’m also going to throw in a few ways you can use your blog to be more productive in other parts of your life.

Here are a few more quick tips:

• Tell a story. Storytelling is probably the best way to share information with a wide audience. It’s a fun way to write, helps you inject some personality into your writing and emulates a great conversational tone.
• Break longer posts up into several smaller posts. This not only gives you the feel good illusion of getting more into your blog, it helps your readers take in what you have to say.
• Lists, lists, lists. They’re easier to read and a bit easier to write, because they allow you to get to the point and cut our meaningless words and phrases. Not perfect for everything, but they come in pretty handy at times.
• Make good use of your drafts. I carry at least a few drafts in each of my blog at all times. Sometimes these are simply the title, but these help give me ideas when my creative energy is low and provide a starting point when I’m bogged down with writers block.
• Quote liberally and be sure to tip. This is definitely more of a trick than a tip, but I find there are times when I’m writing and I just can’t think of the right way to say something. Sometimes a little research can help and you’ll find someone else has made a similar point. It’s ok to quote and play off that, just make sure you linkback (as links are the currency of blogs) and give proper credit.
• Respond to feedback on your blog. People love to talk and share their opinions. I’ve found that by engaging your readers and taking the time to listen to them, you’ll often find a good topic that you can respond to in a new post.

• Don’t obsess over your stats. It’s easy to get into the habit of checking your stats all the time, this can destroy your focus and put a real damper not only on blogging, but everything else as well. I try and check them once a day and not think about them after that.

  Tips on using your blog to help you be more productive:

• Learn from blogging. I find that writing and engaging in conversations about things I’m interested in with like minded people really helps me learn. To-Done is a great example. I’ve learned way more about personal productivity than I ever would have without it.
• Use your blog to sort out problems. I often use posts and the ensuing conversations to work out ideas or help get my mind around something. In that way you’re (if you’ll pardon the expression please) killing two birds with one stone.
• Think of your blog as a knowledge management repository. I don’t know how many times I’ve been able to go back to my blogs and pull up something or other that helped me get something taken care of. It’s been a real time save in that way.

• Use your blog to test ideas. I’ve found blogging to be extremely helpful in testing out new ideas I’ve got. I’ll write up a post or two, throw it out to my readers and gauge reaction. While this technique isn’t fool proof, I think it’s worked pretty well, not only in helping to tell the good ideas from the bad, but to gather initial research that helps in fleshing out an idea.

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