How To Write More Blog Posts Than Ever With Batch Working
Do you ever feel like your blog has hit a lull?
No matter how hard you try to write X number of posts per week, it just isn’t happening?
All bloggers have been there. We promise you. We’ve all felt it.
It’s so easy to have the best intentions to hit a writing goal every week — much harder to execute it.
Having done this for a while now, running multiple blogs while trying to have some semblance of a life away from a computer screen, we’ve picked up a few productivity tips along the way.
While work styles vary from one person to another, there is one trick that I think can help anyone whose job is centered around creating content: Batch working.
Batch Working for Bloggers
What is Batch Working?
Batch working is no new concept. It’s been flying around the blogging world since as early as 2017. A quick Google search about it, and you’ll likely find several bloggers singing the praises of batch working.
Often touted as the “trick” to “skyrocketing productivity” or “increasing output”, it might sound too good to be true.
But there’s nothing sneaky or special about it. It’s just a different way of forcing yourself to focus, and — you know — work. Easier said than done, huh?
As the name suggests, batch working consists of completing your work in separate batches. To keep it familiar for bloggers, we’ll use examples of tasks you likely do to keep your site running and updated.
How to Batch Work
At the beginning of the week, you might have a “planning day”, where you decide what your batch of content will be. If you have an editorial calendar, this is the time to finalise what stories you want to send live on what days.
If you can manage it, batch working works best when you plan one week ahead, so that you’re never pressing to batch something that needs to be TODAY!
An Example Week of Batch Working for a Blog
For bloggers, a week of batch working may look a bit like this:
Monday - Planning Day: Plan/ research blog posts for the following week. Decide titles, figure out what imagery you need. Plan any extra content surrounding blog posts.
Tuesday- Writing Day: Write all of your blog posts for the following week.
Wednesday- Graphics: Create any graphics you will need to accompany your posts for the following week. These could be graphics that sit inside the blog posts or things like pins/ Instagram posts.
Thursday- Social media: Write captions and schedule all posts for the following week. Make sure the day that you post the Pinterest/ Instagram posts align with the publish date of the blog posts.
Friday - Building/ Scheduling + Admin: Build blog posts in your CMS and schedule them to publish. Answer emails, reply to comments, update your accounting ledgers. Friday can be all about making sure the business side of your blog is sorted.
How Does Batch Working Increase Productivity?
If batch working is just completing the same work in a different order, then how does it increase productivity?
The secret to batch working doesn’t lie in what you do, but rather how you do it. While you may think you’re a multi-tasking hero, the odds are that constantly jumping from one task to another is hindering your productivity.
The Harvard Business Review goes so far as to say that multitasking doesn't even exist, so by trying to juggle a hundred things at once, you’re likely doing more harm than good.
Our Personal Experience
Our experience with batch working has been wonderful! But the key to success with this method is to execute it properly, sticking to whatever process you decide upon.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but the hardest part of batch working is the initial planning step.
We’re sure we’re not alone in getting ahead of ourselves when it comes to content creation. Rather than jump straight into things, batch working forces you to stay organised— an important skill to learn regardless.
When we first started batch working, the time spent planning felt almost like time wasted: We just wanted to be writing and promoting blog posts. After a few weeks of getting used to it, though, we were able to achieve so much more and now can’t imagine working any other way.
Trying to be more productive? Check out the book that changed the way I work forever.