The Blog Indiana 2010 presentation was called Producing Content Without Agony and if you must know: yes, I beat my record.
If you’re curious about the back story, I gave a talk at Blog Indiana’s conference on Workplace Productivity and Blogging. In that workshop, I reviewed some of the common challenges that prevent us from blogging successfully. I showed off these techniques in an audacious demonstration: an entire blog post written in only ten minutes.
© Flickr user Eelke
I decided to throw down the gauntlet. My 2010 presentation was just on one part of productivity and blogging: the agony of producing content. I ended the talk consulting on how to write a blog post in only 5 minutes.
The folks at Blog Indiana recorded all the sessions. For now, the best way to retrace this presentation is to enjoy the amazing sketch notes by attendee John Uhri. Here’s what he captured from my talk (direct link here):
Basically, when it comes to producing content, too many people over-complicate things. Look at what Uhri wrote above. Those tips may seem like terrible things on their own, but when explained, you realize just how important they can be for being a great blogger.
Steal: When it comes to producing blog posts, most ideas have already been taken. It’s very unlikely you’ll be able to think up something that is 100% novel. But that’s okay. Don’t waste time looking for a new idea. Instead, take ideas from other blogs. This applies to the way the blog looks too. If you like the layout of something, then there’s a good chance others do too. Try to replicate the way the page is laid out, and the way posts are laid out, for your own blog. If you like posts with a video at the start and then text explaining the topics in the video in further detail, then write a post just like that! Take the things you enjoy and try to copy them.
Cheat: Stressing about blogging is one of the things that stands in most people’s way. The best way to avoid that? Try to write as many with as little effort as possible. A slight tweak to a topic you’re writing about could lead to a whole other post. But you may be able to write that new post based on research you’re already doing. That’s going to save you a ton of time. Even better, while researching a topic, a quote or a statistic could inspire an entirely new post. Don’t file that away for another day. Write it then and there! You’re going to save yourself a ton of time if you aren’t switching back and forth between tasks.
Be Lazy: It’s almost never good to be lazy, but if that laziness leads you to be more efficient, then by all means, go for it! Look up ways to publish posts in the future. Find tools to lessen your workflow. Whatever it takes to save you work, your’e going to be coming out ahead.
These are just a few tips for how to be a better blogger, and at their core they’re nothing revolutionary. But still, far too many people won’t utilize tips such as these, and instead will spend days, weeks, or even months stressing about how to get started. The best time to get started is yesterday. But if you didn’t do that, just dive in and start right now.
And if you need more help getting kicked off, or want to get advice from our excellent business productivity consultants, don’t hesitate to contact the team at AccelaWork today. We’d love to help get you pointed in the right direction and get you well on your way past stressing and procrastinating and toward bettering your brand.
@robbyslaughter
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