Today we are taking a step back to talk about 6 things you can work on when you have limited time to work on your food blog. No matter what the reason is that your time is limited, this post will give you direction and help you to see the big picture and mundane tasks you can focus on when your schedule ebbs and flows. 

Can’t listen to the episode? Read on for the transcript!

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who just had a baby, and we were discussing how much more productive you can be with a smaller amount of time to work. 

The thing I’ve noticed with my food blogger friends is that it’s often hard to know what to focus on and work on in your business when you’re only able to get a very small amount of work time in. 

There are plenty of situations where you may not have as much time to work, like a new baby, a sick family member, a lack of child care, and more. 

The thing I see suffer the most whenever I’m tight on time is creating content. So be realistic and gracious with yourself to adjust timelines for things when you can. Don’t continue forward in a season of less time to work with the same expectations. 

This is also a mindset shift you have to make. You can stay stuck in a rut feeling like you CAN’T work, or you can adjust your schedule or expectations to get more done or to focus on more important things. 

Let’s talk about the things you can do when you don’t have as much time as you’d like or you’re used to. 

1. Systems & Processes

• Documenting a blog post process
• Writing out a process for involving a team member
• Video or photography

2. Learning a New Skill

• Finish a course you never got through
• Purchase a new course
• Find a creative outlet that you’d like to learn!

Maybe you’ve always wanted to do an Instagram live but it always got pushed to the bottom of your list. Try that out! 

3. Something you love

Which part of the blogging process do you love? Get ahead on that part. If it’s photography, take photos! Maybe that is the part that is easy to do when you have kids around, but computer work is hard. Focus on the part that you enjoy! 

If the pressure of taking photos or writing for a real blog post is too much right now with limited time, do something for fun. Maybe learn how to use flash or take photos of food just for fun and not for a blog post. 

4. The tech side of blogging

These are things that always end up at the bottom of our to-do list because they usually are not urgent. 

• When was the last time you updated your plugins?
• Maybe you’ve been needing to research new hosting
• Maybe you’ve been switching recipe cards for the last year
• Maybe you need to do a plugin audit
• Episode 4 I walk you through doing your own website audit – you can also grab the free checklist here
• Comb through your categories and make sure all of your posts are categorized correctly
• If you haven’t switched to using Gutenberg, listen to episode 31 and then start switching over a few posts at a time to get used to using this editor

5. Connecting with your audience

The fact of the matter is that people are finding themselves with a lot more time lately. That means screen time and social media usage are higher than normal. Take advantage of that (in a good way) and use this extra screen time to connect with your audience more. 

• Send out a user survey
• create some polls on Instagram
• If you have content that is doing really well right now, create a freebie for that or create a mini-course!

I know your first thought might be that that takes too much time but what if that was the only thing on your to do list?

Instead of dwelling on what you can’t do, shift your priorities around so that you CAN make it happen. 

6. Updating old posts

This is literally something you can always be doing! Whether it’s adding more value to a post, updating photos, adding ALT text, or creating new pins for a post, you can pretty much always be updating your old content. 

Even something as simple as reading through an old blog post will be effective because you’ll see errors, places where you might need more info about a specific step in the recipe, etc. 

If you create a process for writing your blog posts, run through an old post with that new process and I guarantee you will find something you can update! 

The purpose of this episode is NOT to overwhelm you but to give you some practical ideas of things you can do.

I don’t want you adding all of these things to your to-do list — focus on ONE at a time. Give yourself plenty of time to do it, so that you don’t get into a cycle of feeling bad about not working. 

Sometimes in these seasons, forcing yourself to get SOMETHING done will help you with momentum to keep getting things done.