Time Savers For Bloggers
- Fri Aug 17, 2007
- By Susan
- Filed under: Blogging, Tools
- 11 Comments
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Whether blogging is your hobby or your profession, you may appreciate some ways to increase your time management to focus on content and find ways to save more time.
Firefox Extensions
Split Browser - This add-on splits Firefox’s viewing screen into multiple fragments to view many sites at one time. Access between different pages is easy to maneuver.
Tab Scope - Brings Real-time tab previews to the Firebox browser and you can actually interact with the page!
Page Addict - This extension monitors the amount of time you spend on each website and will display it on a graph, showing your your web surfing habits. You can organize your sites by categories and from there restrict how much time you spend by category. You’re forced to stay focused!
Shortcuts
Auto-Fill Comment Boxes - If you comment often, how would you feel about having a shortcut to ‘auto-fill’ your name, email and blog url within comment boxes? This script will do it for you with an easy shortcut.
Keyboard - Tip Monkies website offers some basic shortcuts for programs, including Wordpress.
Bold: Alt+SHIFT+b
Italics: Alt+SHIFT+i
Link: Alt+SHIFT+a
Blockquote: Alt+SHIFT+q
Code: Alt+SHIFT+c
Read More: Alt+SHIFT+tUnordered List (ul): Alt+SHIFT+u
Ordered List (ol): Alt+SHIFT+o
List Item (li): Alt+SHIFT+l
Here are also some quick shortcuts for Mozilla and Internet Explorer.
Curing the Addiction
Many bloggers (I’ve been one of them) get addicted looking at statistics or changing their design. It’s never-ending. Usually a lot of these changes will go un-noticed and you just ended up wasting a lot of time.
How To Be Efficient?
1) Prioritize - Most people categorize most of their day in the ‘important’ category, but really we need to differentiate between important and urgent. When planning your tasks for the day, consider tackling the most essentials tasks first then move on to other things.
2) Carry a Notebook - Taking a notebook or pad of paper with you will help when you suddenly have a great idea, come across an interesting quote or saying. Keeping a notebook for future reference, will definitely help for those days when writers block hits. It’s also a great place to make a quick-list of ideas.
3) Additional Content - I’ve talked about this before. If you can, try writing several posts once or twice a week - make it your writing day. It’s hard to feel inspired everyday, and if you do - you’re just special. :P
Becoming efficient and saving time blogging by focusing your energy on what’s important will help you achieve your goals. I know for me, less time spent on the computer effects other parts of my life - meaning more time with my friends and family.
4:36 am on August 17th, 2007
Carry a notebook is an excellent advice.
I have a really hard time writing on the PC because of all the detractions (read internet). I get a much better writing flow with a notebook.
6:19 am on August 17th, 2007
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7:05 am on August 17th, 2007
Very nice.
I’ll have to remember those tips.
Thanks!
However, I must point out that I am a Mac user and Safari is better than Firefox. ;-P
9:13 am on August 17th, 2007
Hey Susan. I’m creating a new marketing plan. I’m recruiting 5 bloggers for my A-Class. would you like to participate?
11:02 am on August 17th, 2007
Page Addict? Scary! I don’t even want to know how much time I spend on some blogs ;).
8:44 pm on August 17th, 2007
rofl dam adict :O now I’m scared lol I do this for fun and since I just started I’m trying my best to get promo so I can chillax and start making post.
5:58 pm on August 18th, 2007
I hate it when I have an idea, but have no where to write it! Usually, when I do have an idea I’ll frantically look for something to write my idea onto so I don’t forget.
I’m going to have to try out page addict. It seems interesting…Thanks for sharing! :D
-Gregg
11:03 pm on August 19th, 2007
great post i knew most of those but i read it anyways to see if there was anything i missed! thanks for the visit it made the monkeys happy :D
3:57 am on August 20th, 2007
[...] Time Savers For Bloggers - Susan Suarez writes a nice little post outlining some simple ways to save a little time while blogging. Highlights include keyboard shortcuts for Wordpress and a Firefox plugin I’m a little afraid to install called Page Addict. I’m not sure I want to know how much time I waste on my addiction [...]
6:55 am on August 20th, 2007
I don’t think I would wanna know how much time I’m spending on one website. The very thought scares me.
8:05 pm on September 5th, 2007
Looking at stats has worked wonders for me Susan. Finding out how people are getting to Miniature Brainwave through Google and adjusting my content accordingly tripled my daily visitors today.
The stats also turn me on to what type of responses my submissions to larger sites in my vertical are getting. One site that features Miniature Brainwave content gets a great link visit response, another site that carries my submissions only brought back one visitor. It helps me manage my resources.
The compulsion isn’t bad if you can do something with it.