5 Tasks to Refine in the New Year

Happy New Year! Just like everyone else, I can’t believe 2016 is over. But, I’m so excited for 2017! 

Working smarter and not harder seems to be the trend for 2017 and I’m jumping all over it. As discussed in my Best Blogging Tools post, we are using the best tools and some of our own skills to help out workflows and make the best of 2017. Here are just a few things I will be working on bettering in 2017 and you can join with me:

• Networking

Really getting into your community of people is MAJOR. This year lets work on connecting to the right people and growing relationships with them. These people we connect with should add value to our lives – whether it’s for our blogs or our personal life. You never know who might be able to help you further your goals/dreams. 

If you’re a blogger, respond to all of your comments, comment on other (similar niche) blogs. Find your tribe on Instagram.

• Worry less about cleaning

This is major. And you may be thinking “what..?”. This is something I had to just stop worry about so much. For me, it was to the point where I would come home from work daily and do nothing but organize, sweep and wipe everything down. It even got in the way of my blogging, crazy right? 

So here is the thing, your home will always need to be cleaned. Laundry will always need to be done. Let’s practice getting it done as we go so it doesn’t pile up. If it does pile up, we need to practice not stressing over it! It will get done. 

• Time Management

Good old time management. I have struggled with this SO hard. You guys know by now that I work a full-time job in addition to Arrows & Awe. It has been a challenge because I want to stay consistent and make sure I produce quality content. But, finding time has been extremely difficult without feeling burnt out. 

For me, I know Arrows & Awe is my passion and I am not giving up on it. Therefore, I have been finding the time to wake up earlier, before work, to write a post. Or editing photos on my lunch breaks. Sometimes it has become such a cluster of tasks that need to be done before I can hit publish, that I have now started to create my workflow.

Which brings me to:

• Find a workflow

When it comes to blogging, finding my workflow has been extremely difficult. I’ve tried writing the posts all in one day to scheduling the days in advance that I would write a specific post. All of it has failed until I started to read about batching.

BATCHING HAS CHANGED MY LIFE.

What I mean by batching is , literally doing each step in your blogging process in batches.   If you’re anything like me, being overwhelmed makes me just want to do nothing. So, I take each task and divide them out by days in an order that makes sense for me and my lifestyle. It’s helped my process and also my brain haha, I don’t have a million tasks floating around in my head everyday. 

What that looks like for me is:

Monday: Read & answer emails
Tuesdays: Blog research (what’s trending?)
Wednesday: Writing ( I sit down and write all of my posts for the following week, including SEO) 
Saturday: Content creating (taking photos or creating them in photoshop)
Sunday: Schedule posts for the week

Daily: Marketing, networking and engaging.
 

related: Best Blogging tools to use

• Education 

Girl, (or guy!!) please never let yourself stop learning. Arrows & Awe has been the biggest learning experience in my life and the one thing I’ve learned the most, is to not stop learning. lol! Seriously, take those e-courses from other bloggers. Go to those blogging conferences. Social media is always changing and you know what they say, the only constant is change. 

I will be at BlogHer 17 in Orlando, FL – so if you’re going let a sister know!