7 Ways To Write A Successful Blog When You Have Young Children

If you are lucky enough to have childcare or a partner who can give you time to dedicate to work then you are already in a great position. With a partner you need to agree the specific time you get or you will find weeks have past and it hasn’t happened. For your family it might mean 3 times a week your partner does bedtime or maybe Saturdays between 10 and 4 are dedicated to your blog. If possible take into account the times you are most productive at working. Grab that time and make sure you use it. 

You can easily spend hours each week working on your blog and social media, but not feel you are getting anywhere. You need to be honest with yourself about how much time you can realistically spend each week and not put too much pressure on yourself. The most effective way to spend the time you have is to make a plan and stick to it. Identify what will help you meet your goals and work out how often you need to do each task. Your weekly plan might include: create 2 new blog posts, refresh and improve SEO on 1 old blog post, pitch to 5 brands, post daily on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram grid, post 3 pins a day and additional monthly tasks like a sending a newsletter, creating a video and monitoring stats. You can use a social media posting schedule to map all this out and help you keep track.

If you are wondering how it would work with just focussing on your blog at weekends then the answer is by working in batches. There are a few tasks that need doing every day: checking emails and responding to comments on social media being the main 2 and everything else can be done in a weekly session and scheduled. Blog platforms (like Wordpress and Blogger) as well as YouTube allow you to create your content and then schedule it to go live at a later date and you can also schedule all your social media too. Facebook and Pinterest allow you to schedule future posts within their functionality, but you might find it easier to use social media posting tools which allow you to create and manage your content for all the different platforms in one place.

Sitting down at a desk for a few hours uninterrupted work is a luxury and great if you get it, but you can get additional time by being creative. I draft the majority of blog posts on my phone whether I'm sitting in the dark while I get my children to nap, on my driveway after an unexpected car nap or in the garden while my children play (keeping a regular eye on what they are up to obviously). I engage on Instagram while making dinner and I come up with new ideas in the shower. This time all adds up and I am the queen of multi tasking.

To balance it out I make sure that when I am playing with my children I properly focus on them. It's important to have time you dedicate to your family and I don't want them to see me on my phone all the time. Mindless scrolling of social media is going to have little benefit to my blog and it can appear like I am never present for my children if I'm not careful.

It’s a tough one, but at some point if you are serious about making money through blogging you may need to invest in some extra help. This might be paying for childcare to give you more time or outsourcing certain admin tasks so you can focus on those things that need your voice and creativity (eg writing posts). Be realistic about the costs though and how much more money you will earn. There is no point paying someone £50 a month to manage Pinterest for you if it only results in a 1000 more page views unless the resulting ad views and affiliate sales are going to add up to more than that.

Life isn’t predictable and children make it even more of a challenge. If you plan to spend the evening on an important piece of work it will be the night they don’t go to bed on time. Are you planning on dedicating the day when they are at nursery baking a recipe and taking photographs? Of course that will be the day they are ill. Where possible don’t leave work until the last minute and if you have a problem contact the brand or PR you are working with, they would rather know something is going to be late than have to chase.

If you are blogging for income you rely on then remember you will need to make some occasional sacrifices like missing out on a trip out, just like you would if you worked in an office or shop. If you are blogging as a hobby then don’t let it cause you added stress. If life gets too much then take a break from your blog and social media, it wont all fall apart and you will come back with renewed energy and motivation.

When your children are older and in regular childcare (or school) you will get dedicated time to work during the week and it will be time to reclaim those weekends and evenings to spend with your family and partner. You can’t do everything and if you are primarily a stay at home parent balancing cooking, cleaning, playing with children AND blogging you are doing an amazing job so congratulate yourself on everything you are achieving. Never compare yourself to those big name parent bloggers who are doing it all with a lot of support behind the scenes.

***Disclosure: this is a collaborative (AD) post***