time management Archives -

Best Social Media Time Management Apps and Tools

April 14, 2022 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

As I write these words in 2022, a lot of new time management apps and tools have come onto the market. So I thought I’d address these and also look backward at some classic tips to help you manage your time on social media. First, let’s address the elephant in the room.

Quit social media

Of course, the B.I.G. elephant in the room if you really want to save time is to quit social media. Delete your Facebook, get off Twitter, and for gosh sakes alive, stop scrolling on TikTok and Instagram. But is that really going to happen? Probably not! Although some of my friends have successfully deleted their Facebook accounts. And they seem happy to have done so. But for the rest of us who are still scrolling and happily liking, reposting, and sharing all over online, maybe not so much.

Limit your time online

This is a big one. And if you can get offline at least one day a week or better still, for the weekend, that’s a great way to guard your time and life. By the way, I’ve talked about time management and social media before: In a Hurry? Time Management for the Busy Professional.

Apps for social media time management

I love to use NokoTime to manage my time so I don’t go overboard and end up down a rabbit hole. NokoTime allows me to watch the clock. NokoTime isn’t free, but it does offer analysis, reports, and much more. Another good one is Toggl Track. Toggle has a free version and also different levels of support for their paid versions.

Use a password manager

I like Dashlane, but there are others, such as LastPass that you might like better. What do I like about Dashlane? You can see all your passwords, plus save notes, create passwords, and they’ll also sync across devices. Having your passwords saved saves you time when you’re racing around the internet, logging into all your 5,000,000 social media accounts. And also Dashlane will tell you when a password is weak and should be changed. It also monitors your information on the dark web.

Use schedulers to help with your social media time management

I’m not saying to use schedulers instead of being online, but in addition to being online and engaging. Yes, schedulers are still controversial, but they’re not going away any time soon. What are the best ones? Tailwind is a good one if you’re just starting out and want to post on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. There’s a free version you can try out. For Twitter, an old favorite is Tweetdeck, which I recently used to do some scheduling. You can also schedule right on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram, which is free. Buffer also has a free version for a single user. It doesn’t include analytics, but you can get analytics through the platforms themselves.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: time management

Best Time Management Hacks for Your Online Life

February 25, 2021 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

We are all spending more and more time online. We wake up with an app on our phone, use our Fitbits for exercise and step counts, and belong to oodles of social media platforms. But how do you manage your time? Do you need another app? Short answer: maybe. Here are some ideas.

Time Spent Online is Different

You might think you could apply time management to your time spent online just as you would to any other chore, but it isn’t true. It’s so easy to be distracted by the newest video of a camel whose best friend is a cow. Just to get another animal into the list, we can all disappear down rabbit holes because they are plentiful. And time disappears when you’re distracted, doesn’t it? Now where was I going with that idea? Oh, yes.

Interrupt Yourself

You need stronger boundaries if you’re going to survive working online. So decide before you get online what you want to do and how much time you want to spend. Before you dive into Instagram, set a time limit. Set an alarm so that you know when your time is up. And then get out! You might like Time Management for the Tired and Frazzled. The point is, make an executive decision about how much time you want to spend online. And then guard your precious time.

Online Tools That Can Help

One of my favorite tools is Nokotime. Why? Not only can you track your time, you can create reports, which is very helpful. It’s not the cheapest, but it’s easy to use and gives you an accurate pie chart of where your time is going. (I’m not an affiliate, by the way.) Another tool that I love is Dashlane, for password management. Dashlane is free, but there’s also a premium version, which helps you sync passwords across platforms. Another one is Google Drive for sharing documents and images.

Create an Old-School to Do List

Writing down what you want to get done the night before has been known to ease anxiety. Instead of worrying about your tasks for the next day, write them all down. Some suggest writing how much time you might use on a particular task, too. One idea I really like is decluttering your to-do list, as Teodora Pirciu writes. By the way, she has a snazzy Daily Planner for business growth that you might like, too. I’ve ordered it myself and it’s a nice, three-month organizer with plenty of space to write (yes, the old-fashioned way, with a pen).

Have a Favorite Way to Manage Your Time?

Do tell! Let me know with a comment. Thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: time management

Organizing Your Social Media So You Can Have a Better Life

April 23, 2020 By Carol Stephen 2 Comments

Everyone says you need to know your why before you feel motivated. The reason you want to organize your social media is so you’ll have more time. Hence, you can use that time to have a better life. There are lots of different ways to organize your social media. Here are some suggestions.

Block out Your Time

I like to check Twitter first thing in the morning. So I group all my Twitter accounts together and do it that way. If you have some task that you can group together, you could do the same thing. Using a block of time, whether it’s 15 minutes or three hours, will make you more efficient. For instance, you could schedule a week’s worth of Facebook posts all at once. See how long that takes and put it right on your calendar. You might like Time Management for the Tired and Frazzled.

Have Daily Topics

If you struggle with what to post, you could always have a daily topic prepared. Think of five things you would like to post and then attach that to a day of the week. There are already people who post certain things on particular days, and you can use already-existing daily topics, such as #MotivationalMonday or #ThrowbackThursday. I’ve always liked #ThankfulThursday myself. You may be able to create on particular to your business.

Outline Several Ideas for Your Blog Posts

While you’re writing an article for your blog, try to think of future topics for yourself. It’s good to always have five at least five. That way, you won’t have an excuse when you’re writing and run out of steam. Just jump to the next topic and continue there for the alloted time. You might also like How to Come up With a Year’s Worth of Blog Content.

Connect the Dots

You don’t have to share the same things across all your social media platforms. If you do, you might want to reshare that content using a different image, a different quote, and at a different time. For example, create something on Twitter with a hashtag that you then share on Facebook without a hashtag and using a different image. Put that same content on LinkedIn, but write a bit more. Experiment and have fun with it!

What Will You Do with Your Extra Time?

Why, focus on your hobby, of course!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: blogging, organizing, Social Media, time blocking, time management, writing

This Is What Happens When You Manage Your Time

October 10, 2019 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

Whether or not you manage your time the Internet is filled with rabbit holes ready to grab you by the ankles and not let go. You may end up going down one and not emerging for the entire day. This can happen to the best of us. You’re on Pinterest, looking at shoes, and suddenly it’s 5:00! How did that happen? There are lots of shoes and shiny objects on Pinterest, and it happens. So how do you manage your time and what happens if you do? Here are some ideas.

Smarter, Not Harder

We’ve heard about working smarter not harder, but how many of us do the opposite? Here it is the end of the day, and you’re working on something that should’ve been done in the morning. Ugh. For me sometimes the important items (like blog writing) get pushed to the end of the day when I’m most tired. It’s hard to think creatively when you’re exhausted! In his article on Inc., Work Smarter, Not Harder: 10 Ways to Be More Effective at Work, John Rampton says to “keep your to-to-lists lean and mean by only focusing on your 3 to 5 most urgent, important, and challenging tasks for the day, aka your Most Important Task (MIT).” And if you do at least one of them in the morning, it’s much more likely to get done.

Photo by NathalieSt

Read Articles about Time Management

There are so many places now to find articles and podcasts about time management. Inc. Magazine has a list of 10 podcasts that will help boost your productivity. Also, you may find a few ideas to help you with time management here:

Work in Batches

Do group all your similar tasks together to make it easier. For instance, I first check email in the morning, then do my Twitter. Next comes Facebook.

Outsource, Outsource, Outsource

I say this a lot, but if you’re not good at something, or don’t like doing it, it’s unlikely to get done! Outsourcing will give you energy to focus on your most important tasks.

Photo by brunkfordbraun

Plan the Night Before

The times I’m most productive are when I can write out my entire schedule the night before. This really helps if it’s a busy or stressful time. Even five minutes spent planning your day can be helpful. When you write things down, you might think of more things you need to do! And then you get to check them off your to-do list (it’s exciting!).

Find Nirvana

Maybe not literally. But you’re most likely to be happier and less stressed if you can manage your time. Do you have a particular system you like? Tell me about it! And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: manage your time, time management

Time Management for the Tired and Frazzled

February 7, 2019 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

Time Management for the Tired and Frazzled

In David Allen’s excellent book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, he outlines five stages to mastering your workflow. These stages include:

collecting the things that command our intention,
processing what they mean and what to do about them,
organizing the results,
reviewing the options, and,
doing!

He also mentions that one’s process is only as good as the weakest link. However, what if you are the weakest link?

You Might Be the Weakest Link

In my years as a professional organizer, the one thing that really caused the most disorganization in people’s lives was the inability to make a decision. People would routinely have piles all over their homes and offices, and not have the slightest clue what to do or where to start. I’d like to call this “decision fatigue.” And it’s what leads to clutter. If you need to work on making faster decisions, here’s a helpful article from Success Magazine: 9 Tips to Make Smarter Decisions Faster. I like the idea of using a timer, so decisions don’t linger forever.

Be Ruthless

Now in organizing physical stuff as well as the chores you need to do for your business, you need to be absolutely ruthless. If there’s something that isn’t going to help your business, you need to take out your biggest rubbish bin and throw that thing away (and by the way, having a BIG rubbish bin really helps–trust me on this). Putting off decisions will lead to clutter on your desktop, on your desk, and nothing will get done. Or things will get done very slowly, and painfully. This also goes for people who aren’t sympathetic to your work life. You don’t have to cut them out of your life forever but pivot away from those things that bring down your energy level. See How Pivoting Away from Drama Will Make You Less Stressed.

It’s Counterintuitive

Making decisions will give you more energy, although you might not think so. You might think that putting off that decision will help you avoid your negative thoughts about it. Not so. It will still weigh on your mind like the proverbial albatross. And unless you really love having giant ocean-going birds hanging around, you’re probably better off without them. So if you’re feeling really tired and frazzled? Make a few decisions and see whether your energy levels improve. Want to get some other ideas? Here’s How Tired Business Owners Save Time: 10 Terrific Ways.

The Metaphor is Yours and Yours Alone

Whatever metaphor you use, making decisions about the tasks at hand is up to you. Some people say you need to eat the frog first thing in the morning. In other words, do your most unpleasant task first. Personally, I’m a tactile learner, so my metaphors are usually about physical action. I like to hit things out of the ballpark, for instance. And I like to start with small wins. So, keeping with the baseball metaphor, maybe I’d bunt the ball and get to first base to create some momentum, rather than eating a frog. I like Brian Tracy’s story about eating the frog.

Outsourcing

If your funds allow, outsourcing some or part of your work could be very helpful. See my post from last week about outsourcing your blogging. You can outsource practically anything. Have someone help with sales calls, picking up the phone for you, or what have you. You can even hire a CEO if you need to! Here’s a list of some things you might consider:

Making appointments
Graphic design
Shopping
Research

In fact, you may want to outsource everything about your business and then take a vacation. After all, you deserve one, right? Or only do the parts of your business that you really enjoy doing!

Take Enough Time to Sharpen the Axe

In organizing for your business day, just like in organizing your home, you need to spend a little time and figure out what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. That means planning. Without some kind of a roadmap, who knows what you’ll end up doing all day or how long it’ll take. There will always be unplanned events and emergencies, but if you already have a plan, they’re less likely to sidetrack you. I like to spend at least 5-6 minutes (preferably 15!) writing down a to-do list for the day. And it’s best to write your list the night before, to get all those nagging things off your mind so you can sleep! The next morning, you’ll probably come up with a few more items to add to your list, too.

Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

If you’re really tired and frazzled, sleep might be part of the problem. A lot of us really do not get enough sleep. Here are my Ten Reasons to Get More Sleep So You Can Conquer the World. Sorry–you can’t outsource sleep, although it’s possible to get a sleep coach if you really get stuck. But if you’re running a small company or startup, you need all your brain power to solve problems. Getting enough shuteye really helps. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s very common for people to say things like “I can sleep when I’m dead,” as though sleep were something merely optional. It’s not.

Collaborations Give You Energy

Sometimes the best ideas come from people who do the same thing you do. Do you have a group of people who support you, help mentor you, and that you help in return? Your peer support group can save you tons of time and energy. There are many support groups online. For instance, Facebook groups are a good place to look. And if you like an in-person group, Meetups are a great place to discover like-minded people.

The Doing

Arguably, the most important part of time management is the doing. That is, if you’ve actually gone through and collected your items, processed your list, organized, and reviewed everything appropriately. After all, you don’t really want to be one of those “do something–even if it’s wrong” people, do you? Probably not.

Are You Tired and Frazzled?

What has helped you move from being tired and frazzled to alert and excited about work?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: decision-making, metaphors, outsourcing, sharpen the axe, sleep, Startups, time management

This Is What Happens When You Experience Social Media Burnout

July 19, 2018 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

This Is What Happens When You Experience Social Media Burnout

Social media burnout is a real thing. If you have been checking Facebook while driving, at restaurants, or every time you wake up at night, then maybe it’s time to put the phone down. We’ve all been a little tired of social media at times. Other times the temptation to live in a cabin in the woods with no WiFi is real. And maybe you’ve wanted to go back to simpler times, when there were fewer choices, but more in-person experiences.

It’s Addictive

You can’t really blame yourself too much. We all have that fear of missing out. And all the social media platforms are fun in their own right. Whether we’re sharing pretty pictures on Instagram, or pinning recipes for chocolate cake on Pinterest, it’s easy to let a few hours go by without a second thought. And then you look up and think, “where did the afternoon go?” or worse, “where did my day go?”

The Downside

There’s always a downside, isn’t there? Here’s what Mark D. Griffiths’ writes in his article Addicted to Social Media?

“Because social media is most frequently accessed via smartphones, their usage is intimately intertwined and their mobile nature contributes to excessive checking habits, which often derives from what is commonly labelled as the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO).”

He goes on to say that the good news is that it’s not really an addiction (for most people), but a habit. And habits can be broken more easily than addictions.

Time Management

Limiting how much time you spend on social media is a goal many have, but few actually achieve. Because of its addictive nature, social media is like New York City, the city that never sleeps. But there is hope. First, have your mantra ready. At the moment, mine is “post and get out.” And yes, it’s possible to spend an hour or less per day on social media interacting and posting. Perhaps you might like this post: How to Face and Overcome “One More Thingitis” Six Ways.

Don’t Quit Altogether

Before you delete all your social media accounts, there are other things you can do instead. On Facebook, you know how if you unfollow someone, Facebook asks if you’d rather just take a break? This is kinda like that. Because if you quit, later you may wish you hadn’t!

Switch Platforms

Often, when I say I’m tired of social media, it means that I’m tired of one platform and the stuff people are posting there. Right now, for me, it’s Facebook. So I simply spend less time there, and move to another platform. If you like Instagram or Twitter more than Pinterest or Facebook, go to your favorite place.

Get Back to Nature

Have a Change of Scenery and get outside. This works well for quite a few people. In fact, forest bathing has become all the rage. Here’s an excellent article you might like: Forest Bathing is Good for Your Health: Here’s How to Do it. The upside is that forest bathing is the bridge between us and the natural world.

How Do You Overcome Burnout?

Leave me a comment and thank you!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: don't quit social media, forest bathing, social media burnout, switch social media platforms, time management

How to Make the Most of Your Time on Social Media: Seven Easy Ways

December 14, 2017 By Carol Stephen 8 Comments

How to Make the Most of Your Time on Social Media: Seven Easy Ways

Social media is no longer an option for any sized business. And it’s not optional for people of any age range, either. Everyone and their grandma is on social media these days. So how do you create posts that are easy to share, quick to read, and how do you maximize your time? Read on!

Photo by JSmith Photo

Have a System and Measure

Having a system is probably the most important part of managing your time. My dad used to say “Do something, even if it’s wrong.” While that’s probably not the best approach, in a way he was right. You can tweak your system later. So decide where you’ll be on the internet (Facebook? Twitter? Pinterest?), and most important–pick the places that you love to be! For instance, I don’t enjoy Google Plus much, so I don’t spend much time there. But you, on the other hand, might love Google Plus!

As Katie Lance write in this article from the Huffington Post, “The right question should be, “What social networks should I focus on that will build my community and build my business?” Also, what platforms do you enjoy the most?”

Measure your efforts. These days, I prefer the analytics within social media platforms. You may prefer to use Google analytics. And most business accounts have built-in analytics, so you can see which posts are getting the most traction.

Curate the Best

Here are some ideas for curation. The important thing is to batch and use blocks of time when you’re curating, to get the best results.

Twitter Lists. You can make them public or private. Set them up in columns in your scheduler.
Saved Searches. Save these in Twitter, so next time you can go to your topic easily.
Secret Pinterest Boards. Think of this as a vision board. You can use secret boards to share things with your clients or save pins that you want to check out later.

For more details, you might want to read:

Content Curation: 5 Killer Reasons It’s Your New BFF

Photo by Gruenewiese86

Keep Tinkering

Once you have a system, improve on it. If you’ve measured your progress and success, and figured out what you really like to do, challenge yourself to make your system more streamlined. My friend Bridget Willard likes to gamify her time to see how fast she can respond to mentions. Could you do something similar?

Since we’re discussing time here, do you think you can do your social media in an hour a day? Would you believe you can create a wonderful blog post in an hour? You definitely can! Of course, it might take a little practice.

Repurpose, Recycle, Reuse

Once you’ve written something, find ways to use it again. And again. Don’t use it just once! My friend Randy Clark suggests 6 Ways to Reuse Old Blog Posts. I must admit, I’m considering the idea of creating some e-books. At the very least, reusing content on your other social channels helps you save time.

Mention Others and Engage

Mentioning others in your article or on your social media can be a good tactic. If your audience is engaged, that makes your job so much easier. You may need to post fewer times if you have an engaged audience.

Interviews

Interview influencers. Then go back to them and let them know that you’ve written about them or published an article or put up a video. Again, you can reuse your articles or videos over and over.

Photo by pedrosimoes7

Power Partners

Sharing from others with a similar audience to yours saves you time and effort. You can share people in the same field if they’re not in competition, too. For example, a plumber and a tile setter might have a similar target audience, and can refer work to each other. Who do you refer to?

Hire Someone

Why not hire someone who’s an expert to handle the social media for you? If you’re too busy to do your own, why not a done-for-you approach?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: content curation, repurposing content, Social Media, time management, Twitter lists

How to Best Work with a Social Media Manager

June 22, 2017 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

How to Best Work with a Social Media Manager

Maximize Your Time

How can you maximize your time so I can do my best work and get you the best return on your social media investment? Here are some ideas for you.

Know Your Audience

Is your audience young? Do they like sports? Are they in the manufacturing sector? Having a very narrow idea of who your audience is will speed up my work. And please don’t tell me that everyone is your audience! Unless you sell air or water, and even then, what kind of air or water do you sell? And here’s Rebranding for Startups, in case you missed it!

Speak to Your Audience

So if you have a forty-something mom who likes to drink too much coffee, I can taylor posts so that we’re talking to her. And the more specific you can be about who that person is, the better the social engagement will be. I can write blog posts or headlines for social posts. Chris Lema suggests that you understand not just who your audience is, but what their journey is.

Photo by felipe.cabrera

Tell Me Your Audience’s Journey

Not everyone will buy from you when they first meet you. Some people will leave, come back, drive you crazy with questions, and so on. Bigger purchases usually require more questions, more visits to your website or social media, and more touch points.

Photo by garryknight

Engage, Engage, Engage

It’s never simply about posting and going, or scheduling. Getting onto your social accounts every day is important. And guess what? You’re running your company! So while you’re busy running your company, I can be busy running your accounts for you. By the way, here’s an entire series I wrote on engagement. Take a look!

Scheduling

I can schedule ahead of time for you, and if you have your own scheduler, I can use it so you can see what’s coming down the pipeline. Would you like that? Some business owners don’t want anything to do with their social, just a monthly report.

What Does Your Business Stand for?

You may have hobbies or charities that work with your business. For instance, my friend Beth Staub’s business, Adventure Auto Glass, donates to animal organizations when you do business with them. Or you may be a manufacturer who believes that Made in the USA is the way to go.

What Do You Look For?

What traits do you look for in a social media manager? Leave me a comment and thank you!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: audience, Engagement, time management, what a social media manager does

How Tired Business Owners Save Time: 10 Terrific Ways

May 4, 2017 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

How Tired Business Owners Save Time: 10 Terrific Ways

We all have the same amount of time in every day, yet we all want to save time, too. Isn’t that the universal problem? Maybe the question is what do we do with the time we save?

Plan the Day Ahead of Time

When you know what you have to do, doing those chores goes a lot faster. Then checking everything off your list is satisfying, and almost like a game that you can play. Like the Gamification of Social Media, the gamification of your to-do list can move things in the right direction.

So spending 10 minutes to plan doesn’t have to be a big deal. For those times that your iPhone timer isn’t enough, here are some other timers you might like. I love that there are specific ones for coffee and grilling (that’s what you can do with all the time you save!).

Sharpen the Ax

As Abraham Lincoln didn’t say, “If you have six hours to chop down a tree, spend four hours sharpening the axe.” But it’s still a great statement anyway. What whomever said this probably meant was to prepare for whatever task you’re going to do and have all the right tools. Don’t have a tiny, dull knife and try to cut up a tree. Have a seriously sharp axe!

Tell the Truth About Limitations

This one seems so simple. Keep your commitments. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. This includes not overcommitting to be on a task force, or committee. Know how much energy you have to commit to new tasks. Here’s an article I enjoyed from The Wall Street Journal: Are You Too Busy? How to Know Your Limits. The takeaway? Don’t wait until you have a stomachache, or worse, to realize you’re doing too much!

Eat the Frog

This is one I don’t necessarily agree with. Eating the frog means doing the hardest thing first. But why? Why not do the easiest thing first so you have a sense of momentum? Forget about eating that frog first! Drink your coffee, finish something easy, then eat the frog! And why does it even have to be a frog? How about if we reframe it as something just a little more appetizing?

Work at Your Strength

Even without the CliftonStrengths assessment (formerly Strengthfinders), doesn’t it make sense to focus on what you’re good at every day? And if you’ve never read the book, I highly recommend it!

Delegate Everything That’s Not Your Strength

As a business owner, this one is the hardest for me. I have to realize that others aren’t as interested in my business as I am. They won’t do as good a job (maybe), so I have to settle for maybe 80% getting done and forget about the rest.

Photo by lorenkerns

Shut the Door at 5:00

If you work for yourself, this is a tough one. Client meetings often leak over into the evening hours, and that’s not always a good thing for your work-life balance. By the way, here’s why Work-Life Balance is the Unicorn of the Working World.

Photo by Dirk Förster

Learn to Make Decisions Quickly

This one has come about naturally for me. One of my friends who owns his own business can hang up on a caller within two seconds. “Not interested!” he barks, and hangs up. Are you turning into that person, too?

Photo by jurvetson

Stop Multitasking

We all know by now that there is no multitasking. We can’t drive and text any more than we can listen to YouTube and pay attention during a meeting! Tell me you’re not doing that right now!

Photo by Ruth and Dave

Take Breaks and Get Outside

Getting outside into nature is what is going to make your brain work the best, after all. That may seem counterintuitive, but it does work.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Business, delegation, focus on strength, planning, preparation, time management

Valuable Time-Saving Tools for Your Social Media

November 17, 2016 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

Valuable Time-Saving Tools for Your Social Media

You spend so much time crafting your posts for social media. Then you learn that a tweet only lasts a matter of minutes before it vanishes! Want to learn how to create better posts? Sure you do!

Photo by Kurayba

Limit Yourself

If you’re a solopreneur, don’t take on every social media platform. Take on two or three of the top ones. If you don’t know what those are, the folks at Pew Research Center can help you identify the top-tier ones, along with their demographics. Yes, this isn’t a tool, but it is a strategy that can help you.

Measure What Counts

The number of followers is a vanity metric that doesn’t necessarily get people in the door of your business. Choose instead to go with metrics such as engagement. By the way, here are some Business Analytics Tricks for Twitter that you might find interesting. These tools are valuable:

Google Analytics – can help you “close the loop” on where your blog traffic is coming from.
Analytics on each platform – each platform has its own metrics.
Cyfe – gives you a dashboard of how each of your social platforms performs.

Batch Your Posts

So, when you’re coming up with headlines for Twitter or Facebook, write them in a block of time. Don’t sit and write one at a time. The time it takes you to switch gears is valuable.

Schedule All at Once

How about doing five or ten posts at once? Or a week’s worth in one sitting? Then schedule them all at once. There are many schedulers out there–HootSuite, SproutSocial, and many more. Jeff Bullas has a complete list on his 17 Best Social Media Management Tools, so I won’t reinvent the wheel here. But for brainstorming those topics, how about these ideas:

Mindmapping
Brainstorming (I prefer groups to solo)
A blogging buddy (my blogging buddy is Bridget Willard) to help you when you’re stuck!

Photo by puliarf

Write Five Topics

One of the most helpful hints I heard when I first started blogging was from Syed Balkhi, who suggested writing five topics at once so you don’t have an excuse to quit writing. And in case you didn’t know, you really can create a wonderful blog post in an hour. Yes, you can! And speaking of blogging, which goes hand-in-hand with social media, here are some favorite writing tools:

Relax Melodies – plays white noise that you can customize, such as rain, surf, etc.
Coschedule – helps you write great headlines
Noko – time management tool that lets you create reports

Does Social Media Take Too Much Time?

Some days it feels that way, doesn’t it? Let me know if you have a favorite tip in the comments! Thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: batching, blogging buddy, measure, schedule posts, Social Media, time management, writing content

Quit social media

Limit your time online

Apps for social media time management

Use a password manager

Use schedulers to help with your social media time management

Time Spent Online is Different

Interrupt Yourself

Online Tools That Can Help

Create an Old-School to Do List

Have a Favorite Way to Manage Your Time?

Block out Your Time

Have Daily Topics

Outline Several Ideas for Your Blog Posts

Connect the Dots

What Will You Do with Your Extra Time?

Smarter, Not Harder

Read Articles about Time Management

Work in Batches

Outsource, Outsource, Outsource

Plan the Night Before

Find Nirvana

You Might Be the Weakest Link

Be Ruthless

It’s Counterintuitive

The Metaphor is Yours and Yours Alone

Outsourcing

Take Enough Time to Sharpen the Axe

Are You Getting Enough Sleep?

Collaborations Give You Energy

The Doing

Are You Tired and Frazzled?

It’s Addictive

The Downside

Time Management

Don’t Quit Altogether

Switch Platforms

Get Back to Nature

How Do You Overcome Burnout?

Have a System and Measure

Curate the Best

Keep Tinkering

Repurpose, Recycle, Reuse

Mention Others and Engage

Interviews

Power Partners

Hire Someone

Maximize Your Time

Know Your Audience

Speak to Your Audience

Tell Me Your Audience’s Journey

Engage, Engage, Engage

Scheduling

What Does Your Business Stand for?

What Do You Look For?

Plan the Day Ahead of Time

Sharpen the Ax

Tell the Truth About Limitations

Eat the Frog

Work at Your Strength

Delegate Everything That’s Not Your Strength

Shut the Door at 5:00

Learn to Make Decisions Quickly

Stop Multitasking

Take Breaks and Get Outside

Limit Yourself

Measure What Counts

Batch Your Posts

Schedule All at Once

Write Five Topics

Does Social Media Take Too Much Time?

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