Managing a Blog with a Full-Time Career

I am so used to having my hands full. In fact, the reason why I started The B Werd was because I didn’t have enough on my plate. In college, I worked full-time, was a full-time student, and had a Public Relations internship two days a week, all while juggling a pretty full social life. After I graduated and accepted a job in my field, things had slowed down immensely. All that I “had” to do, was wake up everyday and go to work, then come home and get ready for work the next day. I didn’t even feel like myself. I wasn’t doing enough!

I truly believe that while I wasn’t 100% prepared when I decided to jump into this, I did it at the perfect time. Since then, my responsibilities have quadrupled between work, the growth of The B Werd and my personal life (wedding planning, house decorating and organization) – but I remind myself this is exactly what I wanted. So many people wonder how I’ve been able to manage climbing the corporate ladder and still build a brand outside of that and while I’ve had to change my strategy a few times as my life continues to evolve – I can gladly say I’ve done a great job of managing working full-time while managing my blog.

Below I’ll share what I think can help you leverage growing in your career and in your blog. I hope you all find implementing these tips helpful!

Overtime on the Weekends

Your weekends are the two full workdays that you get to dedicate to your brand, blog or side business. You really have to take advantage of those ~48 hours. Friday nights, I would go home, brew a cup of coffee, get comfortable and open up my laptop to start writing content for the following week. I would schedule photo shoots for Saturday mornings and switch outfits three times, changing in my car in between looks. Knowing I had photo content was half the battle. Many Saturday afternoons were spent in coffee shops or at my desk pitching to brands, sorting through photos, brainstorming my next move or preparing posts to go live the following week. If I did go anywhere, it better be somewhere cute where I could snap a few photos because #ContentIsKing and if I left the house, at least I’d have a photo to show for it. If you know that you’re going to be stuck at a desk for 40 hours the next week, do what you can during the weekend so that you don’t feel like you’re living in a different world Monday through Friday.

Keep Your Priorities Flexible

Every week, or every day may require you to focus on a different task and balance your priorities differently. There are days where my work schedule takes precedence with deadlines or event organization where I know I’ll be unable to work on anything else, so I make sure I make time in the evenings or the weekend before to handle any pressing items I might need to go live that week. Other times, my work responsibilities may lighten up and in between my tasks I’m able to reply to a few emails, publish a post or map out my content calendar.Try to be as prepared as possible in knowing what to expect for your work week. This will help exponentially when trying to design what you will have time to work on and what you won’t.

Create a Schedule

And stick with it. I don’t mean scheduling what time you’re going to wake up, eat breakfast, and workout. I mean a realistic schedule for what you’ll be able to produce for your blog. If I said I was going to post three times a week, you were going to get three posts each week and nothing less. If you say you’re going to start your newsletter on the third Sunday of next month, have it ready to go a day early. Schedules need to be attainable, you don’t want to set yourself up to fail, but you also do want to challenge yourself and hold yourself accountable. I personally love creating not just goals for the week, but goals for 90 days at a time because I find them to be easiest to achieve that way (read more about that here).

Knock Out What You Dread First

All the stuff that’s not-so-fun. You know, creating and sending invoices, editing your e-course, sorting through 890 photos at a time – do that first. You can’t reach new heights without making sure the boring, redundant stuff gets done too, so knock it out and quickly so that you can move on to the fun and exciting stuff.

Do What You Can Yourself

Don’t wait for a photographer to be free, or affordable. Buy whatever equipment it’s going to take for you to be a one-woman production (start with a tripod, camera and remote). Don’t feel the need to be able to hire a web designer, Google and YouTube will be your best friend. I’m so grateful that I never sat around waiting to find the perfect vendor to help me – I figured it out! If you do things right, your blog will reach a point where you will absolutely need help. In the meantime, learn to do as much of it as possible on your own so that 1) you know how to run your own blog and business from A to Z and 2) you appreciate the help when you get it and can understand the role they’re taking on. It’ll also save you a ton of money you don’t have, or haven’t made just yet!

Keep it Important

Everyone thinks blogging is “fun”, and while it can be, it’s a lot of hard and time consuming work that will lose it’s excitement sooner than you think. Spending thirty minutes trying to get the perfect latte shot can be frustrating as hell, trust me! Spending an hour and a half doing your hair and makeup just to find somewhere to take a photo isn’t as glamorous as it was the first time, when you’re doing it for the 88th time. The thing is, you’re going to have to do it anyway to keep your blog rolling, so keep it a priority! As your blog starts to grow it’s going to be easier to sit back, post less and ride what you’ve already done since you’re somewhat accomplished. But trust me, you will want to keep your blog at the same level of importance as when you first began if you want to reach new heights.

Do any of you boss ladies work full time while blogging? Share how you manage it below!