Work, Blog, Sleep, Repeat: 6 Blogging Tips For Busy Bees
As some of you know, I am currently working in a fashion-focused environment. I like to think I landed myself quite the perfect job since I’m constantly surrounded by the best designer fashion, have the freedom and opportunity to rely on my experience while still learning every day and get to spend the day with awesome colleagues and.
But still; juggling both a job and the blog is challenging. I like to think of Dogs and Dresses as a job as well – there’s the drive to create fun, interesting content on a regular basis, there’s tons of emails to reply to, events to attend, meetings to schedule and planning to be done. Most of it requires me sitting in front of my computer screen for at least four hours straight. And surprisingly, when I get home from my day job (which most of the time has got me sitting in front of my Mac 8 hours a day), turning on my laptop isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind. Add to that the short days and long nights without any time to shoot pictures in daylight and you have me in my seasonal blog frenzy. AAAAHHHHHH. But keep it cool kids, let’s find a way to make it work!
Here are Elien’s six magical steps to an easier blogging routine for busy bees!
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Plan
My daily planner looks like a colour book: everything blog-related is highlighted in pink, work deadlines get a green background and all personal things are scribbled somewhere in between. Planning ahead is key when things are busy and you want to freak out as little as possible. Take a look at your upcoming week and see when you have time to really sit back, relax and get inspired to blog. Or check to see if there are any events, maybe even work-related, that are valuable to blog about as well.
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Make good use of your free time
Whenever it’s not too busy around the office I meet up with partner-in-crime Paulien. Quickly capturing a look during my lunch break might be a bit stressful, but it’s a great way to get new content plus spend twenty minutes of quality time.
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Fresh methods
Be inventive and come up with new ways to document your daily looks. I’ve started to capture my outfits with my phone, #fromwhereIstand-style. It might not be the best way to do things, but it’s a quick fix that is actually fun to see. I’ll post my first weeks’ worth of insta-captures soon.
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Back things up
Try to have a few post ideas lined up in your concepts folder. This way, whenever you do have some spare time but are running low in the inspirations department, you’ll still have something to fall back on. In need of some quick post ideas? Here are some basic ideas that might be fun to work around:
- 5 ways to wear an item: get your Polyvore on and create a few different looks around a single item.
- Link love: list your favourite reads of the past week and share the blog love!
- Best Of: compile a list of awesome previous posts around a single theme (all the times you wore that coat, the colour blue, sunglasses, whatevvvz)
- Check out these ideas, this generator and why not this list for even more ideas.
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Collect your content
Don’t put your eggs in one basket, okay? If content in sparse, divide one post into a few different posts: create a series, give a sneak peek, talk in-depth about a certain item or piece of jewellery you’re wearing in an upcoming outfit post or whatever. Eggs, basket, you get it right?
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Move closer to work
And if everything else fails, move closer to work! This might just be a very personal tip though.. I’m away from 7AM to 8PM every day, a journey that kinda drains all the energy out of me – when I get home at night I just want to throw my body onto the couch, wrap myself in a blanket and watch mindless reality tv until I snooze off and do it all again in the morning. A not so fun circle, so we decided to move: my four-hour a day travel to and from work will be reduced to a five-minute walk (can’t contain my excitement!!!!) so there’ll be way more time to blog. And why yes, the big move will be documented into detail on Dogs and Dresses. Looking forward!
