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How To Make Time To Grow A Successful Blog When You Have A Full-Time Job

Posted By Guest Blogger 26th of January 2017 Start a Blog 0 Comments

How To Make Time To Grow A Successful Blog When You Have A Full-Time Job | ProBlogger.net

This is a guest contribution from Michelle Schroeder-Gardner of Making Sense of Cents.

In August of 2011, I started Making Sense of Cents while working my full-time job. I didn’t have much time to spend on it, as I was working full-time and working towards my Finance MBA, but I used every little minute of extra time that I had so that I could create a successful blog.

Now, I’m a full-time blogger and earn around $100,000 a month through my blog, and it was all because I learned how to start a blog on the side of my full-time job.

After quitting my job to focus solely on my blog, I am now able to travel full-time with my husband, I have a flexible schedule, I’m my own boss, I get to help thousands of people improve their finances each month, and more.

And, like I said, it all started five years ago on the side my full-time job.

As you can tell, I absolutely love blogging.

If I wouldn’t have started my blog, I don’t know where I would be right now.

Even when I was blogging on the side while in a full-time job, I was still able to earn $10,000 a month in income from my blog, and while it was tough, it was well worth it.

Now, you may be thinking about starting a blog but you may also be hesitant. After all, your life is probably already pretty busy. Between your full-time job, possibly raising a family, growing relationships, and more, you may feel like you don’t have any extra time to blog.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you probably do have the time to learn how to start a blog – you just have to know what to do in order to find that time.

How To Make Time To Grow A Successful Blog When You Have A Full-Time Job

Today’s post will teach you exactly how to find the time to blog on the side – it’s time that you already have! To manage your time better with your blogging tasks, I recommend reading Darren’s blog post 7 Tips for Busy Bloggers on Finding Time to Blog.

How bad do you want it?

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. What you do with your time is up to you, but you may be wasting time throughout the day. Let’s find that wasted time so that you can spend it on your blog instead.

First off, you need to want to blog if you’re going to do it on the side of your full-time job.

Some people may not want it as badly, and that’s fine. However, excuses won’t help you. So, if you really want to create a blog, then you will have to reclaim that time in your day.

It’s as simple as that.

Just think about it: What do you think you could do with an extra 10 hours, or even more, each week?

Be realistic about the amount of time you have

Like I said above, everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, but some may be more limited with their time than others. I understand that various situations can make a person quite busy. In the end, though, you always need to be honest with yourself about how much time you have in order to blog on the side.

This is because you don’t want to become stressed by working yourself too hard, forget about what actually matters in life, negatively impact your work, and so on.

However, you need to get past thinking that spending time on your blog will negatively impact your life, and I don’t want you to use the above as your excuse if it’s not a real reason.

Most people have extra time in their days but don’t realize it. The average person feels extremely busy but there’s probably a lot of ways that they waste time each and every day.

Due to this, for one week, I recommend keeping track of the time you spend on different things in your life and see how much time you waste.

If you’re like most people, then I’m sure that you’ll find you are wasting a lot of time!

Wake up earlier

Instead of hitting the snooze button over and over again, you should just wake up earlier and spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour (or more!) on your blog. This can be a great way to answer any emails, schedule blog and social media posts, and so on. You may even be able to crank out an entire article with this time.

Back when I worked at my full-time job and blogged on the side, I would usually wake up one to two hours before I had to start getting ready for work. I would use this time to work on my blog, which included replying to emails, brainstorming ideas, managing my blog, and more.

Sure, waking up early was tiring on certain days, but I wanted to run a successful blog, and it worked.

If you’re not a morning person, you can always try to fit in time before you go to bed. I would usually even work on my blog for a few hours before I went to bed.

If you worked on your blog one hour each day before you went to work and one hour before you went to bed, you would have an extra 10 hours each week for your blog.

Eliminate time wasters from your life

Do you know how much time you waste each day? If you complete the task I recommended earlier, where you track all of your time for one whole week, I’m sure you’ll easily find several hours.

I want you to take a second and think about how much time you waste watching TV or by spending time on something like Facebook.

According to Neilsen statistics, the average person in the U.S. spends over 30 hours each week watching TV and movies. And, it doesn’t end there. According to AdWeek, adults spend over 10 hours a week on their personal social media accounts.

That’s 40 hours right there that you could spend on your blog if you only eliminated these time wasters from your life completely. Even if you just reclaimed half of this wasted time, you would have 20 whole hours!

Short gaps are your friend

Have you ever thought about all the short gaps in your day and what you do with them?

To be more efficient with your time, you should use these short gaps of time on your blog.

Short gaps include time before you have a meeting or a phone call, a gap before you pick up your children from school, time while you’re waiting for food to cook, and so on.

Stay organized

Did you know that the average person spends 12 days per year looking for things they can’t find?

Yes, 55% of consumers stated that they would save anywhere from 16 to 60 minutes a day if they were organized.

That’s a few hours each week right there for your blog.

Strategically use your lunch time

Just like what was discussed in ProBlogger’s blog post How to Make Time for Blogging During Your Lunch Break, a lot of your blogging tasks can be completed during your lunch break if you use your lunch time wisely.

When I had my day job, my lunch time was almost always used for my blog. I would often bring my lunch to work, which allowed me to save money on food and to use that whole hour on Making Sense of Cents.

Right there, that’s five hours every week for side hustles, just by using your lunch hour.

Take vacation days to work on your blog

How many vacation days do you get at your job? What if you started using them for your blog?

This can be a great way to dedicate a full day to your blog. Doing this every now and then can help make managing both your full-time job and your blog a little more relaxing because you won’t be running around all day trying to manage both.

And trust me, this works! I would often use vacation days at my full-time job so that I could work on my blog.

Trying this option can be a great idea. Plus, if you have paid vacation days, it’s even better because you are getting paid to work on your blog!

Outsource certain tasks

Your blog doesn’t need you for every little task in order to be successful.

So that you can use your time more wisely, you may want to hire out certain tasks that don’t need you to complete them. You may want to think about hiring out tasks related to technical management, editing, social media, and so on.

To take this further, you can even outsource tasks in your life as well, especially if you find more value in working on your blog. Tasks to outsource could include mowing the lawn, car or home maintenance, and so on.

Find ways to make passive income through your blog

Yes, you can make somewhat passive income through your blog. Doing this can make blogging a little more enjoyable and relaxing because you won’t be trying to actively make income all day long through your blog.

Passive income ideas include display advertising, affiliate marketing, and so on.

I am a huge fan of affiliate marketing, because it allows me to earn income while I’m sleeping, on a hike, working on other projects, etc.

Finding ways to make passive income through your blog can make it much more manageable to earn blog income while also working a full-time job.

Putting all of this time together

As you can see, there are many things you can do in order to find the time in your day to run a successful blog on the side of your full-time job.

Whether you can only find 10 hours a week by applying these tips or if you can find 50, I’m sure everyone can find some time in their day.

What can you do in order to find more time for your blog?

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner is the founder and writer at Making Sense of Cents. On her blog, she helps readers learn how to make extra money, save money, and reach their dream life. She currently earns $100,000 a month through her blog and affiliate marketing course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. Michelle and her husband sold their house in 2015 and currently travel full-time in an RV with their two dogs.

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Comments
  1. Thanks for putting all of these tips together. I think that it’s very important that you are aware of the time you want to spend on your blog and find the correct balance. It’s very shocking to see that we waste a lot of useful time and we could accomplish lots of things if we would spend it wisely. As a student, I find it hard to dedicate time on my blog. I don’t do it professionally, I have it as a hobby, but this year I wanted to start taking it more seriously and this post was very helpful :)

    xx Cecile

  2. Hi Michelle,

    Excellent tips.

    I love how you delved into mindset and effectiveness tips over the practical tips, aka, blogging specific tips. I always go deep into mindset and scheduling and effectiveness or efficiency tips before diving into the traffic and income boosting techniques because blogging is an energy game. Get your energy down and the sky is the limit.

    Even being a full time blogger right off the bat I use many of your tips on a daily basis. Especially because me and my wife are traveling bloggers, preparing to hit the road for Qatar in a few weeks.

    Thanks for sharing :)

    Ryan

  3. Hey Michelle,

    In this era of online business, people are heading towards setting up their own business so that they can be their own boss.

    There are 24 hours in a day and if you use theme effectively, you can build a successful blog.

    You should always remain organized and wake up early can really help.

    A few days of vacation from your job can embrace your blog.

    Thanks for sharing with us.
    ~Ravi

  4. Thanks for the blog post, I really see myself described ;D
    I really did the same.

    Few tips more :
    – Don’t work too hard at night and want to wake up earlier. Always know that you need 7 or 8 h of sleep to be ok. Otherwise you will make mistake, and won’t be efficient (ex: spend time on Facebook, Youtube…).
    – Focus on an amount of money to make / month, and find solution to have it.
    – Gain visibility with guest posting, interviews… to reach new people
    – Passive income is a myth for most bloggers. It can only make 25% of your revenues. You have to sell services (coaching, executing…) to make enough money

    Thanks !

  5. I commute to my day job on the train – it’s a 50-minute ride. Everyone I ride the train with knows that I work and on days when it’s crowded, I’ve had people swap seats with me so that I can use a table. Gotta love the PNW.

    I use my lunch hour, evenings, weekends, and I have taken vacation time to work on my blog. I’m a dog nutrition blogger and attend events around the country once or twice a year; this is the best time to get a lot of work done without interruption. I carry around a notepad to write down ideas and I’m currently working on passive income products.

  6. Hi there,

    Thank you for a great article. This is exactly what I have been doing for the past few years – working full time & managing my blogs (actually I have a couple of them and try to grow all of them). Contrary to what many people say (that it’s not possible to grow a successful blog and maintain it unless you work on it full-time), it’s possible but you need to be consistent and never stop. I see that even these simple steps I take every day DO contribute and grow my blogs steadily: little by little does the trick. I start my job at 7 so I cannot really do any of my work before but I always work on my blog after I come back home (and after I take a 30-minute nap so that I feel as fresh as in the morning) for 2-3 hours and if I manage I also work extra 1-2 hours just before going to sleep. This usually gives me a couple of hours a day on weekdays. On weekends I work for 6-8 hours on my blogs but I try to take one day totally free (usually Sunday) twice a month so that I have some rest and this “healthy balance”. The best thing about blogging is that I can sometimes stop (for a day or two if I have to) and my blog isn’t going to “fire” me and my income doesn’t stop. That’s probably the best thing about being an independent blogger.
    I hope (actually I plan) to as successful as you are one day.

    Best regards,
    Olga

  7. Hi Michelle,
    Wow, this helped a bunch! As a blogging newbie, there’s a barrage of info and it’s difficult to decipher which would benefit me the most. And since I love your blog and it’s pretty successful, I’ll trust your advice haha Keep it up!

  8. Hi Michelle, Great piece of information. I always want to take blogging seriously but my full time job hold me back. I know I have a time for blog but I love to sleep. This post make my mind to sacrifice 1 hour sleep to start blog with passion. Thanks Again.

  9. Mastering short gaps is a significant way to be productive. Even now, when I don’t have other full time job besides blogging, I do have to juggle between taking kids to school, training and other family responsibilities.

    The real change came from understanding that a very short time is still worth working. Say, I have 15 minutes till I have to leave. I could waste it scrolling through facebook, or picking my nose, or I can copyedit at least part of my latest article.

    Once I got into rhythm, I have started to see that you can do a lot in as little as 15 minutes.

  10. Hi Michelle, I have a full-time job and this time a have little blog. But time is almost not enough, and I recently read the book Think like a millionaire, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind (T. Harv Eker ) highly recommend to read the book, it helps to start doing what you want even working full time. And thank you for the article was very interesting and there is that to take note!

  11. Hey Michelle,

    It is really very interesting post and I like your whole tips regarding this topic. Yes you have said 100% correct – we need to eliminate such things which really waste our precious time of life.

    Its a truth for effective time management we need to make best strategies for make it possible. We should to organize ourself in priority to manage time for various work. Setting out to succeed with our own business requires managing time well.

    If not done properly, not only will we waste time and not efficiently achieve our goals, but we may also find ourself losing clients, money, and possibly even the business, itself.

    Developing an overall plan of action will aid us in achieving our goals. Eventually, thanks for sharing your worthy tips with us.

    With best regards,

    Amar kumar

  12. Great post, Michelle! Very motivating and excellent tips.

    Frankly, this post is exactly what I needed to hear. I’ve been struggling to maintain any consistency with blogging since going back to a full time job in December. However, there are other factors at play.

    Moreover, I think I could apply a lot of these tips to find more time to blog. I could wake up earlier. I could allocate an hour per day after work. I would benefit from eliminating other time wasters.

    On the other hand, I’ve started to receive opportunities to earn some extra money from blogging. This has been extremely motivating. Now that I’m beginning to get settled at work, I’m really looking forward to getting back to consistency with the blog. Thanks for sharing this post :)

  13. Excellent tip Michelle,
    It will be more useful to a newbie blogger like me.
    I used to think that I have a full-time job, so it is not easy to find more time for a blog, but your article changed my thinking.
    If I follow all the suggestion given on this post, then I definitely make extra 15 hours a week.
    Thanks for sharing this post, Great Help.

  14. Thanks, I can totally relate to this – my main strategy to develop my online business is to use the small gaps in time that I have available, and watch less TV etc to enable me to make progress.

    I will probably not make as much progress as someone who is doing it full time, so I need to have reasonable expectations of what is achievable through having a very strategic and targeted focus in my activity.

  15. Great tips Michelle. It all starts with how bad do you really want it. If you really want to achieve something, you will find a way.

  16. Hi Michelle,

    Thanks for sharing such a nice post for making our time more manageable.

    All the points are logical and helpful and I wanna add one thing to those points if you don’t mind.

    That’s every full-time job holder should have a tablet PC so that they can write on the go. Once I tried this and got a lot of benefits crafting so many words.

    I hope that this will help all the busy people craft a lot of things for their blogs.

    SM

  17. Thanks a ton for the amazing post. Will surely help building my e-commerce store’s blog.

  18. Hello Michelle,

    Wonderful tips to follow to make sure you get the time needed to invest in your blog and make it flourish.

    “How bad do you want it?”

    This is what will make or break your blogging career.

    Cheers!
    Gaurav

  19. Great article Michelle! I have been doing a lot of this already. and It definitely works. Do you have any advice on how to balance working in my blog versus working on my blog?

    Thanks

  20. I read Jon Morrow saying that if we set ourselves up to start earning asap, as in, get into an affiliate program, or sell our services; the earning, no matter how small, keeps the motivation alive AND we keep making wise choices concerning our priorities to keep that money pouring in…

  21. Thank you for this article! This is a very timely advice for me! :D

  22. Thank you for sharing this. I’m a year now into travel blogging. I took a remote job and then blogged while I traveled. Now, I’m going back to the 9-5 office while continuing this endeavor :)

  23. Michelle, you totally nailed it!

    And I’d so congratulate you managing the blogging chores along with the full-time job.

    This really is hard to do managing both at the same time but not close to impossible if you’re organized.

    Being organized is all it takes to knock down anything.

    And yes, it so saves the time being organized.

    Plan ahead, act on time and plan to keep going with your work.

    Taking action is the one thing which will keep everything in the loop.

    So greatly expressed! :)

    ~ Adeel

  24. Hello Michelle,

    Thank you for this great information. I currently work some of the most horrific hours(2 P.M.-12 A.M.) which in turn has my sleep schedule totally chaotic. I take my son to work at 4 A.M. only to pick him up anywhere from 10 A.M. to 12 P.M. See the problem here, back to work at 2 P.M. Recently I started producing content for my blog which I’ve set a potential release date of mid April 2017. My excuse is always I don’t get enough sleep. Well reading your article has given me the drive to use my lunch for blogging and nothing more. Now to get into affiliate programs. I’m feeling inspired!

  25. This is a good refresher for me on how to really focus not only on what I DO with each day but the choices of what to eliminate from my day to create more time for blog activities. I’ve really enjoyed blogging about travel experiences and can see my audience growing. I want to push myself to generating income with my site in the next year.

  26. Some great tips there. In fact, I myself used to follow these while I was starting my blog. It is surprising to know that we waste such a lot of time every day, on things least important to us, without even realising it. We all can find enough time every day to start something like a blog. We all can find enough time every day to start something like a blog. It just depends on how effectively we are able to utilise our time.

  27. I thought working full-time and blogging would be a breeze. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, nor how much I would love it. Sometimes I walk in the house and go directly to my office and begin writing, editing photos (takes a lot of time) or promoting. And there are times I struggle with subject matter but I love blogging so although I’m not making anything to really talk about, I have no intentions of giving it up. I am convinced I can make a go of this and your advice is very helpful. Thank you.

  28. Thank You for sharing your personal experience and valuable advice.

    Actually, Everybody thinks that life will be breeze one time but it doesn’t happen. When I think, it will be impossible, someone makes possible.

    By reading your experience, I convinced that I will make better in future as a blogger. Thanks again!

  29. For me it all started with a 31 days challenge for bloggers that implied to post an article every day. It was kinda fun and I think is also motivating to be in an online community that can support your blogging with comments, likes and maybe even a few shares. It was a lovely experience and a good starting point.
    Looking forward to read more about how to monetize a blog. For me is a whole new level.
    Thank you so much for all your tips. :-)

  30. Great post about finding more time in a busy life working full time, I completely agree that we do waste a lot of time on things which are unproductive.

    I am going to try and find the time to make sure I can put the time and energy into my blog.

    Thanks for sharing :-)

  31. Great tips! Exactly how i see myself back then.
    Blogging is a way of life for me althoufh i have not yet reached my goals yet i know i am on the right track. I will take a good note on those gaps. Managing a blog is not easy at all you have to really be passionate about what you blog in order to be successful.

  32. This post was exactly I needed today. Thank you. It is so encouraging as I am a full-time teacher. I absolutely love to write. Since October 2016, I have been blogging consistently. Maintaining a full-time job and a child with special needs is not easy, but I am working to make my dream a reality. Thanks again for the post. It is very encouraging!!

  33. Hi Michelle,

    In this time of online business, individuals are heading towards setting up their own particular business with the goal that they can work for themselves.

    You ought to dependably stay composed and wake up early can truly offer assistance.
    A couple days of excursion from your employment can grasp your blog. I am working on a blog also from the last year.

    Thanks for sharing with us. Keep writing.

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