Is it possible to balance work-life and blogging while pursuing other hobbies or interests? Of course, you can, but you need to have proper strategies in place to achieve this.
If you are following my blog by now, you would have known that how I overcome self-doubt when starting a blog and also I am:
- A full-time employee at Amazon
- A mother to 21-month-old
- Following my passion for writing and designing through blogging
- Creating valuable content on social media platforms
- Also, working on my hobbies – painting, calligraphy, and doodling
Don’t you think this is a lot to do and manage & wonder how you can do it, too? I know this is a problem for many of us.
Moreover, many people from my social media & blog community asked me to share how I manage everything in life.
Finally, the time has arrived to give you a sneak peek into my life, and hopefully, you can learn something from my experience.
In this article, I will share my strategies for maintaining a proper balance in most areas of my life. Follow me along and stay tuned until the end.
How to Balance Life and Blogging?
Firstly, let us understand why balancing is so crucial. One person plays many roles in their lives and does a lot of stuff personally and professionally.
Hence, you will ultimately not work on a few areas if you do not find the right balance.
For example, if you ignore your personal life and focus only on working, will your personal life not suffer and affect your professional life?
So, everything in our lives is interlinked. And what if you ignored your physical and mental health and worked on the remaining aspects?
— I hope you know the answer. Your life may go upside down suddenly. Whatever you are doing is because of your health.
Since you have understood the importance of maintaining a proper balance, let me give you a few simple tips and share my real-life situations as examples.
Thus, you can incorporate them into your lives and take care of yourself.
1. Schedule Your Time Effectively
Do you agree that “time” is one of the crucial assets we get daily? Still, many of us struggle to use it wisely.
Everyone says that you should manage your time well. But by managing your time, you should manage your energy correctly.
I hope you can relate to me in this situation—we have plenty of time one day, but energy-wise, we are so low that we cannot complete even a small task. Right?
— Trust me, I have been in this situation many times. Since I have 9 hours of office work, if I try to write my blog post after that, sometimes I cannot write after working a lot.
For this reason, I will try to set aside 30 minutes in the morning before my office work begins to write the article. I am a morning person and can work effectively in the morning.
So, identify your peak productivity hours: Are you a morning person or a night owl? Schedule your blogging sessions for times when you are naturally most focused and creative.
— Also, block out dedicated writing time in your calendar and treat your blog time like any other necessary appointment. With a dedicated time set up for blogging, you can stay committed and avoid procrastination.
Finally, I suggest batching similar tasks together. Set aside specific times for brainstorming ideas, photography, editing, and promotion. Batching saves your time and will improve your focus.
2. Set Realistic Goals
Always try to set realistic goals in every aspect of your life. When it comes to blogging, you will observe that many people post one blog post per day.
If you are a beginner, you may find it challenging to do so. Personally, I aim to publish one blog post per week. Thus, I will have enough time to brainstorm, write, edit, and publish.
Also, this schedule is working well for me. So, avoid comparing with anyone, identify what works for you, and build your goals around it.
Remember that you can start small and gradually increase your output as you get comfortable. Aim for a specific number of weekly or monthly posts that fit your schedule.
Based on that, you can divide the tasks into daily achievable tasks so that you do not need to take the pressure to sit one day and finish the entire blog post.
In my case, I will publish a new article every Tuesday, and my weekly off days are Saturday and Sunday.
Although my week offs are not fixed, here is what I do to balance work-life and blogging:
Wednesday: Do thorough content research, keyword research
Thursday: Prepare my article outline
Friday: Write article title and meta descriptions
Saturday: Start writing the content and try to finish
Sunday: If not finished, complete it – Edit & work on grammar and plagiarism, images
Monday: Moving article to WordPress, formatting, doing SEO
Tuesday: Finish any pending tasks and PUBLISH the post
Finally, focus on quality over quantity, as it is better to publish well-researched and engaging content less frequently than to rush out mediocre posts all the time.
3. Delegate or Outsource Tasks
If you are lucky enough to be able to delegate or outsource your tasks, do not hesitate to do so. By handing over your tasks to someone, you can easily balance work-life and blogging.
In my scenario, I do everything related to my blog independently. Hence, I set small tasks daily and work as per the schedule you saw above.
However, I suggest you consider outsourcing editing, graphic design, or social media promotion tasks to free up your content creation time.
Also, you can see if anyone from your family or friends can share your workload.
Perhaps your partner can help with photography or social media scheduling or design the images you need for your blog and social media.
4. Take Breaks and Disconnect
Taking a break is a very relaxing tip, isn’t it? Even then, many people do not take breaks when needed, which leads to burnout later.
Usually, I aim to work for 50 minutes and take a 5-10 minute break. My break time activities are:
- I close my eyes and sit
- Place a cool eye mask
- Water my plants
- Short walk
- Play with my daughter
- Any household chores
- No screens in break time
- A quick doodle or writing in calligraphy
The last point is crucial: avoid screens during breaks unless it is an emergency. The purpose of taking a break is to stop staring at a screen for a while and recharge.
Although I have seen few people scrolling through social media even in breaks, which can lead to burnout. Occassionally, when I am in my deep work sessions, I forget to take a break and strain my eyes.
But I make sure to be cautious and disconnect from work. It’s crucial to avoid burnout. Hence, schedule breaks throughout your day, step away from the computer, and recharge.
Set boundaries between your work & blog life to balance work-life and blogging. So, turn off work notifications and resist the urge to check emails/messages during your time.
Prioritize Self-Care to Avoid Burnout
In the previous section, I discussed how important it is to take breaks to take care of yourself first so that other things go well. I also shared a few practices I follow during my breaks.
In the coming section, I will share a few more self-care practices so that you can work more effectively.
1. Maintain a Healthy Sleep Schedule
I hope you know about sleep well. Even then, I wanted to highlight this because good sleep is missing from our daily priority list. The reasons are increased work and gadgets, and the reasons are endless.
As a mother to a small baby, I get disturbed sleep every day. I mostly need to adjust my sleep timings according to my daughter.
Thus, it impacts my physical and mental health. But I never give up and try to get as much sleep as possible.
Because I know that I will have many tasks to do, and I do not want my sleep cycle to affect any of them.
Hence, I try to wind down early, around 9:30 pm – 10:00 pm in the night, so that at least I can put my baby to sleep by 10:30 or 11:00 pm.
I agree that every day will not be the same with these little ones, but I give my 100% best to follow the above schedule.
A well-rested body and mind can do wonders the next day. It improves your focus, creativity, and overall well-being.
So, do your best to get 7-8 hours of sleep each night to balance your work and blogging better. I believe giving yourself the chance to sleep early is the best part of taking care of yourself overall.
2. Establish Boundaries Between Work and Personal Life
I cannot stress enough on separating your professional and personal lives. Due to the nature of our work, it has become hard to finish work and continue just before bedtime, too.
As of now, I am lucky enough to have a fixed time for my office work. Hence, I was able to manage everything else according to my schedule. However, you may be unable to stop your work at a fixed time every day.
So, start small and try to close your work 20 minutes before you sleep. Gradually, you can increase the time based on your situation.
Do you remember that I talked about winding down for the day in the previous point? I try to fix an interval at night time to stop working. From that point, I will not see any work-related notifications or emails.
— Thus, my mind will get a signal that I am going to shift to my personal time and space. So, there is no scope to work unless there is an emergency.
Finally, create a designated workspace and, if possible, stick to your working hours. This will help you maintain a mental separation between work and personal life.
3. Make Time for Activities You Enjoy
Working on my hobbies and caring for my mental health are the main secrets that help me balance my work-life with blogging and act as a writer’s block solution.
Many people think hobbies are for kids and not for elders. Even I stopped working on my hobbies until I got married.
After my office hours, I used to get bored. I am not more of a TV or binge-watching person, so passing time would be a problem for me. Though I write journals and do my household work, there used to be some time left.
When I was a child, I loved coloring and painting. So, I thought, why should I not start with this hobby? Thus, I started watching YouTube videos and started painting watercolors.
I loved the way my time used to pass, giving me mental peace while painting. So, I recommend you schedule time for hobbies, exercise, spending time with loved ones, or simply relaxing.
Ultimately, taking care of yourself will energize you and make you a more effective blogger.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, finding ways to balance work and blogging can increase productivity. Many people dream of turning their passions into projects, and blogging is a fantastic way to do that.
Following these strategies, you can integrate blogging into your life without sacrificing your work or personal well-being.
Remember that work-life balance is a continuous process. Don’t be afraid to experiment and adjust your strategies as per your needs.
Take a few areas in your life where you are struggling and start making small changes. Also, if you are a new blogger, here are five blogging mistakes to avoid.
