If you’re still not convinced that getting useful content out to your target audience on a regular basis isn’t the best way to get noticed and improve loyalty, I don’t know what to tell you. The boat has left the marina and you ain’t on it!
For those of you that do drink the content Kool-Aid, one issue you may run into is finding the time to produce enough content to meet your needs. When you consider blog posts, web pages, social media posts, video, emails, etc; time is not on your side.
Obviously outsourcing your content to a reputable provider like The Content Company is a viable option. But if you aren’t at that stage yet, your options are limited. You can either scale down the amount of content you know you should be creating, or you can create it faster.
You know and I know that fast often equates to sloppy and low quality when it comes to content creation, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you follow these five tips for producing more content in less time, you’ll find that you can stay on top of your content game without sacrificing quality.
This may seem like a no brainer, but I bet it’s one of the single biggest content writing efficiency killers of them all. I’m not sure if things have always been this way or if the internet has made it so, but grown adults can’t seem to focus on a single task for more than a few minutes without drifting.
If you want to write more content in less time, it’s imperative to focus, and to maintain that focus without distractions. Turn off your phone, turn off your email notifications and social media notifications and let anyone in your proximity know that you are to be disturbed for X number of minutes, hours or whatever. If you are a mind wanderer, this is going to take some practice, but you can do it and it’s a must for producing more content in less time.
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Another way to write more content faster is to set a timer. This can also help with the focus aspect. You can do this in a couple of different ways. First, you can give yourself a set amount of time to complete a task, as an example, a blog post. Set the timer for 30 minutes or whatever you think you’ll need, then it’s you against the timer. This method works well for me, but if you don’t have a ton of experience, you may end up rushing and getting sloppy.
Perhaps a better way is just to set your timer as a way to keep you focused on the task at hand. Once you hit the start button, you are doing nothing besides working on that piece of content. After the timer goes off, you can come out of your “trance” and poke around for a few minutes before hitting the start button and doing it again.
If you break up various tasks into batches, you may find that you can write content faster and become far more productive. It’s easy to fall into the belief that writing means you need to be creative and to flow and to create one full piece before moving onto the next, but this isn’t true.
If you think of it more as an assembly line than a creative endeavor, you’ll be far more efficient. As an example, if you have five blog posts you want to write, break each post into tasks and perform one task at a time for all of the posts, rather than writing each one start to finish. Here’s an example of how I like to do it:
You can tinker to create your own process, and while this won’t “feel” like you’re being a writer, the idea is to write more content faster, so it’s all about results!
This is one that I have an issue with and I’ve actually done it several times already as I write this post. It’s the tendency to go back and fix spelling mistakes as you write. It may not seem like it takes much time to just go back and fix up your errors, but it really can throw a wrench in your efficiency, so just keep going and go back to fix the mistakes later.
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The saying, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail,” is likely overused in modern society, but it is also true. Get all your thoughts into a content calendar so you can see what needs to be done and when, to create content in less time. There are a multitude of different programs out there for your desktop, you can put it in your phone, or if you want to keep it old-school, you could have an old-fashioned notebook or one of those big desk calendars.
Whichever method you choose, create a monthly content plan that is realistic and then stick to it using the other tips in this post. If, after all this you feel that outsourcing your content is the best way to get it out to the world, get in touch with us today and schedule a free consultation. We have a range of different content solutions available so we can do the heavy lifting and you can focus on the things you do best.
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