Making Time to Blog: Time Management learned from my daughter's needs

It's kinda ironic - like ray-ee-yain on your wedding day - that I haven't started a blog until now. I urge my clients to do a blog for a host of reasons, yet I haven't done it for myself. It's funny... a website design guy who helps others with search engine optimization (or SEO) and I haven't done a whole lot of it for my own site.

While I could argue a business reason for not doing the SEO (haven't needed to do it... most of my business is referral-based) or do the whole "image management" thing and use some professional-sounding excuse... the truth to the matter is that the reason I haven't started my blog is the exact same reason that most of the folks I know haven't started theirs:

"I'm going to, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet."

"Blogging" is a business task if it's done properly. If it's treated like checking email, taking out the trash, follow-up phone calls or transaction-entering, it gets done.

Now it's one thing to preach time-management or to know what it's about, but applying it is a totally different matter... one brought to my attention by my daughter going back to school.

My wife and I own a hair salon which serves both the American and Brazilian communities. Her specialty is Brazilian Hair Straightening Keratin Treatments... with very long and physically demanding hours.

Forcing yourself to get good at time management: I have stepped in and become the school and activities taxi and official homework checker. Our daughter's schooling in Brazil has her a couple years behind the other kids, so I am working with her to get her caught up. Yes - I am my kid's mom (I'm glad football season is here so I can get weekly doses of testosterone!).

This new role has forced me to get good at time management. Not only do I lose a half-hour in the mornings - but I also cannot schedule meetings between 12-3 each day because I pick her up from school. In addition, her homework takes an average of two and a half hours for me to help and coach her to completion (language barriers, math deficiencies, etc... all taken into consideration).

I have to take the hours that I do have and do more with them... which includes fitting my blog and other promotional stuff in there...

...and I am loving it!

So why am I telling people this? What does it have to do with a company starting a blog?

Force yourself to manage your time to get your blogging done.

Whether a business has a website or not, it needs to get a blog going. Blogs create more opportunities for search engines to find and present a company to someone who is searching what that company has to offer. It is worth planning a 15-30 minute session each day to handle your blogging and social networking stuff.

Treat it like a meeting and put it on your calendar if you need to. You will be amazed at what happens in a couple weeks. Not only will you have a blog that is actually being used and read, but you will find that it is one more thing that you can get done in a day...

...and that's what's up!