How to write a great blog post when you are juggling an active baby

My friends, I am blogging regularly while balancing an active one year old.  Not easy.  But it can be done!

And while I am grateful to super supportive family members – let’s be clear I am very involved in daily care of Little Miss.  So I know first hand what it means to be juggling cooking her one meal while cleaning up from the last one and keeping her entertained in the middle.
But I thought it would be helpful to share some strategies that I use  – because really they can benefit anyone who is time crunched and determined to produce great content for their blog.

1. Brainstorm your topic while in the shower –  It’s no coincidence that many entrepreneurs have found the answers to tough questions while in the rinse cycle.  It’s one of the few times when you are undisturbed – no TV, phone, email, or social media.   So take advantage of the distraction”less” environment and brainstorm a topic.  As triggers you can use hot trending topics and add your spin to them.  Or think of something that is really bothering you and you have a solution.  Another idea is a “how to”  – similar to this post.

Half of the battle to a great post is the topic.  So use the rare undisturbed time to create something solid.

2. Use a dictation software   – I like Dragon Dictation or Siri .  I don’t have to wait until I am logged into the computer to start writing.  And I don’t have to remember all of the good ideas until my schedule time for posting.  So just pick up your smart phone and speak out everything that you came up with.  Don’t worry about editing it.  Just email or save it and clean it up later when you are in your blogging software.

I’ve typed entire posts by using my smartphone using this method.  And if you get disturbed because little one drops the food dish again, it’s pretty easy to come back and pick up without having lost a good idea.

3. Draft it and come back later – I find it hard to produce a really great post on the first go round.  Perhaps I’m having flashbacks to the grammar lessons of my Catholic school days.  Or maybe it’s because I know good writing is a true skill.  But I can’t do it on one go round.  And since I don’t have the funds yet to hire a great editor – I’ve got to look at it myself.  So I write posts, save them and then return another day.  It’s amazing how much easier it is to edit and ensure you’ve got good content.

4. Develop a good title  – Copyblogger, Problogger and a few other blogs are the real experts at how to develop a great headline for your article.  Here was a recent one by Copyblogger about Twitter headlines.  Similar to writing good term papers for school, you need to spend some time and develop a compelling headline to get people interested in your content.  So if you need to spend a day or two – thinking about it…go for it. There is no need to rush a good thing!  Just make sure you keep it top of mind so that you keep building your audience and the quality of your blog.

So I hope these strategies helped you – and I encourage you to share others below.