1. Evan Hadkins

   When you get stuck there are usually two possibilities.

   1. You are tired. You a need a break or sleep.

   2. You have two (or more) competing desires. You need to recognise what they are - your are ‘in two minds’ about something. You can make a list or say to yourself ‘on one hand this, on the other this’ and so on.

   This situation of having competing desires drains energy. The goal is to have a way to get both satisfied. This can take some creative work. However when you do the energy that went into the competition is released. There is a moment of extra energy and elation. You then have the energy to get productive again.

   Don’t EVER get trapped into thinking that it is ‘lack of discipline’.

   Nov 11th, 2007

2. Sanja

   I’m still novice in blogging, and this is my very first comment at this site.
   I’m still running on enthusiasm, but I do feel problems with being productive. I’m too much thinking about what could I post about and not spending enough time actuality doing anything!
   The best way to start writing form me is just to sit in front of laptop I just start to work!
   Reading others blogs is inspiring, whole life in general is, but at some point one have to start being productive!
   And you have to keep in mine that blogging should be fun! If you do not feel that way, take a break.

   Nov 11th, 2007

3. Jason Curlee

   One of the best is using some web based tools to catch your ideas. Sometimes for me ideas come at odd times. If I don’t catch them or write them down, I’ll quickly lose them. I personally use Google Notebook. Then when I may go through a down time I look through those ideas for inspiration.

   Nov 11th, 2007

4. James Chartrand - JCM Enterprises

   The hardest thing about staying productive is having so much to do that you can’t do anything. Call it overwhelmed, call it option paralysis, but when you have 50 projects and one hour, no matter which way you cut it, you end up staring at a blank screen thinking, “Oh my god… I have no idea what to work on…”

   Yes, yes, prioritize, have lists, get organized, get a schedule - and all that takes even more time that you really can’t afford. (But it does work…)

   To me, being productive means taking a vacation so I can stop being productive for a while!

   Nov 11th, 2007

5. Scot Longyear

   The old adage that two heads are better than one hold true in blogging. Here are a few advantages:

   1. More eyes for proofreading. The more looks you can get before you post, the better your content and clarity.

   2. Web scanning. We will send each other links that might make for great future articles for each other’s blogs.

   3. Motivation. We are each other’s cheerleaders (minus the back flips and splits).

   4. Accountability. We share a Google calendar where we write our tasks as an event. One quick look and we know what the other is supposed to be working on.

   Blogging can be a lonely sport. The most valuable tool I have is a blogging partner. Our productivity is more than five times what it would be otherwise. What are you waiting for? Blogging (like life) is much better when it is shared.

   Nov 11th, 2007

6. Mark - ProBloggers Matrix

   I stay productive by STRUCTURING my day.

   Everyone has 24 hours in each day to be productive.

   Don’t STRESS your way through your day, STRUCTURE your way through your day!!

   The difference lies in how you structure your day. If you don’t structure your day, you won’t get much done. Get a desk calendar, list the main tasks for each day for a week. Do this over the weekend, like on Saturday. Then get out a sheet of paper for each day, list the tasks you need to get done on that day, then set a certain amount of time for each task. Then, FOLLOW THROUGH each day.

   You also need to filter out DISTRACTIONS. You do this by blogging in a room all by yourself. Turn off the TV, stereo, DVD player, etc, and concentrate on the task(s) at hand until you complete them.

   If you get bogged down on something, set it aside. Reschedule it for another time or day.

   When you structure out your day, you will successfully complete tasks and you’ll feel exhilarated at the end of the day. You’ll sleep like a baby that night and bounce out of bed the next morning, ready for another productive day!

   -Mark

   Nov 11th, 2007

7. infmom

   I was never much of a note taker before, but now I have a notebook where I write down everything I think of for my blog. I keep a Levengers Circa notepad in my purse for scribbling stuff down while I’m out, and I can just peel the pages out of that and stick it in my larger “idea file” Circa notebook when I get home.

   I printed out the “habit chart” from the Productivity 501 blog and use that to keep track of the things I want to get accomplished each day (or week). It’s a terrific tool that lets you see at a glance whether you’re keeping up with your goals.

   I started out with two themed blogs in addition to my personal one, my LiveJournal and my work on CompuServe but that turned out to be gross overload. So I stopped writing on one blog and now use that as a test bed for various WordPress plugins and themes. Better I fiddle around with that stuff on a blog nobody’s reading.

   Nov 11th, 2007

8. Berg Verdi

   I always find that:

   a) My biggest distraction is not knowing what to concentrate on, and trying to do everything at once. I’ll find myself taking notes on a reading for class, while trying to read an article on blogging at the same time.

   b) The best way to solve this problem is to make a list of things I need to do, and try to check one off before starting another one. Sometimes if I get bored I will allow myself to switch between activities on the list, but still be careful not to start doing activities not on the list.

   Nov 11th, 2007

9. Mary Jaksch

   It’s important to know your natural rhythm. For example, I write best in the early morning. Come late night I can still fiddle with photos for my blog or read Skellie’s articles. But I can’t write my own stuff - I’m sluggish and clumsy.

   My suggestion is to structure your day according to your best natural rhythm. Find out what you do best when and then put time aside for it at the appropriate time.

   Nov 11th, 2007

10. Ivy

    My schedule is still a little helter skelter as I am easily distracted by other tasks… there seems to be a million and one things to do! My problem is not so much inertia, as in deciding and prioritizing what I need to do each day.

    I find that once I put in three absolute priorities that I must complete before going to bed, it makes things simpler, and I will concentrate on other tasks when I have more time. The key is not to beat yourself up for not doing enough. I have a demanding day job, and at the same time am eager to see my blog take off. An impatient person, I have found myself becoming more driven than enjoying blogging. I only realized this recently, and reminded myself that the purpose is to provide quality content for readers, and not play the numbers game. Traffic and subscribers will come with time, but actions carried out under impatience will not.

    The knowledge that I have subscribers to my blog makes me feel responsible for the quality of each of my posts, and to make it a habit to post daily. While there are differing thoughts about posting daily, I feel it is a good habit to cultivate in the beginning to work in some sort of routine and discipline.

    Nov 11th, 2007

11. DrSteve

    Evan Hadkins, of all the good bits of advice above, yours goes the deepest in that it gets at those times when those worthy tips don’t work. The unconscious mind - cause of so many problems and source of so much energy!
    Here’s a recent hangup for me. I was stimulated by a recent post on propoganda by psyblog and so started outlining a post. It quickly grew too big for one post. Perhaps it could be three, no four…mm, how about an ebook! But wait, am I really exprert enough in this field to write an ebook on the topic? And so on.
    By this stage an exciting post has turned into a burden. The conflict was between expressing myself (the essence of blogging) and producing an expert text (the essence of academia).
    Solution? Reconfigure things. There’s enough material there for a series of blogs. Get the first one written and posted. Keep the notes and get back to another when the energy comes.

    Nov 12th, 2007

12. Mike Panic

    Every morning I spend about 20-30 minutes going through iGoogle (my RSS reader of choice) and read articles, leave comments and look for articles that inspire me to write. As I find them, I leave comments, stumble and digg those articles which I like. I’ll also write ideas in the “stickies” add-on for iGoogle so I can remembe what it is I want to write about. Later on in the day when I have time - usually during my work lunch hour - I’ll go back and see what I dugg in the morning and what is on my sticky notes and start to put together an article.

    By setting aside a short time in the morning to look around the blogsphere and connect with other writers, and then 30-45 minutes in the middle of the day to write my own articles, I accomplish both aspects of blogging, writing and reading. Weekends are a bit of a mess for me right now - sometimes I can crank out several articles and use the WordPress feature to post-date them to publish later on in the week, other times I’m just too busy to write anything at all.

    Nov 12th, 2007

13. Nancy Williams

    I constantly suffer from the overwhelm - too much to read/do/finish/achieve and not enough hours in the day so I can easily land up paralysed and doing nothing.

    One of the ways I have found to solve this is by setting myself a very clear and specific strategy for my blogging and social networking. Once I had identified my goals (12 months, 1 month, 1 week) I broke them down into a series of manageable, daily tasks.

    These tasks can be completed within a few hours each day, but I know that if I do them, then I am heading towards where I want to go and it frees up the time to focus on the other aspects of my business.

    Nov 12th, 2007

14. Kate Foy

    Evan, you’ve hit it, though I find a small taste of discipline helps to provide me with a focussed energy to get the job done. My habit is to blog first thing in the morning. I’m a lark, not an owl. Given my location and time-zone, it’s perfect to catch an entire day’s posts from ‘up there’ that have been made while I’ve been sleeping ‘down under’.

    I find the notebook approach to grab an idea as it hits or floats by works really well.

    I use my camera phone to take quick shots of things that can serve as stimuli and images for a post.

    I make sure I do some blogging each day … even if I don’t post my own. Just skimming the feed-reader or leaving a comment produces something else for the notebook.

    Spend some time designing your site for easy access for your readers, and simplicity for you i.e., if you have a couple of blogs and you want to encourage visits, provide a blogroll or a link. Good design always works.

    Nov 12th, 2007

15. Dominik Lenk

    I found out that the thing that helps me the most is a simple sheet of paper: Make a list of the things that you need to do, highlighting the ones that have to be finished today.
    It might almost seem to simple a solution, but I found out that it helped me a lot, especially when I am busy with two or more projects…. About multiple projects: Don’t jump between them too often, as it takes time to ‘readjust’. Allow yourself big segments of time working on one project…

    Oh wait: I just saw that this article is specific to blogging. In that case, the list still applies: Whenever I have an idea about something that I could blog about, I add it to the list.
    Mostly the rest is just working off that particular list…

    Nov 12th, 2007

16. CSS

    I have improved my productivity by setting a schedule for my blog posts. I always try to schedule at least a week ahead, preferably two weeks. When I know what my upcoming topics will be, I’m thinking about them even when I’m not actively working on them and that makes the writing that much easier.

    Also, scheduling prevents me from spending my time staring at a blank page and wondering what I should write. I have my topic and usually some quick notes about it, and that gives me a place to start.

    Another thing I do is think of everything in terms of blogging. If I do anything related to my blog’s topics (creativity and writing), I immediately think about how I can make this useful for my readers.

    @Infmom - I love my Levenger Circa PDA; I take it everywhere. It’s absolutely the best way I’ve found to capture my ideas.

    Nov 12th, 2007

17. Lucas Ng

    I moonlight on the SEOmoz.org blog at the (current) rate of 1 entry a week but I’m sure Rand would prefer if I was a bit more productive

    However, after a day of work, I’ve found it tough to pull out the blogging hat. I am much more inclined to blog when I have a few hours free on the weekend. Perhaps I need to change my blogging habit to mornings.

    Productivity tip: If you don’t write it down - it never happened.

    Write down every little idea you have, no matter how random or initially vacuous it may seem.

    I constantly accumulate blog ideas, some that may never bear fruit but the point is, at reach into my cookie jar of potential stories.

    Nov 12th, 2007

18. skellie

    Sundays are my productivity day. I tend to take the day off posting for Skelliewag and write a bunch of articles for my other jobs. That allows me to focus on this blog the rest of the time.

    I pick out an idea from my notebook and sketch out the article first, adding details later. I don’t find the writing part hard, really. It’s the ideas that get to me. I write a lot of content on the same topic (blogging, generally) and find it hard to consistently come up with original post ideas. I expect the problem is going to come to a head sooner rather than later, but I hope I can work around it.

    I’ve really enjoyed everyone’s productivity tips so far.

    Nov 12th, 2007

19. David Erickson

    I have two problems:

    1) Finding the time to write during the times when I’m especially busy and,

    2) When I do write, writing too much. I use writing to clarify my thoughts but by doing so, I often expand upon my original topic. While I’m writing, I think of other aspects of the topic that are fascinating to me, so I want to explore them.

    When I realize this while I’m writing, I often stop in the middle of a post because it’s gotten too long or I can’t spend any more time on it, and I’ve ended up being very productive but I’ve got no post to show for it.

    Sometimes when I do finish, I often find myself with a huge post that is hard to digest for readers and should be broken up into several posts and that just creates more work!

    Nov 13th, 2007

20. engtech

    Universally accessible to-do list is a big step. Time and inspiration rarely coincide, so you have to capture what you’re inspired to do.

    Nov 15th, 2007

1. How do YOU stay productive in your blogging? - Nov 11th, 2007
2. What Whirling Dervishes Can Teach You About Blogging » Reader Appreciation Project - Nov 14th, 2007

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