: Conclusions

6.5

Manage Your Time with the Pomodoro Technique

Whatever technique or method you adopt to manage your time (Getting Things Done being a common example2), you’ll reach a point where you’ll settle down to the task of putting together your next post. When you do, you want to gather as much focus as possible to make productive use of the time you’ve allocated for blogging.

1. rescuetime.com

Figure 17—WordPress’s scheduling feature

Enter the Pomodoro technique. The Pomodoro technique gets its intriguing name from kitchen timers, which are often shaped like tomatoes (pomodoro means “tomato” in Italian).

This productivity hack is extremely simple and can be used when writing for your blog, promoting your articles on social media sites, or doing any task that’s important to you.

The basic idea is that each of us can only focus on a given task for so long before we become distracted. This time management technique also weaves in the fact that it’s important to take regular breaks as you work (both for the sake of helping you stay focused and for your overall health and well- being). The Pomodoro technique regulates when you are to diligently focus on a task and when you should take a breather.

This technique is centered on breaking your time down into pomodori (plural for pomodoro; one pomodoro is equal to 25 minutes). You log a specific task you are going to work on and then sprint your way through that pomodoro. After 25 minutes of dedicated work, the timer goes off and you take a nice 5-minute break from your work.

Once your break is over, you start another 25-minute-long pomodoro. This new pomodoro can be dedicated to the same task as before (if you didn’t complete it during the previous pomodoro) or to a new one. After every four 108

•

It’s important not to ignore breaks, as they really help you to stay refreshed when you jump into your next 25-minute pomodoro sprint.

Armed with the Pomodoro technique, you’ll start to think in terms of the number of pomodori that a given post might require. Thus instead of allocating four hours to blogging, you may decide to allocate eight pomodori per week. As you gain experience, you’ll soon discover how many pomodori you need for your average post.

If you are new to this technique, chances are that you’ll be amazed by how much you can accomplish in 25 minutes of unadulterated focus. My average blog post is on the longer side, and it usually takes me no more than two pomodori to write it.

I personally use the Pomodoro for Mac app,3 which costs only a few dollars from the Mac App Store and is very flexible (older versions are available for free, but they don’t offer the same range of features).

If you are not on a Mac, there are other applications for virtually any platform (including Android and iOS) out there. While some of these are less polished and have fewer features than the Mac app, it’s important to remember that even a simple timer application and a text editor would do the trick, so you don’t actually need all the bells and whistles of the Mac version.

For an in-depth look at this subject, I suggest you read the book Pomodoro

Technique Illustrated: The Easy Way to Do More in Less Time [Nö09], also

published by The Pragmatic Bookshelf.

6.6

Survive Writer’s Block

From time to time you may find yourself in an annoying predicament. A new post is due on your blog, but you simply can’t seem to bring yourself to write it no matter how much you try. This phenomenon is commonly known as writer’s block and can be quite serious if your livelihood depends on your ability to produce new content.

I’m neither a psychologist nor a neurologist, so I won’t provide a lengthy ex- planation of what causes writer’s block or how to cure said ailment. Instead, I’ll share a few tips with you that work well for me when this situation arises in the hope that you may also find them useful:

• Check your idea file to see if you can write about a different topic that is less challenging or time consuming than the one you’re having trouble with.

• If the writer’s block is there regardless of the post you are attempting to write, consider changing your environment. Go to a local cafe, the library, a park, or somewhere else that is different from where you normally hang out while writing your posts. Switch to writing with pen and paper if you have to.

• Consider taking a break and going offline entirely for a couple of hours. Go for a walk or to the gym; do anything aside from writing or web surfing. Chances are your brain’s background process (your unconscious) will still work on the post for you, giving you more insight and a fresher outlook when you decide to try writing again.

• Using the Pomodoro technique, start writing until the timer goes off, without the intention of publishing your post. Simply write down whatever comes to mind. Nobody will ever see what you write, so you’re free to type away without too much concern regarding grammar, sentence structure, paragraph order, and other considerations that make for good writing. You’ll quickly realize that polishing these paragraphs and reorganizing them is easier than coming up with the perfect phrasing for each one from the get-go.

• Edit your posts in fullscreen mode to achieve maximum focus. WordPress and several editors offer this feature.

• Rewrite the post from scratch after you try the stream-of-consciousness exercise above. Chances are this time the words will come to you. • Lower your writing expectations and give yourself a break. What you write

doesn’t have to be perfect. It can simply be a spontaneous thought, a reflection, or a quick consideration. You’ll be surprised at how often posts like this end up becoming extremely popular and well liked by your readers. “Perfect” is the enemy of “good enough.”

• Don’t write your technical post down. Instead, talk about it with someone else, explaining the subject matter to them in a clear and interesting way. Doing so will help you organize your ideas and express the thoughts you’ve had tucked away in the back of your mind on a given topic. As you approach the blinking cursor again, you’ll probably find it easier to simply rewrite what you just said to your spouse, colleague, or friend.

• Consider having a reserve of unpublished, evergreen posts (such as content that will still be current and useful a few years from now). That way, if you can’t snap out of your writer’s block in time for a given week, you can use such posts to keep up with your usual schedule nevertheless.

6.7

Get Others to Write for You

One of the best methods for increasing your blog post frequency is to employ help from other people. Having others write content for you as you churn out your own posts will definitely increase the database of content your blog is able to amass.

In this section, we’ll explore three free methods you can use to get others to write for you:

• Email (or audio) interviews • Guest bloggers

• Article translations

We’ll cover hiring bloggers in Chapter 13, Scaling Your Blogging Activities, on page 227.