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How To Batch Content Creation So You Can Pursue Bigger Projects

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content creation

Consistently providing valuable content keeps your content brand alive, and generating revenue from your efforts allows you to thrive.

Content creators often struggle with generating revenue from their products while continuously creating fresh content.

While I believe both can be interwoven together (maybe the idea for a future blog post?), one proven approach is to batch your content creation so you can dedicate more time, attention, and energy to revenue-generating activities.

What Is Content Batching?

Content batching is as simple as committing one day to producing an extraordinary amount of content.

John Lee Dumas, for example, designates two days a month for conducting interviews (his daily episodes over at EOFire mean he’s interviewing 15+ people on a regular basis). John also dedicates one day per month as an interviewee for more than 20 podcasts.

If you choose one day to write a month’s worth of blog posts, you can then focus on product launches, brand building or other initiatives for the rest of the month.

How To Batch Your Content Creation

Batching content creation begins with nailing down a date to write all of your content.

Prior to writing, set one day aside to come up with ideas. So if you decide to create all of your content on the first Tuesday of each month, you should create a list of topic ideas no later than Monday.

If you want to use the content batching strategy for your podcast guests, start contacting people 2-3 weeks in advance. Booking guests for your podcast is different from batching blog posts because of the time needed for emailing and scheduling the podcasts.

But in either case, you must be hyper focused once you have your ideas clearly in mind.

Becoming Hyper Focused

You may choose one day to create your monthly content, but if you frequently get distracted, you are not fully unlocking your potential.

To succeed, you must be actively engaged in your work for most of the day. This means not only thinking about how you work, but also getting smart about the environment in which you work.

Always choose a commitment-free day for content batching. For example, I enjoy participating in cross country and track meets – which usually take place on Saturdays – so I wouldn’t plan my content batching initiatives on the weekend.

Choose a day that isn’t surrounded by work or outside commitments.

The day before you’ve committed to content batching, remove all distractions from your environment. Since each of us is distracted by different things, it helps if you create a list of potential triggers.

Writing a list of potential distractions will help you prepare in advance: you’ll know what to avoid while working, and what to ignore before you even get started.

Advice On Pursuing Bigger Projects

Once you begin creating content in batches, you’ll have extra time to work on bigger projects. Don’t take that time for granted because your next content-batching day will arrive sooner than you think.

In addition to creating lists to assist you on your content-batching days, create a detailed plan for how you’ll pursue bigger projects.

What progress must you make by the end of the month? How will you plan each week to reach your monthly goals? What will you do each day to accomplish your weekly goals for each week of the month?

If you struggle with keeping yourself accountable, ask someone to help you. In a sea of free information, hiring a coach is one of the most underrated investments you can make for your success.

A coach will steer you away from common mistakes and move you towards success, but in this case, your coach will keep you accountable.

Advice On Content Creation

One of the dangers of content batching is the tendency to consider content creation as a necessary evil.

Viewing content creation as a chore keeps you from content marketing, and always pursuing bigger projects prevents you from enjoying the work at hand.

Once I’d focused so much on content marketing and bigger projects that I saw content creation as an obstacle. This is one of the main reasons my blogging consistency dropped from two posts a day to once per week.

Before I changed my mindset, I was even inconsistent with publishing the weekly post. So if you decide to batch your content 1-2 days per month, never forget to look forward to, and enjoy, those days.

In Conclusion

Content batching allows you to focus solely on creating content 1-2 days each month, giving you the rest of the month to concentrate on promotion and additional projects.

You can also apply the batching method to any time-consuming task in your business to open up more time in your month for other tasks.

But you must be careful not to look at batching activities as a necessary evil. Rather, try to appreciate those days as time to be hyper focused on something that brings you pleasure.

If you see any of your tasks as necessary evils, change your thinking! If you can’t, eliminate or delegate them.

What are your thoughts on content batching? Do you have any suggestions? Have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Hacks For Connecting With Influencers

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influencersRelationships with influencers are critical to your content brand’s success: they help you expand your knowledge as well as open doors to new opportunities.

Some of my biggest successes are directly tied to the relationships I’ve built and fostered along my journey. However, reaching out to influencers and building relationships with new contacts can feel overwhelming.

You may feel uncertain about how to go about it, and even question whether you’ll get a response to your initial efforts.

I’ve been there, believe me.

That’s why I want to share five powerful hacks that helped me build relationships with some of the most influential content marketers and productivity experts on the planet.

#1: Interview Influencers On  Your Podcast

Both my Breakthrough Success Podcast and virtual summits have allowed me to interact with some of my niche’s top influencers. Interviews are a brilliant excuse for asking for an influencer’s time 🙂

Not only do you get to ask questions and interact with top influencers, you also get to provide your audience with valuable content.

Combine that with the fact that podcasting is a growing and less-tapped-into industry than blogging, and you’ll begin to wonder why more people aren’t doing it.

I currently publish an interview every week, but I am formulating a plan for daily episodes. And my knowledge stores will only grow as I interview more and more influencers –  it’s amazing what you can learn from a single interview with a top influencer.

#2: Collaborate With Influencers

As I plan my blog content, I consider which influencers can provide relevant advice, resources or opinions, and contact them well before the publication dates.

I often work on the copy first, and then copy and paste submissions into the post to craft a more engaging article. Once the post is published, many of the influencers I mentioned will end up sharing the blog post to their own audiences, expanding my reach.

If you’re pressed for time, you can simply mention the influencers by name while you’re writing the post, and then let them know you’ve included them in the post once you publish it (and be sure to provide a link).

Some will share it and others won’t, but having at least some influencers share your content is a thousand times better than having no influencers share your content.

#3: Do The Influencer A Favor

The more you give someone, the more willing he or she will be to return the favor. But keep in mind these small favors will change according the influencer.

Some influencers (like me) would love a positive review for their podcasts (here’s mine). Other influencers would prefer you leave a 5-star review for their latest book. Writing a guest posts for the influencer’s site is also a viable option.

Determine which favor holds the most value for a particular influencer, then offer it without expecting anything in return.

If you approach relationships in this manner, it won’t be long before an influencer voluntarily provides you with something in return (if you have to ask, start with something small).

#4: Ask Meaningful Questions

Top influencers love shepherding other people through the path they once traveled.

Gary Vaynerchuk has an entire podcast dedicated to helping others. Want to get on Gary’s radar? Ask him a really good question.

Nearly all influencers recall a time in which they spent countless hours trying to figure things out. When they see other people in a similar situation, they naturally want to lend a helping hand.

Influencers enjoy steering people in the right direction and providing that little nudge to keep them moving forward. And they like it even more when people act their advice.

This is the starting point for repeat interviews and a much greater relationship.

#5: Be Everywhere To Them

You can’t be everywhere for everyone, but you can be everywhere for someone. What’s everywhere for someone mean?

Simply focus on the places where your special someone spends the majority of his/her time. This is why television ads used to work (and why now they are less effective).

Today, people spend more time on Facebook than they do watching tv, which is why social media ad spend has greatly increased over the years.

But that doesn’t mean you should try reaching an influencer with an ad. Rather, you should seek out the places they’re engaging with their readers.

Do they reply to tweets? Do they respond to blog comments? Are they posting a lot on LinkedIn?

These are the places where you need to be. Like, share, and comment on everything they post. Mention their social media handle when you share their content and eventually they’ll notice you.

For example, I notice the people who repeatedly share my content on Twitter more than anyone else in my audience. While I write with my entire audience in mind, I can match names and faces with the people who consistently share my content on Twitter.

Find the platforms most frequented by top influencers who share your mindset.

In Conclusion

Connecting with influencers is as easy or as difficult as you make it. The beginning stage may feel difficult, but as you continue, you’ll have a much easier time connecting with influencers and building relationships.

The ultimate hack not mentioned above is that once you build all of these relationships, you can ask for referrals.

Once I have over 30 speakers for my virtual summits, I ask them if they know anyone else who would also be a great speaker for the summit. They usually make intros and that alone makes relationship building much easier.

What are your thoughts about these hacks for building relationships? Have any tips for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

Case Study: How To Read 30 Books In 30 Days

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readAfter my first year of college, I decided to do something different over the summer—read a lot of books.

I used a portion of my Monthly Performance Reports to put my reading lists on full display. While I normally read 5-10 books in a given month, the summer days allowed that reading list to morph into 30 books every month.

I didn’t take time off from my business during this time. In fact, I dramatically increased the amount of books I read while preparing to lead a Content Marketing Success Summit, one of the biggest projects of my life up to that point.

In this blog post, I’ll share my story so you can reap the benefits of reading 30 books every month without feeling overwhelmed by work, your personal life, or anything else.

#1: Have The Books On Hand

Before I began my 30-book per month reading journey, I knew I needed to have all of the books readily accessible. So, to put it bluntly, I went on a bargain buying spree.

I knew that by the time I finished reading any given book it would be filled with notes and underlines, so I didn’t mind buying used books (as long as they didn’t have any underlining or highlighting included).

My adventure began on eBay where some people are desperate to part ways with their books. Because the bulk lots included anywhere from 10-20 books per order, I bought books at a rate from $1 to $4 per book depending on who was selling them.

And all of these books were LEGIT, not aged books that are no longer relevant. In fact, I published several books before social media taught me the marketing tactics that work today (often overlooked in the new age of digital marketing).

If you prefer to read books on a device, you’re all set. You can buy all of your books in a few clicks. I prefer reading paperback editions, which is why I decided to purchase books in bulk on eBay.

Buy in bulk

The only problem with book lots is that you don’t get to choose the books on offer; I have multiple copies of the same books because they were a part of a bulk order.

But eventually I learned about Thrift Books, which help you avoid that problem as well as enjoy a wider range of choices and ridiculous bargains.

You may think it’s not worth going through the trouble to find book bargains, but if you want to read 30 books per month, that’s 360 books every year.

In a worst case scenario, saving an average of $10 per book (very possible with book lots and Thrift Books) results in a savings of $3,600 every year!

Don’t Read Word-For-Word

Once you have assembled all of your books, it’s time to read them. But don’t read them in the traditional word-for-word style. Sure, you’ll absorb all of the material if you do, but it will take a longer period of time before you move onto the next book.

When I read books, I skim through them for the most pertinent information. If there’s a section that explains how to create a Twitter account, for example, I skip it because I already have a Twitter account. There’s no need to waste time reading things that you already know.

Similarly, when I buy a productivity book I skip through familiar tips like setting deadlines, 3-Year Plans, and how to set SMART goals. Unless the author shares these common tactics with a very different flavor, I skip to the next part of the book.

Skip Entire Chapters

Not only should you skip over things you already know, you should also get into the habit of skipping portions, or even chapters, of books containing information you don’t want to learn. For instance, I don’t want to learn much about Vine because Vine is a dead social network.

And yet, many of these books have entire chapters dedicated to Vine. Some books are dedicated entirely to the social network. Just remember that information that was once relevant may be outdated today.

You can also skip chapters outlining tasks you don’t want to perform. For instance, I’ll skip a chapter in a podcasting book about editing episodes because I already have a trustworthy freelancer who edits my podcast episodes.

Skipping that chapter allows me to move to the next chapter sooner and, ultimately, to a new book.

Write In Your Book

For a long time I resisted writing in my books, especially signed copies. While I rarely write in books, I often underline with a pencil.

Underlining important points in each of your books makes the re-reading process easier. After all, you have a plan to re-read the best books, right?

At the beginning of each month, I go through my favorite books from the previous month. I skim through what I underlined, and brainstorm ideas. I commit a few hours of one day to this task.

Underlining important text makes this process much faster as I can literally skip hundreds of pages of content. I only focus on what I’d underlined previously because my past self regarded only those points as important.

A Technicality On Book Length

One thing to remember when reading 30 books in 30 days is that book length matters. It’s much easier to read 30 books that average 200 pages than to read 30 books that average 600 pages.

When dozens of books are delivered to me in one day, I start by reading the shorter books first. It’s likely a good thing that I read Tools Of Titans before I began taking my reading goal seriously.

I like reading the shorter books first because finishing a shorter book gives me the dopamine rush to start reading (and finishing) another book.

Get a string of small wins, and it won’t be long before you can read the occasional 400-600 page book with ease.

It It’s Not Scheduled, It Won’t Happen

If you want reading to become a habit, you must schedule it into your day. I schedule at least one hour of reading time every day.

You should also choose one day a week to dedicate entirely to reading books, no professional work. I designate Fridays as my reading days. And even though I spend several hours reading books on Fridays, it doesn’t feel rigorous. Why? Because Fridays feel like a day off from work.

It’s important to find what works for you, but don’t forget that if it’s not scheduled, it won’t happen.

Turn Your TV And Surfing Time Into Reading Time

Professional work can take up hours of your day, but so can TV and internet surfing. You need to eliminate digital surfing from your life because you’re simply watching life happen instead of making life happen. Spectators watch, superstars perform.

The average American watches 32 hours of television every week. If we all switched from digital surfing to reading self-development books, the world would truly be a better place.

The next time you want to watch a marathon, the last episode of a series, or reruns, crack open a book instead. Repeat the process with other bad habits, and with greater intensity, and you’ll have no problem reading 30 books in 30 days.

In Conclusion

Reading 30 books every 30 days will dramatically expand your knowledge and open the door to a variety of possibilities. Reading all of these books requires a mindset shift and the elimination of bad habits. And, of course, the 30+ books you’ll need on hand before you get started.

What are your thoughts on reading 30 books every day? Have any good book recommendations for us? Please share how you plan to implement this habit into your own life. Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Invent Your Best Self

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I recently learned that February 11th is National Inventor’s Day. To celebrate, I wrote this blog post to discuss how I invented myself into who I am and to help you invent your best self.

We are all inventors. We produce (invent) work that impacts people. It doesn’t matter whether your work impacts a handful of people or the entire planet. Your work impacts people.

But how exactly do you invent your best self? How do you set yourself up for success and produce work that you are very proud of? Let’s dive in.

 

Have The End In Sight

For any big goal I set for myself, I always have the end in sight. I’m always dangling the carrot in front of myself knowing that I won’t reach it in the short-term, but in the end, I’ve got myself a carrot (substitute your favorite food. I’m not a carrot person. I hope I didn’t offend anyone).

For my virtual Content Marketing Success Summit, I’m thinking about game day when I have all of the interviews lined up and have the autoresponder set up. I’m thinking about thousands of people engaging with the presentations within the virtual summit.

The carrot is right in front of my face, and I need it in front of my face. That carrot motivates me to work far harder than I currently am.

To invent your best self, you must be crystal clear on who you aim to reinvent yourself as. Do you want to be a bestselling author? Do you want to make more revenue?

Picture that end result and let that idea of massive success drive you to the finish line.

 

Predict The Checkpoints

As you invent yourself into a better you, it’s tempting to give up. Going from where you are to where you want to be may seem close to impossible. That’s because most people approach reinvention wrong.

They only view the end goal without building their foundation brick by brick. I don’t just snap my fingers and suddenly have a successful summit. However, I set checkpoints to make sure everything goes according to plan.

By mid-February, the design will be complete. Then I contact all potential speakers by the end of February. I get the interviews done in March and April. In May, I write the emails and get partners to promote the summit.

These checkpoints allow me to monitor my progress and allow me to finish the summit at a comfortable pace. Now, these checkpoints are just predictions. I could finish the site design a few days earlier or later. However, I act as if these checkpoints are set timeframes.

When I got started with social media, my ambition was to become a social media rockstar. I set checkpoints for how many followers I need to have within a certain timeframe.

I’ve referenced several times in the past that I set the goal of surpassing 100,000 Twitter followers in five years. I had no idea how to get that many followers, but the checkpoint forced me to take action.

Those five years are up. I ended with a little over 300,000 Twitter followers. Not bad for someone who didn’t know how to get 100,000 Twitter followers upon giving himself that goal.

Don’t be afraid of giving yourself a checkpoint you don’t know how to reach. I had many fearful thoughts when I started my podcast. I didn’t know how to keep it going, how to prepare for an episode, or how to even record the conversation between me and the guest.

I only got committed when I got enough people to say yes to being a guest on my podcast. At that point, I was committed and I set checkpoints so I’d be prepared for the first interview.

 

Overestimate The Workload

For any project I pursue, I always overestimate the workload. If I want to get 50 speakers, I contact 200 potential speakers. Any of those people who say yes get to become a speaker. In this scenario, I may very well interview far more than 50 people.

When I create a training course, I always assume I must pour countless hours into the training course. This changes my work ethic. I understand it’s not a walk-in-the-park, and that makes me work smarter and exert more effort towards what I’m doing.

When you reinvent yourself, overestimate the amount of work it will take for you to reach a certain goal. If you believe writing four blog posts each week will double your blog traffic, raise the estimate higher. You should believe that only daily blog posts will get you that same goal.

Overestimating the workload allows you to do at least one of two things:

Get the same stuff done sooner

Get much better results than you anticipated

Life is a game of inputs and outputs. We have an idea of what inputs lead to what outputs. Two good rules of thumb are to test the inputs to prove or disprove your hypothesis and to put more into the input (as long as it will lead to an output with long-term benefits).

 

Weekly Reflections

As an inventor, it’s tempting to continue inventing new things without looking at your past inventions. Sometimes I go through my blog posts to see what my audience liked and didn’t like. Analyzing my blog posts allows me to determine what my audience wants more of.

This allows me to invent content, videos, and products that my audience (you at the moment) will love.

Every week, I look at what went right and what went wrong. These weekly reflections allow me to hone my skills and get better at producing better content at a faster pace.

 

Get Mentors

Everyone needs help. Not even Superman went into battles all by himself. He had the Justice League (or Super Friends depending on your preference, but I strongly prefer Justice League as I didn’t go through any of the Super Friends series).

When I have a question, I ask one of my mentors. I don’t pay for their help. I just stop by every once in a while and ask a quick question. I could go the life coach method and hire someone who oversees much of what I do, but for now, I am more than content with how I get my mentors.

Podcasting.

Upon this post’s publication, I’ve published 25 episodes on my Breakthrough Success Podcast. All 25 guests provided my listeners and me with great insights. Imagine how much you would learn if you listened to all of the episodes on EOFire.

That’s what I get to do with my podcast. And I can interview people whose expertise match the expertise I’m looking for. I always pick potential guests who will interest me and arm us with massive insights.

 

In Conclusion

As you continue inventing yourself, your journey will continue to change. Success isn’t a line. It’s a jumbled up path. I’m sure you’ve seen the viral picture that continues attracting attention many years after it got published.

With the right mindset, you’ll invent yourself into the person you wish to become. The fact that you’re even on the journey to reinventing yourself means you’ll learn more about yourself. People who reinvent themselves into something better always make progress.

Your thirst for progress allows you to make progress. The amount of effort you exert determines how much progress you actually make.

How are you reinventing yourself in 2017? How are you accomplishing your big projects? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Create New Habits In Your Life

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The habits you choose for yourself can either hold you back or propel you to new levels of excellence. They are the lifeline of your life. While few bad habits can literally kill people, many bad habits derail our efforts and result in unfulfilled lives.

I want you to become one of the people who develops good habits that create a positive impact in your life. The best part about developing new (positive) habits is that it doesn’t take much time to turn new activities into habits.

According to science, it takes about 66 days for any activity to turn into a habit (about two months). To some people, 66 days may seem like a lot, but for most people, 66 days is about 0.0025% of our lives (assuming a life expectancy of 71 years).

In such a minuscule amount of time, you can turn ANY activity you desire into a habit. However, as we move forward with our lives, it becomes more difficult for us to find that minuscule amount of time within our lives. Different tasks take up our time and we find little to none of our time left to hone in on another habit.

Not only can we create additional time to master new habits, but we can also change our lives by changing the habits we use to guide us. Here’s how:

 

Identify What You Want To Eliminate

Before you consider mastering a new habit, assess all of your current habits. Which habits are bringing you down? Which habits are preventing you from being your best?

Those are the time sucking activities that you must address before doing anything else. The biggest habit that obstructed my success was constantly playing video games. As much as I enjoyed them, they constantly took me away from my work. I got great at certain video games but my business was at a standstill.

I eliminated my habit of playing video games, and that extra time allowed me to move my business forward at a faster pace. All of a sudden, I was accomplishing bigger goals and giving myself a more grand vision.

Have A Replacement

If I had given up video games to watch more TV, I didn’t really get closer to living a more fulfilled life.

I gave up video games with the intention of playing the piano. This replacement made it easier for me to give up on video games. However, there was an unintended consequence with this decision.

Anytime I couldn’t play the piano, I found myself surfing YouTube far too often. I can’t always play at home since I like to play in the evening or later (see what I mean).

To combat this problem, I have decided to play earlier in the day. Having a replacement isn’t just a matter of deciding which habit will replace your bad habit. You must also become specific about when you’ll implement this replacement habit.

I set up my college schedule so I can easily play the piano on campus in the middle of the day.

 

Gradual Evolution

When I got back to playing the piano (this was my first time playing in about eight years), I didn’t play for several hours. I played an easy song three times. That was it. Since then, I’ve learned how to play songs like Dancing Queen, Skyfall, Blank Space, and others.

With an undisturbed schedule, I can play the piano for hours upon hours without end. I continued practicing every day and got really good at playing the piano. There’s still much for me to learn, but I made a big leap since the day I started it up again.

 

Remove The Barriers

If you strive to master a habit but find yourself surrounded by barriers, you’re not going to master that habit. Playing the piano in the evening gave me a small window of opportunity, and as school work piled on, I began to miss that opportunity more often.

That’s just about the time I started to surf YouTube videos for about an hour just before going to bed (I know, terrible on my part).

Playing the piano on campus allowed me to stop surfing YouTube. The moment you put barriers around your positive habits, the easier it will become for bad habits to slip into your life unnoticed until they strike with a heavy blow to your time, money, and relationships.

Taking the path of least resistance will give you more time to focus on your positive habits which will give you less time to focus towards your negative habits.

 

Track Your Progress

To ensure your habits become a strong part of your life, you must track them every day. By continuously tracking your habits, you’ll soon feel the pain of not sticking with a habit and the joy of accomplishing your goal.

I have a habit of making at least 5 videos per day. Every time I accomplish this goal, I write it down in a notebook and feel happy. Every time I don’t make a single video, I write the dreaded “0 videos” which gives me more motivation to make five videos tomorrow.

Keeping that notebook with you at all times will keep you accountable to every action that you take today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life. This is such a powerful exercise that makes you more aware of the habits that doom you and the habits that are helping you shine.

 

In Conclusion

The habits you choose for your life will either make or break you. Any bad habit can get removed from your life as long as you have a positive habit that will replace it.

Remember that the 0.0025% of your time that you commit towards developing a new habit can dramatically change the remaining 99.9975% of your life. Every action you take to develop better habits is moving you in the right direction.

What habits do you live by? Have any tips for habit formation? Sound off in the comments section below.

How A Structured Schedule Will Make You 10x More Productive

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structured schedule

If I tell you that a structured schedule will make a huge impact on your productivity, would you believe me? You should.

While too much structure might seem to run contradictory to entrepreneurship, most entrepreneurs pursue their dreams precisely so they can do what they love at a time they choose.

Thus, adhering to a structured schedule (of your own creation) not only makes sense, it will also make you 10x more productive and drive the results you crave.

In this post, we’ll dig deeper into why a structured schedule works and how to commit to making it part of your life.

The Biggest Myth

When people think about a structured schedule, they usually envision all their free time suffocated by work. They even imagine their work time (not to mention their creativity) becoming suffocated.

They think, “No, I can’t make a video at this time because my schedule says that I must write a blog post.” It’s true that a structured schedule is very specific, but that’s exactly why it works.

The problem with free time — even the time spent thinking about what to work on — is choices. Let’s say you’re trying to decide whether to:

  • Write a blog post.
  • Send an email to a particular person.
  • Write an email broadcast.
  • Make a YouTube video.
  • Interview someone for your podcast.
  • Write a chapter of an ebook.
  • Create a training series.
  • Read a book.
  • Participate in an online course.

Tell me in TWO seconds which one you’ll choose: 1…2…

Have you made a choice? Do you need more time to ponder the list? Have you thought of something to add to the list? Did the list remind you of something else?

What usually happens is all of these ideas (and others) will float around in your head until you eventually decide on one. But even when you do, you’ll likely wonder if you’ve made the right decision, or if you’ve forgotten about something more important than your chosen task.

Let’s say you decide to write a blog post. After you complete the post, you’ll once again have to decide what to do next. It’s an endless, anxious cycle. And a huge waste of time.

Should I make a video? On what topic? Should I scrap that idea and read instead? Actually, should I read or watch a training course?

A structured schedule creates clarity and takes the guesswork (and anxiety) out of deciding what to do next. And a structured schedule even offers flexibility.

For example, bloggers try to avoid writer’s block — when ideas aren’t flowing and they’re left staring at a blank screen, sometimes for hours. Lots of people experience this feeling several times a day or week.

A schedule can save you in times like this. Simply switch up your tasks and keep moving.

Plan Out The Bookends Of Your Day

While writing this blog post, I anticipated one common response might be: “How can I structure my schedule when it’s bound to constantly change?What if someone cancels an interview? What if a real-time emergency comes up?”

Like the writer’s block example above, you may have to make adjustments during the day so you can maintain an optimal level of productivity. And a structured schedule will help you switch things up with efficiency.

With that said, there are two untouchable portions of the day during which no person or unrelated task can ruin your productivity.

These are your bookends: early morning and late in the evening. Think about what you usually do at 3pm and 5am. I’ll bet that at 5am nothing is standing between you and your productivity. At 3pm, however, it may seem as if everything is standing in your way.

Realizing that you won’t likely get as much done at 9pm as you would during the work day, plan out your day from start to finish paying special attention to the bookends — because virtually nothing stands in the way of your productivity during those times.

Wake Up Earlier 

The earlier you wake up, the more poised you are for success. I strongly believe that, and here’s the logic: no one is going to interrupt you or make a request at 5am. That’s when “everyone else” is sleeping. If you wake up at 5am, you’ll have several hours of undisturbed productivity.

Being an early bird works better than being a night owl. I’ve tried both, and it’s better to get to bed earlier so you can wake up earlier. The biggest reason for that is because starting fresh lets you get much more accomplished than you can after a taxing day when your willpower has been tested to the max.

Just one aggravating issue during the day can interrupt your concentration at night. As an early bird, nothing has happened yet so there’s no prior events from the day that can distract you from your work. Rising early and getting things done also makes you feel more productive as the day goes on.

In addition to feeling (and being) more productive, you’ll enjoy improved health. I don’t understand why so many people take their health for granted. I’ll just say that the healthier you are, the more productive you are. Think about that the next time you go to McDonald’s (if you don’t eat there, good for you!).

Putting that shade aside, here’s the truth about early birds and night owls:

Your brain is still active when you sleep. If the last thing you think about is how anxious you feel about your work, those thoughts of anxiety will carry over into your sleep and still be there when you wake up.

This is why I read a personal development book before I go to bed. I feel mentally charged when I go to bed, and that feeling carries over into the beginning of the next day.

And did you know that the first hour of your day determines how the rest of your day will go?

Track Your Results

Once you identify how to structure your day, keep track of your progress. This is where you walk the walk instead of only talking the talk. The best place to track your results is in a notebook because you can refer to it at any time and make any necessary adjustments.

Tracking your results in a notebook lets you see in which areas you struggle and in which areas you thrive. If you timestamp when you accomplish certain goals, you can also identify which times of day work best for accomplishing specific objectives.

Are you better at writing blog posts before 11am or after 2pm? Tracking your results and adding a few details allows you to answer that question. The more of these types of questions you can answer, the more productive you’ll become and the more you’ll optimize your structured schedule.

In Conclusion

Creating a structured schedule allows you to gain clarity into what goals you need to accomplish and when you need to accomplish them. Structured schedules don’t remove the freedoms of entrepreneurship. Rather, they amplify your potential.

What are your thoughts on creating a structured schedule? What would you like to accomplish with a structured schedule? Have any productivity tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

*image credit: Pixabay