One of my responsibilities at Zanita Studio is creating content (although our focus has shifted a little with the incubating of Azalle)…
However, I also create content for myself at Le Jolie.
In the beginning, it was overwhelming to manage content for two - and now even three sites (Azalle included); of course, my priorities are my job whereas my personal blog remains a hobby, so at one point, everything started to mesh together and became extremely convoluted and overwhelming. I felt like I was doing the same thing all the time - in my job, outside my job, and during my free time. As a result, I neglected and took a year-long hiatus from Le Jolie.
Once 2016 came to a close, I started missing the process of creating for myself and decided to resuscitate my personal space in 2017 whilst continuing to do the best I can for Zanita Studio & Azalle.
I figure many of us sit in the same boat (i.e. full-time job & part-time blog)… I’m on a winning streak so far as to striking that balance, so I thought I’d share one of my most effective tricks: maximize my Sundays.
#1 Research
From personal experience, I think one of the biggest obstacles for most people in blogging is generating fresh ideas and staying excited. These two things often result in quitting or short-to-long-term breaks. With a full-time job and the routine demands of life, it’s often difficult to keep up with your favorite bloggers and the 1000 mph pace of this industry. I give myself 1-2 hours to browse blog content on Sundays and research trends or topics I might be interested in. I also journal and recap on the previous week to see if there were any life lessons I learned that I can share with you all. As silly as it sounds, you have to make time for this or else you’ll find yourself frazzled with nothing to share. You can’t wait until something substantial happens because it often won’t. You must also learn to look for beauty in the everyday.
#2 Planning & preparing
This is important for me because as a mom, I need to be able to work around my kids’ school schedule. If I know I’m shooting flatlays and I want flowers, I need to go out and buy flowers on Sunday for the rest of the week. If I know I need to takes tons of pictures, I need to make time for it so that I’m not cutting into my work schedule during the week to make it happen. I also just recently dabbled into YouTube, committing to sharing video content at least bi-monthly, which means I need to plan for this especially since I’m new to the platform and it’s supremely time consuming. Whatever ideas you come up with in your research process, you need to prepare to materialize it, otherwise you’re parlaying on it never moving out of the conceptual phase.
#3 Photos/filming
I love taking pictures as a hobby and I know it’s a skill set I want to improve, so I make it a priority to practice especially on Sundays. And again, I’m attempting YouTube, which requires tons of time and attention. I make time for both because it’s really my only down day. Light is also super important, so they need to be priorities during the day. It’s near impossible to shoot and film during the week with the sun going down so much faster. I’ve learned that if I don’t make shit happen on Sundays, I have nothing concrete to work with once the week rolls in (no bueno!).
#4 The writing process
If there’s enough time, I like to start the writing process for my posts on Sundays as well - even if I don’t finish a full post. My goal right now is 3 blog posts per week, so I like to go into my blog and input titles into drafts while my mind is clear and focused. I usually become flustered during the week because there’s so much going on that these titles give me clear direction once 8 pm hits on a random day like Wednesday night!
If you need a little more pep talk, here you go:
How do you like to spend your Sundays and what does your content creation process look like right now? I love new ideas so don’t forget to share below!
xo,
Susan
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