Creating a blogging schedule can be a huge challenge even for experienced bloggers. The number of potential tasks can feel pretty overwhelming, and it’s hard to know what to prioritize. This blog post looks at how to break down your goals into tasks that are achievable in cycles of 90 days, with every 90 days helping you get closer to what you want to achieve.
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Note: If you’re a Lyrical Host customer, there are plenty of website checklists and goal setting worksheets to help you in the Resource Library, along with a PDF guide + template called “How To Create A Blogging Schedule That Actually Works.” They all work really well with this post!
What you’ll need to get started
- A calendar (digital or paper)
- A notebook and pen, or Google Doc
- Trello, or your favorite to do list and task managing software
Step 1 – Do a recurring tasks brain dump
List out allll the tasks you do repeatedly. We recommend doing this list first, because it gives you an idea of how much time you have left to play with after these are accounted for.
Remember: A task is specific, actionable, and straightforward. It should always be something you can link to your bigger picture and not something you do because other people have told you to, or you’ve read it’s what you should do. For example, if you have a goal to increase your Instagram following to 10k to apply for more brand opportunities, it makes sense to have a recurring task to post on Instagram, and a task to engage with other Instagram users. If your goal is to grow your blog page sessions for an ad network such as Mediavine or Adthrive, Instagram is likely to be a very low priority for you.
A quick tip to stop you forgetting anything in your repeated tasks list is to create categories first, then list as many tasks as you can think of under each category.
So for example you could have:
Maintenance
- Taking backups of your website
- Checking for broken links
- Updating plugins
- Cleaning out email inbox
- Taking backups of your email marketing lists
Analysis
- Review website analytics
- Review site speed
- Review income/opportunities
Engagement
- Replying to comments
- Returning comments
- Engaging on Instagram
- Deleting spam/bot comments
- Culling your email subscriber lists
Planning
- Social media posts
- Blog posts
- Image sourcing/creating
- Keyword research
- Content repurposing
Business Admin
- Following up with existing contacts
- Accounts/taxes
- Reviewing/renewing tools and services
…and so on. Don’t worry if you keep thinking of more later on, that’s totally normal! Just add them as you think of them, and keep a master list somewhere you can refer to.
This is also a good time to cull any tasks you do that aren’t really a big priority for you and your blog. Remember, you can do anything but not everything. Think about where your time is best used, and don’t be afraid to ditch social networks or tasks that aren’t providing enough for the time/money you’re investing.
Step 2 – Allocate times and tasks
Next to each task, list how long it takes and how often you plan to do it (if you’re not sure, just take a best guess). For example:
Analysis
- Review website analytics – 10 mins, monthly
- Review site speed – 30 mins, quarterly
- Review income/opportunities – 1 hour, weekly
Then add them to your calendar or to do lists. If you’re a Trello fan, you can use the card repeater to schedule recurring tasks automatically. Remember, this is a 90 day plan, so you may be adding a task only once, or adding a task for much further down the line.
Step 3 – List your 90 day goals
By now you should have a good idea of how much time you have left for your bigger quarterly goals, so now you’re ready to set some!
If you find it easier, you may want to start with your big goal and work down, so for example, “I want to be earning XXXX from my blog every month,” or “I want to be getting XXXX traffic to my blog this year,” or whatever your bigger picture goal is.
To turn your big goals into 90 day goals, break it down using your past achievements, and then add a little on to make it more of a challenge. For example, if it’s taken you a year to reach 1000 Facebook likes, it’s not realistic to have “Gain another 1000 Facebook likes,” as your 90 day goal, but “Gain another 300 Facebook likes,” could be very achievable.
If you’re starting from scratch and don’t know what’s realistic yet, start off with goals that rely on you instead, for example, “Learn and be confident in doing keyword research for blog posts,” “Write a guest post for a well-known website.” After you’ve tracked your blog stats for 30 days or more, you can x3 and add a bit to start creating 90 day goals.
Examples of turning big goals into 90 day goals could be things like:
Big goal: Earn a liveable income from blogging.
90 day goal: Earn $1000 from blogging in the next 90 days.
Big goal: Have at least 100,000 visitors per month from organic search.
90 day goal: Increase visitors by 25% compared to last quarter.
Big goal: Have my own digital product range of books, courses, and printables.
90 day goal: Write 60,000 words of my first book.
Naturally your 90 day goals could be very different depending on what stage you’re at currently and how far away you are from your big goals.
Step 4 – Break down goals into smaller goals, and then progressive tasks
Your goal breakdown could look something like:
Big goal: Earn a liveable income from blogging.
90 day goal: Earn $1000 from blogging in the next 90 days.
60 day goal: Earn $666 from blogging in the next 60 days
30 day goal: Earn $333 from blogging in the next 30 days.
14 day goal: Earn $166 from blogging in the next 14 days.
7 day goal: Earn $83 from blogging in the next 7 days.
So, how could you earn that starting $83? Make a list of tasks (if you’ve had success in the past with specific tasks, list those first, if not, use your best guess).
For example:
- Sign up to a new affiliate program and write a blog post to promote it.
- Update a popular post to include some kind of monetisation, such as ads, your own product, affiliate links etc.
- Write a pitch to a brand you love.
- Contact another blogger and ask them if they know of any opportunities.
- Sign up for websites that match bloggers and brands.
- Add a banner to your site for a high paying affiliate program (we pay up to $80 per sale).
- Make a spreadsheet of all the programs you’ve joined and your earnings.
- Make a spreadsheet of all the PR contacts you have, or sources to find some.
- Search Twitter for people looking for opinions on things you have an affiliate blog post about, for example Dubsado vs Asana, or the best web host to use.
Select a few of your ideas, add an estimated time as per step 2, and add them to your calendar/task list/Trello with deadlines that make sense. Don’t add too many at once – you can always keep a list of task ideas separate and revisit them in your next 90 day sprint.
To make the most of your time, select tasks and goals that complement each other so you’re automatically working towards multiple goals at the same time. For example, if your goals are 1) to learn how to create quick videos and 2) grow your Facebook page, you could post the videos you create to your Facebook page for a double win.
Step 5 – Review everything together
Your goals should always be practical. They shouldn’t be too easy or you’ll get bored, and they shouldn’t be too much of a stretch or you’ll feel like you’re setting yourself up to fail. Quality is more important than quantity; there’s no point setting yourself tasks that won’t help you move forward just because they’re easy to check off. Equally, you’ll struggle if you set a lot of goals and tasks simultaneously because you’ll be stretching your efforts too thinly. It’s totally fine to have one goal and keep powering on towards it.
Additionally, some tasks you probably won’t find particularly fun or interesting – like hunting down broken links or cleaning up your email inbox – but they still need doing!
What’s important is that you end up with a plan that fits your schedule and goals. Reviewing everything together helps you fill gaps in your schedule, and remove things that aren’t as important. Total up the times for each day/week to make sure you’re happy with the timings, and don’t forget to include a buffer for important things that can often take longer than expected, like writing blog posts.
Step 6 – Experiments and actions
Treat your first 90 day plan as an experiment. See how it goes, see what you want to carry through to your next one, and evaluate what worked well and what didn’t. It’s about what works for you, and not every week will go perfectly.
But before you start your first 90 days, consider how you’re going to hold yourself accountable. For example rewards or forfeits, building up habits of specific times you’ll set aside to work on your goals, using distraction blocking tools like the Forest app, a clear workspace, and so on. Little and often is all you need for your small steps to turn into big progress.
Over time your 90 day plan will become easier to create, manage, and monitor, you’ll find yourself achieving more, and you’ll create strong habits you can apply to other areas of your life.
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