A few of our amazing community members have shared valuable insight from their experience so I decided to share the gems with you too. There are links within this article which will take you to more than one printable checklist, you are welcome to download and make use of the free checklist template for bloggers. The only thing I ask of you is that you leave me feedback in the comments section below – good, bad or ugly, I would love to hear from you.
So many of us bloggers and online entrepreneurs are doing this as a part-time gig, whilst building up to full time. What this means is we need to make the best use of the limited time available. These checklists I am sharing with you help me and I am sure they will do the same for you.
Table of Contents
Why Checklists?
My day generally starts with me waking up with a lot of exciting ideas playing in my mind. This is the best and worst time of the day for me because I have things to do and my mind is at its best. Ever had that?
You wake up and it’s as though the Ideas Factory has opened and is flinging amazing opportunities and concepts at you from the moment you open your eyes.
To be practical, there are “human moments” (recognize that from the Twilight Saga?) that need to happen as we wake up, meaning this is not the best time to be taking notes, writing checklists or blogs.
What is a gal to do? I have been known to voice record on my phone as I move about at the start of the day. This is not always practical. I also have a menagerie of furbabies who demand their food bright and early!
If you are anything like me you are juggling multiple tasks every single day. The only way I have found it possible to do the best job I can is to work with checklists, these ensure that all (or as near as ****** is to swearing) my tasks are completed on a daily basis.
Learning from the many more experienced online entrepreneurs in the incredible community I am part of (there are 2 million of us now!), I have found that there are more tasks which can be added to my checklists and improve not only my productivity but also ensure I do what needs to be done in the way it needs to be done.
Not only the tasks, but their experience has also taught me that the checklists keep them on target with ensuring they do the most important activities required to build a successful online business.
Checklists ensure that
- I keep a handle on everything I need to get done – that is the big picture and the small picture
- I can prioritize the important over the urgent
- Focus on the “main thing” is maintained
- My days are planned out for maximum productivity
How Do You Decide What Is Urgent & What Is Not?
I love the book, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, so much to learn from Stephen Covey! In the book he shares the Covey Matrix, as can be seen below:
As you can see from the image above, there is a simple way to evaluate the activities on our to-do lists. My to-do list can be completely unrealistically long, so the quadrant process works very well for me – I just need to remember to implement it.
Quadrant 1
As you can see, this is when Important and Urgent to do’s coincide. The short answer is – get it done.
Stephen Covey also warns against living in this quadrant as it will lead to burn-out. So, whilst there are times when we need to spend some time in Q1, rather work towards residing in the other quadrants, specifically 2 and 3 when it comes to your business life.
Quadrant 2
This quadrant refers to things that are important but not necessarily urgent. Spending time on building key relationships and new relationships, seeking out and recognizing new opportunities, planning, and recreation
Quadrant 3
Quadrant three refers to those things which are urgent but not important. Interruptions to your day, some calls, reports and meetings are not everything they are cracked up to be.
I love that Stephen Covey includes pressing and popular activities here. For example, I love spending time in Canva, this for me is the fun part of my online business. The trouble is that it is not as important as publishing posts regularly on my website (that is a Google requirement for ranking). So I literally have to set a timer on myself when in Canva.
Quadrant 4
You will see in Q4 that I have used the word “eliminate”, of course, we are not referring to pleasant activities here but certainly, we can do without the time wasters and some trivia we are all led astray by.
The wording “Do”, “Plan”, “Delegate” and “Eliminate” is a quick action guide for us when we are facing something that appears to be urgent and important. We can categorize it quickly by quadrant and then decide between the suggested actions. These are guides only though, please use your own discretion and circumstances to make the decisions.
Examples of Daily Tasks For Inclusion in Our Checklists
- Content Creation
- Research and creation of new posts
- Updating & editing of older posts
- Research & write EBooks
- Video creation
- SEO
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Marketing
- Advertising
- Social media activities
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Email marketing
- Social media activities
- Participating in communities
- Quora,
- Niche-specific Facebook groups & online portals for example
- Advertising
The list above is not even comprehensive, there is so much more to what we do as online marketers!
Free Checklist Template for Bloggers
As a result of the many varied tasks we have, I decided to create more than one free checklist for you, they are as follows:
- Free Checklist For Bloggers – Content Creation
- Free Checklist For Bloggers – On-Page SEO
- Free Checklist for Bloggers – Social Media
They are all in downloadable PDF format, you are welcome to help yourself, share with others, and to really help me offer better value, please let me know if I have missed anything out.
Online Business Opportunity
How is your online business or blog going? Are you managing to get all the training you need – there certainly is a lot to learn about the online space!
If you are anything like I was in the beginning, there was stuff I didn’t even know I needed to know! Searching high and low over the internet helped me find bits and pieces, but certainly not everything I needed.
I have mentioned a couple of times that I am a member of an amazing community, not only is the community incredible but there is a whole lot more to love about the platform! Everything you could possibly need for your blog / online business is available in one place at one price. That’s right:
- World-class training
- A community of online entrepreneurs who are exceptionally generous with their time and knowledge
- Site domains
- Site hosting
- Site support (24/7/365 no matter where you are in the world)
- Everything you need in one place at one price!
Here is an invitation for you to have a look at this awesome platform without spending a dime. That’s right, you do not even need to share your bank information.
Hope to see you inside the Wealthy Affiliate Platform soon, pop in for a visit, and see everything I love so very much.
