A holiday tradition reminded me of a great strategy for you to be more efficient with your content creation. This method allows you to produce more content all at once so it saves you time. It also removes the most common frustrations that entrepreneurs tell me holds them back from creating their content. When you see how simple it is to do this, you’ll be able to easily and consistently create your content throughout the year.
What I’m talking about is batching your content creation. Just like batch baking Christmas cookies!
Baking Christmas cookies is a tradition in many families. Usually, the family members get together on one set day and bake up multiple batches of traditional holiday cookies and maybe try out some new recipes. All the work happens on one day. That means they only need to get out the recipes, ingredients, bake-ware, and decorating items once. You create multiple batches of different kinds of cookies and then you clean up the mess and enjoy your cookies for weeks during the holiday season.
One day of cookie creation and cleanup leads to multiple days of cookie enjoyment!
The Christmas Cookie Method For Content Creation is the same idea. You’re going to batch create your content all at once. This frees up time to do other things while enjoying consistent release of your content over weeks or even months. The amount of content created in a batching session depends on how often you plan to release content and how efficient you are with batching.
Here are the principle ideas for batch-creating your content. Make a list of all the steps it takes to create your content and then group like tasks together. Schedule these like tasks in your calendar to do all together in one session.
Let’s use creating blog posts as an example. You may want to first schedule 20-30 minutes to brainstorm some content topics–write them all down to be able to easily choose one to write about. Or if you’ve already created an editorial/content calendar to publish your blog–extra points for you–go straight to the next step in the process.
This brainstorming topics session can also help you create a monthly theme for your blog content. When you’re focusing in on a monthly theme for your blog content, you know at a glance what themes or topics are coming up in the next time frame to focus your writing on.
The like tasks roughly break down like this:
- Do all the research in one batch–one topic at a time. Research may not even be necessary in your niche–so this may be a step you can skip.
- Outline all your blog posts that you’ll be writing.
- Write all the posts–rough draft.
- Do your editing all together in a separate session.
- Create the graphics for each post in one setting in PhotoShop, Canva, or your favorite photo editor.
- And then schedule them all in your WordPress schedule function on your website. Automate where possible.
Easy Peasy!
When you use the Christmas Cookie Method For Content Creation you remove the most common frustrations that I hear entrepreneurs say holds them back from being able to consistently create content. When you consider how important content creation is to your business success, removing those roadblocks is like winning the lottery!
Frustration: Not even knowing where to start with content creation.
Solution: The Christmas Cookie Method is a framework for you to follow to start and finish your content creation.
Frustration: Not knowing what to write about.
Solution: You begin or precede your batch session by brainstorming topics to write about.
Frustration: Not having enough time to write your content.
Solution: We all have the same number of minutes and hours in a day. When content creation is a priority, you make the time for it to happen. The Christmas Cookie Method For Content Creation bakes in that time commitment. (Haha, get it? I cracked myself up with that one!) You’re setting aside chunks of time to do the task to get that content written and published.
Frustration: Not being consistent with your content writing.
Solution: When you see how easily content gets created with the Christmas Cookie Method For Content Creation, you’ll want to consistently schedule sessions to create batches of content. Once you’re in the habit of doing batching sessions, you’ll be able to consistently publish what you’re completing.
Frustration: Not being able to focus on your content writing.
Solution: With batch creation, you focus on one like task at a time. You write the content and then you edit at a different time. You create the graphics at yet another time. This removes the movement back and forth between different tasks that breaks the focus on the task at hand. Yes, it still requires some discipline. When you realize that the task at hand is the only thing you’re going to focus on during a set time period, remove all the other known distractions that have interrupted you in the past. Break each writing session down into smaller increments if that works for you. Intend to have content completed by the end of each session, though.
Don’t give yourself too much time. Be mindful of Parkinson’s Law, which states “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion“.
Frustration: Not being able to get content completed.
Solution: The Christmas Cookie Method For Content Creation has an inherent promise that you’re batching your content creation to take it to completion. Also–see above with Parkinson’s Law. Setting a time frame to get it done–not a time frame to ‘work on it’–is the key to getting work done. You set up a segment of time, a task to do in that time, and you complete the task by the end of that time allotment–then move on to the next task. You wouldn’t walk away from your half-baked cookies, would you?
To help you get started with your baking, I mean, content creation batching sessions, I created a checklist for the Christmas Cookie Method For Content Creation. You can get the checklist when you click here and enter your name and email address. You’ll get immediate access so you can start whipping up a batch of content to be able to share your expertise with ease and consistency.
And the good news? (Besides the fact there are no calories in the Christmas Cookie Method! LOL)
It doesn’t have to be the holiday season to use the Christmas Cookie Method For Content Creation! You can use this strategy throughout the entire year!
Thanks Melissa for all the great tips. I’ve used the batch method doing graphics and with my email responder but not for blog posts! That’s why I love your blog posts… I always learn how to be more efficient. 🙂
Thank you, Gail! It’s all about efficiency, right? Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a message.