I used to think that planning ahead took too much time out of the tasks that needed to be done now, so I didn’t plan ahead. There were too many things that needed to be done, I just didn’t have the time to even think about the tasks where the deadlines were weeks away.
The rush
I found myself working with the client and struggling to get approval on time. Most notably for the weekly blog posts that would be published. We would have a call on Monday morning and come up with the post idea. They would then go away and write the content – fingers crossed it would be sent back that day. See the blogs each week would go out on a Tuesday. Monday idea, Tuesday publish…we didn’t leave ourselves any time. I would then be left to quickly edit the post for SEO, find an image and get it out for approval as fast as I could. Those Tuesdays were the worst. I would sit waiting for that email to say it was approved. But see the blog posts were not the clients priority, they didn’t know the value a great blog could bring. This meant they weren’t thinking about new posts ahead of time, granted I wasn’t pushing them…we had a set routine, albeit a rushed one.
It seems easy
Planning ahead seems like the logical thing to do for many. For the outsider looking in it is easy to say, “why didn’t you plan those blog posts to be written earlier?” But it’s not that simple. It is so easily forgotten, especially for something small like a blog. The client has a million and one other things to think about and they are sending all of these thoughts your way. Things need to be done now and a blog post is the least of their concerns.
All it took was 15 minutes
I knew we all needed a change, we all needed more time. We needed to plan ahead. It took about 15 minutes of researching and planning good blog content that would enhance the clients SEO and that would work alongside all the other marketing being done. 15 minutes. That’s no time at all.
I scheduled the blog posts for the month ahead and when it came to speaking to the clients about the posts, I got two of those posts written and back to me within 2 hours. Now I know it’s not always that simple, but we now had two posts ready and waiting for the coming weeks. It was like a huge weight had been lifted. No more waiting. No more watching the minutes click by. No more stress (about the blog posts at least).
Save time by making the time
Until I planned ahead, I had never realised how much time I have previously wasted. I had so much extra time to work on everything else, everything that was urgent, everything that I thought was more important than the planning. I had fallen into the trap of believing that I don’t have time to plan ahead. But really by making the time to plan ahead, I saved time for myself that could be better spent, and really we could all do with more time.
Poppy
