Blogging With a Full Time Job

Today I wanted to discuss blogging with a full time job because it is TOUGH to juggle!

How I Started Blogging With a Full Time Job

Some days (okay, most days) I find it hard bouncing back and forth between my two careers. One of those being blogging and the other being my corporate salaried job. It almost feels like I am living two lives when I am trying to multi-task such vastly different worlds. My 9-5 career has never had anything remotely do to with what I do blogging. Blogging was a huge learning curve for me because I never went to school for anything related to business or PR or social media or web building or fashion. I have Engineering roots and now work in Supply Chain, which still is far from what I do blogging.

I started my Instagram end of July 2017 and my blog followed in November. During this time, I have been in 3 different corporate jobs (and also unemployed for 7 weeks) so I have learned how to best use my time, which I want to share below! What I found interesting during my 7 weeks of unemployment was that I was still busy and still rushed for time with the blog. Add a full time job to the mix and life is just a hectic blur.

Tip #1: Maximize your time at home

What takes time in your personal life?

Take a close look at those activities and figure out what you can do to reduce that time to better juggle blogging with a full time job. During my previous role as a manager, I cut out cooking for 6 months because that took a lot of time. I LOVE cooking and I hate feeling unhealthy, but it was a choice I made for a short time because I was too busy with work and my long distance relationship with my husband. I ordered all my meals from Freshly so that I could save time.

Now, I am back to cooking because I LOVE it and it’s possible now that me and my husband live together. But to save myself time, I cook everything for the whole week on Sundays. At first it’s hard to figure out, but then you realize how much food you actually need to last for the week and you can double recipes etc. My husband and I crank it out on Sunday and enjoy doing this activity together.

Things You Can’t Help

Sometimes you can’t help things that take time, like commuting, and you just have to remember those things are temporary. I drove 37 miles one way to work where I used to work, in Atlanta. There wasn’t much I could do to change that commute but I tried to remember it wouldn’t last forever. I did it for 3 years and then committed to finding a closer job when I moved to Tampa. My commute still kinda sucks in Tampa, but it’s a little better. I discussed changing my hours with my manager to avoid rush hour traffic, which will maximize my time. I am now arriving at work at 7am instead of 8am and leaving at 4pm. Waking up early is not my thing, but my time is not well spent if I am sitting in traffic.

Another thing that took too much time in my life was working out. I cannot afford the time to drive to a gym to work out, so I figured out a way to do that at home. One of the many reasons my husband have no desire to own a home, is because we love the gym facilities at apartments. What a great time saver to walk upstairs to the apartment gym and not have to get in the car and drive. Don’t have a gym? Figure out a HIIT routine you can do in your living room or start running.

Other Time Savers

Make sure you get a good night sleep. There is nothing to ruin a day of productivity than tiredness. I always keep sleeping aids on hand if I know it’ll be one of those nights. I also have ear plugs so that there is no outside noise to distract me if I want to get to bed early.

Don’t have friends. Just kidding, but seriously. If you make social plans, make sure you have a game plan ahead of time to get your work done so that you can afford to take a night off.

Also, if I go on vacation, I try and maintain my normal blogging activities schedule so that I am not overwhelmed when I get home. I have taken an entire weekend off blogging before, and in my opinion it is NOT worth it because of all the work that piles up. I would rather level load my work and do a little each day than let it pile up.

Tip #2 Maximize Your Time at Work

Make the most of your time at work and do the blogging related activities that you are able to while you are away from the house. Some examples of the things I can get done at work: responding to comments on instagram and commenting on other pages, writing blog posts, Pinterest-ing, email catch up

Tip #3 Organize Yourself

Figure out how to effectively organize your home life, work life and blog life. The goal is to de-clutter the mind and free it up so you can be productive. I find that most of the moments I feel overwhelmed is because I have not organized myself properly. Nothing puts the mind in a frenzy like thinking of all the things you have to do and then not documenting that.

For my home life I keep a list of daily, weekly, monthly, yearly etc activities that need to be done. These are routine activities that I know I will forget about unless I keep a list. I also keep a short to do list. I don’t let this list get longer than 5 items and I have a backlog of to-do’s on another list. Once I complete one of the short term to-do’s, I add one from my backlog to the list. The backlog has anything random I want to get done. Right now some of the things on there are to buy a bedroom light, sell my wedding dress, mount the tv, find a new coffee table, file damages from my move etc etc. The short term usually has things like return stuff, schedule hair appointment, RSVP to wedding etc.

My Handy Excel File

For my blog life, I keep an excel file with everything in it: posts, collaborations, goals, to-do’s etc. I truly think my saving grace to managing this schedule is my handy excel sheet where I keep all blogging related activities. I track my numbers in there, all my collaboration commitments, giveaways, blog post log, post ideas, email templates etc. That excel file keeps me focused and I have never missed a deadline because of my organization within that excel sheet.

For work life, I just keep a notebook of all my to-dos and make sure my calendar is up to date at work.

I hope this helps! If you want more blogging tips, check out my post here on how to collaborate with brands as a new blogger!

Sizing reference: I am 5’4″ and typically XS in tops and 25 in bottoms.

Outfit Details:

Turtleneck, Pants, Blazer, Hermes Bag, Sandals

Have any questions on blogging with a full time job? Leave them in the comments below!