Five Keys to Writing Your Coaching Blog in Under an Hour

One major challenge new coaches have when getting their blogs going is simply getting them done. It can take hours upon hours of writing, editing, second-guessing, re-writing, adding, and then worrying if it’s any good.

That’s a lot of time spent on one article, and you still haven’t posted it to your site yet! And if it takes a long time, you’ll resist doing them consistently, and thus you’ll jeopardize your marketing efforts.

In this article, I will show tricks to get your blog articles down to 1 hour! Done! Getting them done fast (without being rushed), can really grease your marketing efforts, make blogging fun, and who knows, maybe you’ll blog two times per week and really get things moving.

At the heart of what we are going to do is to chop, cut, simplify, stretch, and otherwise hone your blogging efforts into a process that works for you.

Here are the five tricks to start cutting time off your efforts:

1. Take 5 minutes to find a winning article idea.

Instead of staring at a blank page, get away from the computer or writing pad. Sit by a window, on the porch, or in your favorite cozy chair and start in your mind.

Envision past clients or an ideal client (have you detailed one yet?) having a challenge. Think about the challenge they are having in your area of coaching (life, leadership, health, etc).

Really envision a place where they are struggling.

For example, if you’re a health coach for older men, and let’s say it’s a 50-something-year-old man who just got back from the doctor and has been started on heart meds. This guy’s cortisol levels have probably shot up, and he’s feeling some major stress. He needs to calm down and get control and do something to improve his health.

Right, there is an article, “Three Ways to Relax and Regain Control after Your Doctor Upped Your Meds.”

Take the time to find an important stuck spot, a specific one, of your clients and let your ideas to help them resolve it flow out naturally.

2. Accumulate ideas when the subconscious delivers them.

I find most of my blog article ideas come to me when I’m not trying to think up one. I jot down and a few ideas about them and add them to a list.

It could be when talking to a client, handling an email, or shooting hoops. Weird how that works, but when a winner comes by, I know it will make my life easier come Monday (my blogging day).

One simple document titled “Blog Ideas” is all you need. If you’re away from your computer, scribble it down or email yourself via phone.

When these blips of blog ideas come blazing through, capturing them will save you time on your blog writing days. If you feel so moved and have a few minutes upon the idea’s arrival, outline that article. Use that spontaneous energy!

3. Get super specific!

Do not write articles like “How to Set Goals” or “How to Lose Weight” because they are too big! You’ll spend days upon days toying around with all the tangents you can go on.

Instead, get super specific!

Narrow your articles down to specific situations, times, people, aspects, etc. Focus, focus, focus!

Some examples:

One Odd but Powerful Way to Keep Yourself Accountable to Your Goals – write about burning your bridges and the power behind that motivation.

How to Set 1-Day Goals – write about setting a goal for this day only.

One Secret to Setting Goals You’ll Keep – write about the act of telling people your goals.

Three Ways to Ensure You Won’t Reach Your Goals – write about not making a deadline, not getting clear on what you want in the end, and not telling someone else.

How to Use TIME to Make Your Goals Real – you can write simply about the time aspect of goals.

Step 1 to Setting Relationship Goals with Your Man – I’ll let you figure out what this could be about.

Getting specific helps you keep your articles quick and easy to write. They also make your points more applicable to readers.

4. Set a 30-minute timer for your draft.

This move is a must!

It’s so easy to go off on tangents when writing. It’s so easy to write too much as more ideas flood your mind. It’s very to lose focus.

Setting a time for 30 minutes forces you to focus. It’s the power of a deadline. If you know you’ve only got 30 minutes to get the draft done you won’t check email or search too long for a fitting graphic.

If, however, you had a week to do the article, you’d be wasting hours upon hours overthinking it, writing it, rewriting it … trying to perfect it, and just getting yourself worked up too much.

While a deadline might be stressful at first, a few iterations of doing this will strengthen your blogging muscles and you’ll be pumping out articles, good ones, in no time.

You have my permission to do bad work! This is an exercise in focusing and stretching your abilities. So no sweat – do your best to get it done in 30.

Once you’ve done the first 30, take a break, get some tea, fresh air, and walk away from your desk. Congratulate yourself. Send me an email, and I’ll congratulate you back!

Once you’ve taken that 10-minute break, set the timer again for 30 minutes. In the next 30, you’re going to polish it and be DONE with it.

During this second step, make sure you read your article aloud or have a friend read it aloud. You’ll be amazed by what you can clean up simply by verbalizing it.

5. Document your process and get a VA.

You’ll go through various steps of idea finding, writing, polishing, copy editing, posting, and sharing your articles.

Document those steps! Make a nice checklist that you can follow each time that works for you.

Then, once you’ve written a handful of articles, get a VA to do the non-creative stuff (assuming you spend quite a bit of time on this stuff and prefer not to do it – like an hour), such as posting to your site, sharing on LinkedIn, or submitting to article directories.

Do not underestimate this step!

That one extra hour you have to use to do work you don’t enjoy (again, assuming you’d rather not do the leg work of posting and sharing articles) WILL be resistance that stops your blogging from being consistent.

And don’t use cost as a limiter! You can get VA with basic skills online at Odesk for 5-10 bucks an hour with great English.

If you are that strapped for cash, go find a web designer who is struggling to grow their business and offer to barter your time to help them. At least in this case, you’ll be coaching someone for an hour (FUN!) instead of clicking about your site (for most, NOT FUN!).

In summary …

Use the five keys and start focusing on your blogging process. Get it down to an hour or less, and you’ll grow your online image to guru status in no time!

Let me ask you …

Are you struggling to blog consistently? How long are your blogs taking? Where’s the resistance? How can you make things go easier? faster? funner? Got your own neato trick for getting your blogs done in good time?

I’d love to know. Please comment below!