A few years ago I was speaking at a conference in Arizona when I was asked, “what do you say to teachers who say I don’t have time for a blog?” I’ve been asked many variations on that question in the years since. Here’s my advice:

First, don’t think of blogging as something you have to do on a daily basis. Some of my favorite bloggers only publish once or twice a week. Set a goal of writing one post per week to start. Think of the activity as simply a way to document your reflections on what you tried in your classroom that week or what you’re thinking about trying next week. Reflecting on what we’re doing should be a part of our lives anyway. I set aside time each week to mind map ideas for future blog posts.

Second, think about a blog as a living document. You don’t have to publish complete thoughts in every post. Start a thought and ask readers to join in a conversation. Spelling and grammar don’t count as much as think they do. The goal is to publish not practice proof-reading. Of course, if you do see a glaring mistake you can go back and fix it.

Third, think about all of the time that you spend on activities that don’t benefit you or anyone else. In a typical one hour television program you will see twelve minutes of commercials. How many television shows are in your weekly “must watch” list? Use those commercial breaks to tap away at a blog post. How much time do you spend waiting in traffic? Use an app like Anchor.fm to create a mini-podcast that you later post on your blog. Or use speech to text function to dictate part of a blog post.

Need help getting a blog started or re-started? Check out my Winning Blog Strategies webinar.