I’ve got a question: how many of you planned to start blogging on regular basis but failed to materialize it? I comprehend many hands being raised up! We all feel the sneaky pull of procrastination from time to time, particularly when blogging. There is so much to do, so much to learn, so much to keep track of.

According to Joseph Ferrari, author of Still Procrastinating: The No Regret Guide to Getting It Done, around 20 percent of U.S. adults are chronic procrastinators. Unfortunately, this can have a serious impact on a number of life areas, including mental health.

Are you a big-time procrastinator?

• You frequently pull all-night to finish off a project
• You constantly get distracted by everything
• You’re a disorganized mess
• You’re always putting things off for later
• You look for the right moment to start up
• You want food break after every 15 minutes

If the answer is yes, now it’s time to change your procrastinating habits to get things done.

But how in the world would you get out of the trap of procrastination? How do you stay active when you’re blogging? Personal Kanban Boards could just be your savior.

Is Kanban for Me?

It all started in the early 1940s, the birth of lean manufacturing, and the Toyota Production System. Kanban was made with the aim of creating a simple planning system to control and manage work at every stage of production.

For bloggers, it is normal to feel overwhelmed by work and experience burnout With Kanban tool, you can easily get hold of your blogging list. It is a simple concept of visualizing the work and finding ways to speed up the work completion. So, down here are some ways to use Kanban to speed up your working process and beat procrastination.

Kanban Board Fights Procrastination

• Break Big Tasks into Small, Actionable Steps

When you encounter a big task, it brings along stress and more probability to procrastinate. These big tasks seem insurmountable. Spend time on your Kanban board and reduce big tasks into small chores. There is a lot that goes into for a blogger.

• Small tasks will not be overwhelming
• You’ll better know where to begin
• It will clear you of all the priorities
• It becomes easier to move tasks to completion

How to break down a large project (for example a blog post) into small tasks will help you?

Idea → Research Stage → Outline Stage → Draft Stage → Edit Stage →  Publish → Promotion Stage

You can break your blog post into small tasks by defining each task in each stage. Handling tasks in each stage will make be a breeze.

• Set Smart Deadlines to Keep Work On

This is a good method for all classic procrastinators — those who put off tasks for later and later never really hits. A single act of procrastination will keep you rolling in the vicious circle of procrastinating forever. So, in many situations, setting due dates for your tasks can help you. But keep in mind to maintain the quality along with quantity. Don’t hurry up so much that the quality of your blog content suffers leading to no growth.

How does one set the due date? You can set a deadline on Kanban cards for a particular task in any particular stage on your board. Your Kanban Board in any will notify you about your due date and remind you when a task is coming up.

• Blogger’s Milestones to be Consistent

Wouldn’t it be great if there were milestones to help you figure out if you’re on the right path? Probably you’ve got really big goals for your blog and you definitely do not want to go astray from your path. When you set milestones, it lets you see real progress you’re making, motivating you to not put off things for later. Pick blog posts for a week, break it down into individual milestones. Create weekly or monthly milestones on Kanban depending on your posting schedule. Make sure you clearly define each milestone, like:

• Different phases (e.g. collecting ideas and research)
• Different categories (e.g. giveaway post, social post, link post, review post)
• Different parts (e.g. tips, suggestions, opinions)
• Getting your blog up running
• After the first post is up, publishing the second post
• Getting your first subscriber/follower/tweet/share
• Getting X number of visitors/traffic
• Making your first dollar
• Getting a “wow” email from your fan/reader

• Limit Work in Progress (WIP)

We all have different goals for our blog but it’s very important to keep assessing the progress because blogging really takes a lot of effort. From start to end, the process can get a bit overwhelming, therefore, Kanban Boards let you define the number of tasks you can include in a list with work in progress limits or WIP limits for short. For example, you can only write three posts per week, so you can add a WIP limit of three cards to the column titled “to-do.” If you add too many, the tool will warn you there are already too many things to do. It will always keep you on track to get more done or do as planned: beating procrastination.

Visualization of Workflow

Kanban board is awesome for organizing your blog posts, to give a complete visual overview of every task. The boards will provide you a quick way to keep everything in place to asses what needs to be done right now and what can be done later. How to map your workflow?

1. Idea — All post ideas start in this stage
2. Research — In this stage go for deeper research on your ideas
3. Outline + Draft — Start working on the post
4. Review — to eliminate any flaws
5. Ready to Publish

Kanban board is like a task management software to visualize the workflow of your blog posts. It is your planning board where you can spend time to have a pre-defined process to get through a smooth blogging process.

Mastering procrastination is winning control over your own life. It’s time to start improving now to reach the level of satisfaction and fulfillment. Take your blogging deadly seriously that you might have left before it gets a tad bit late. If you set your mind to fight procrastination, you can do it. Trust me!

Happy blogging!

This article is a contribution from Vartika Kashyap from ProofHub