Being a blogger can be as demanding a job as any in some ways.
Sure you get to make your own hours and take a month off if you want to and still get paid, but you also need to file taxes and there are programs to make your life easier.
Here are a list of tools I’ve found most helpful during my career as a professional blogger.
Mind Master
It took me a while to get around to trying this after it was recommend to me but I loved it as soon as I did.
The main use for this tool is to map out your content. This was extremely helpful when I was creating my travel blog.
I had tried spread sheets and graphs in documents but it felt like I was trying to work around a broken system instead of the system working for me.
Mind Master on the other hand did everything I needed and gave me all the options I wanted but didn’t have with other tools.
I was able to break the topics down by topic like country or continent all the way down to the nitty gritty.
One of my favorite features is that I can hide parts of the graph that aren’t useful to me at this point so I don’t get overwhelmed.
Also, I found being able to change the color of individual boxes on the graph very helpful for marking off what I’ve already done.
Another thing I found really helpful is that each project has an option for related tabs. I liked using these to create a sister graph for YouTube videos I’d be creating related to these same topics.
So, Mind Master helped me get the content out of my head and on to a graph. It also let me see and picture how my site would be mapped out and how things would relate to each other.
Air Table
There is so much you can do with Air Table that I don’t evne know where to begin.
I mostly use it as a digital filing system. They have sections to keep names and details on contacts which is great for media and sponsored partnerships.
It also helps me keep track of expenses I can deduct come tax time. It even lets me clip my recipes from donations and other things so I have them when I need them.
Evernote
Evernote is great for many things but I like it best for clipping articles I want to refer back to in the near future.
This can be a great tool to use for inspiration or to use to compare a number of articles on the same topic.
Google Spread Sheets
I love using Google Spread Sheets to break down topics I want to address into categories. I found this supper helpful for my food blog.
What I did was, I took a spread sheet and made a list of categorize I’d want to address such as desserts, dinner, bread, etc.
Then I put anything that fit into these categorizes in those columns. For example: Dessert – chocolate cake, brownies, apple pie. Or Dinner – chicken pot pie, burgers, roasted chicken.
What I really love about using Google spread sheets is I can access it on both my computer and my phone.
Google Docs
I use Google Docs to write most of my posts for my food blog. I’d use it for all my blogs but they don’t yet have the option for files do divide up posts per blog.
I got this tip from Smart Passive Income and it’s been very helpful. My favorite thing about it is that I can access it from both my phone and computer.
Also, it’s nice having an original copy to refer back to when things go wrong. I’ve had to do this a couple times and it assured me that the recipe was correct so it had to be something else causing the problems.
I find Pinterst to be a source of inspiration. Sometimes seeing what others are doing can give you ideas for something similar you can do.
For instance, if I see a post relating to Germany but think that would be a great topic to write about Chicago. Or, I see a cranberry apple pie and think cranberry apple cobbler could be delicious.
Sometimes it’s just a great way to get inspiration for how you want to take a photo or how you want the text on your pin to look.
I really love that you can make boards per topic, keep them secret if it doesn’t suit the rest of your boards, and create categories within the boards.