6 Ways to Improve Your Content Creation Workflow

Are you on the verge of burnout from creating content for social media?

Does creating content drain your energy?

Creating content doesn’t have to feel like a never-ending daunting task. It can actually be quite easy if you implement some time-management principles to your content marketing workflow. 

In this article, I’m going to share some ways you can improve your content creation workflow to help you save time every time you sit down to create your content.

A content creation workflow is a series of tasks or actions that you take that move you closer to the finish line. To put this into action, there are a few simple tools you’ll need. 

Here are the tools you’ll need to help improve your content creation workflow:

• A piece of paper to list out the steps you need to take to get you from ideation to completion (e.g. keyword research, outline blog post, write a blog post, edit a blog post, design graphics, publish, etc.) 
• A timer so that you can track how long it takes you to complete your tasks. You could also use Toggl to help you track your progress. You want to track how much time you take to complete each task so that you can improve your workflow or eliminate unnecessary steps. 
• A project management tool that helps you keep track of your projects and tasks that are part of your content creation workflow (e.g. Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Notion, etc). 

Here are some time management techniques that will help you maximize your content creation workflow:

1. Theme Your Days:

If you’re having a hard time getting your content creation tasks done, try theming your day. Theming your days (similar to a workout schedule or class schedule), helps you eliminate distractions and helps you focus on tasks that fall within that theme.

For example, if on Mondays you decide to focus on writing, you can spend a portion of your day writing an outline to a blog post or video script or writing the captions for your Instagram posts. 

This approach can come in handy if you feel like you’re scattered and don’t feel like you’re making progress with your content creation workflow. 

Here’s an example of how theming your days could look:

M – Writing 
T –  Designing
W – Editing blog post
TH – Editing captions
F – Scheduling

Related: Content Calendar: How to Create One and What to Include

Content Calendar Template

If you’re interested, check out this Airtable Content Calendar template that comes with 10 templates to help you stay strategically focused on your content marketing efforts. 

Get access to this course and content calendar that helps you maximize your channel distribution and helps you with your content marketing.

2. Batch Your Work

When you batch your work, you can group similar tasks to help make sure you’re not task-switching.

Multi-tasking doesn’t make us more productive so don’t waste your time jumping from random tasks to another. 

Instead, stay in your zone of genius by batching similar tasks together.

Here’s an example of how you might batch similar tasks together:

M – Writing  (e.g. blog post, script your video, write social media captions)
T –  Designing (e.g. Pinterest graphics, YouTube thumbnail, social media graphics)
W – Editing blog post (e.g. editing blog post, script, video or photos)
TH – Editing captions (e.g. editing social media posts)
F – Scheduling (e.g. scheduling all content)

When you batch similar tasks together, you’ll be able to tackle a project into more digestible chunks and it will help improve your productivity and overall workflow. 

➜ See how you can use Airtable to help you manage your content calendar.

3. Focus on one project at a time

How is all of that multitasking and task-switching working out for you? 

Are you checking things off of your to-do list?

Chances are that if you’re jumping from task to task, you’re probably completing a few things here and there and not being as effective if you took a different approach and applied laser focus to a project at a time.

Juggling multiple projects is needed, I get it, but my point here is that you need to aggressively apply some laser focus to one task at a time to move it to the finish line.

What I recommend you do here is to apply project sprints into your work. 

You’ll want to create a project sprint that is somewhere between 1-2 weeks long (or less). Aim to stay focused and avoid adding more than 3 important per day. By important tasks, I’m talking about moving-the-needle-type of tasks and complete them each day.

Practicing project sprints gives you a boost in confidence and will help you maintain momentum in your short and long-term goals and projects because you’ll see progress being made. 

You’ll also notice your output improve because you’re moving and completing projects with laser focus. 

Give project sprints a try and implement the following approach to your content creation workflow:

• Focus on one project at a time
• Work in project sprints that last anywhere from 1-2 weeks (or less).
• Break down your project into small digestible tasks
• Aim for 3-5 (no more than 5) important tasks per day

4. Create a weekly schedule

You have a lot you want to accomplish and chances are you’re always feeling overambitious with what you can complete in a day or in a week.

In order for you to visually see how your work and projects fit into your schedule, make sure you’re creating a weekly schedule.

Start by adding in important appointments, routines or personal items (e.g. such as exercise, doctor’s appointments, cooking, cleaning or family time). Then implement a time-blocking schedule where you identify times in which you will complete important content creation tasks.

You want to make sure you can implement your content creation workflow and the best way to do that is by setting aside time to complete the tasks that support your projects. 

5. Identify Your Publishing Schedule

How often will you be publishing content online? 

Are you publishing a weekly blog post? Or are you producing a weekly podcast episode?

Identify the frequency of how often you’ll be publishing content and work backward. 

Make sure your publishing date is identified in your weekly calendar and then identify the tasks or actions needed to meet your publishing schedule. 

Maximize your channel strategy and marketing efforts using Airtable!​ Check out this content calendar that will help you organize and streamline your content marketing.

Content Calendar Template

This calendar has the foundational elements built into it that will help you be more strategic with the content and marketing activities you’re focusing on.

6. 80/20 Your Marketing

Make sure you audit which channels you should invest more time on and go all in and double down on that platform. The Pareto Principle can be an effective way to view your input and output of work. 

The Pareto Principle states that 80% of your results are from 20 percent of your actions. You can apply the 80/20 rule to a platform that are the best performing for your brand or business. 

So make sure you’re maximizing your content creation workflow by identifying what those 20% actions should be.

Remember to stick to your consistent publishing schedule—even when people aren’t reading or engaging—keep improving, iterating, auditing and refining your work and workflow. 

Taking action will help you improve the quality of your work and help you improve your content creation workflow over time.

Which of these time-management techniques will you try and implement in your content creation workflow?