It’s time to reframe how you feel about content creation.

I feel content creation gets a rough deal amongst talk in the small business world. It’s often referred to as a hassle, a chore, and a time suck. I think it’s unhelpful to your business to get caught up on these thoughts.

If you're creating content in a rush when you’re tired or with the feeling of “because I should” then this will effect the quality of what you publish. That’s not the kind of impression you want to give your audience is it!

Your content is your online shop window. You never know who might be quietly consuming your content on the verge of reaching out to buy from you, reframing how you feel about content into a positive fun activity will show and create far more energy in your online presence.

Negative feelings before you begin a task makes it harder to complete. If you can’t avoid the task (unless you want to outsource it 😉) then use your time wisely. Focus on what you find easiest to do and repurpose those bits. This will make everything feel more manageable and help you make the best use of your time.

In a hectic world of spinning many plates as a business owner, it’s really easy to spend all our time rushing around making burnout a real possibility. Planning time to sit and create content can actually be a chance to snatch a bit of time at a slower pace whilst still doing something productive for your business.

As I have already mentioned your content is your virtual shop window and your chance to shine to passers-by and give them shiny syndrome. With the bonus that in the case of social media it’s also FREE.

You want your content to give the best impression of your business, so my tips for making content creation a positive task on your to-do list are:

Don’t try to be in too many places at once.

It becomes a pressure to maintain, so choose one or two platforms based on where your potential customers are and which platforms you enjoy using. You’re far more likely to show up and shine if you like the “space.”

Create content in the format you feel good about.

These days most platforms have incorporated many types of content with them aside from the traditional written posts we now have stories, videos, options to go live, and let’s not forget reels. (If only we could). With so many features on platforms it can feel intimidating trying to do all the things on one platform alone.

My advice is don’t try!

If a particular feature feels like a hard slog then don’t force it. For example, reels take me ages to edit and get right so instead of forcing myself to create something that doesn’t come naturally I make content types that I feel more comfortable with such as posts and stories. I get much more done in the same amount of time it would take me for one reel. With the pressure off because I have content, if a reel idea pops into my head that excites my creativity it becomes fun to practice and is added content.

Remember the saying, some good more better.

The last tip is a biggie for me, especially now we have our second baby in the house.

Don’t think of the practicalities of creating content pieces as one big job.

Many people think when they sit down to write a blog or create social media posts, they have to be finished in one sitting. Be honest with yourself that’s rarely possible in busy households. Instead of getting stressed about not finding a big enough chunk of time in your diary to do tasks in one go embrace breaking the work that goes into pieces into stages that can be done in smaller time slots.

I talk a bit more about this in my blog post 10 tips to help you when life gets hectic.

Bonus tip, working on a piece of content in stages can even improve what you create, as stepping away and coming back makes it easier to proofread your own work. Having a process to follow when working in stages makes sure that when you pick up and put down a task nothing important gets missed. It can be something as simple as a tick list of elements. If you would like to try working this way I have some ready-made tools to help you with a wide variety of content types. Check out the full range at my Etsy store.

My blog planning tool, with all you need to keep track of the progress of the task so you can do it in stages with ease.