Starting an online business can take 30 minutes. With everything at a click, we can set up a business in no time. But growing it, along with your day job, can take 30,000 hours.  Don't get scared. Small baby steps taken daily will do wonders for you.

You need two things now:

For task management, have top to bottom approach. That means, have your big vision at first, then start dividing it into plans ,projects and small 1 day tasks.

Goals

You should know where you want to see your blog one year from now. Always have a big vision for your online business. This goal should broadly define your one purpose with your blog. 

Rules and regulations

To achieve your big vision, you have to set rules and regulations for yourself. This includes getting rid of time-consuming bad habits. 

As an example, with excessive alcohol consumption, you wake up with a hangover, leading to a waste of your morning hours. 

I made a rule not to have a heavy breakfast. It leads to lethargy and sleepiness, decreasing my evening productivity.

Plans

Plans are series of well-written steps that you make to accomplish your goal. After defining your goal for your blog, you have to plan how to achieve it. There will be series of plans and actions required for your goal. 

Project 

A project is small series of steps and actions that have a small outcome. For example, writing a blog post could be considered a project. Typically it is something completed in a week.

Tasks

The task is a small focused activity you do for a day to accomplish your project. Sometimes, you may have 2-3 projects going on with your blog. Hence tasks are defined as a primary unit of work for your projects. If two projects are going in parallel, you should complete two tasks of each project in a day.

Performance metrics

You can have a mathematical performance metric for your progress. Sometimes we don't know where we are heading. But these metrics can help us to measure our performance.

Reward yourself with points when you do a task. Quantify scores by their importance. For example, writing an email for subscribers is more important for business than setting a theme color for your website. Award more points for email writing. 

Check your metrics in the graph daily, weekly and monthly. You will see an uptrend or downtrend. In this way, you can know where you are heading.

Distractions are roadblocks towards your goal. You need to identify all the distractions and try to remove them as soon as possible. But first, understand what it is.

Distraction is anything that does not add value to your life and sway you away from your goals. A Netflix subscription is a distraction, but your kids are not. Clearly define what is a distraction in your life and what is not.

Make a list of all the distractions that consume your time without adding any value to your life.

The solution to avoid wasting time in distraction is to find something more meaningful in life. The blogging business you are going to set up should be important and interesting for you. Otherwise, you will fall prey to distractions again.

Division of departments always help. Define them concretely and set a goal for every department.

Our life is not only about business. It has family, friends, health, finances and much more. Hence name those things that matter to you the most. Define a goal in each and figure out plans and tasks to achieve your goals.

This way you can track your progress, without feeling overwhelmed. Also, everything in your life will be in your control.

The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, active choices. Even though the results are massive, the efforts don't feel significant at all. 

My story of weight loss by compound effect

I used it in my weight loss journey. Let me tell you my story. I was overweight. And nothing seems to work at that time.

I observed whatever I do there was no consistency in it. I use to start everything and then after few days forgot to do anything. And Bam! return to the original schedule.

I changed my approach. I started with a little change of avoiding packed food (made in industries) only. It contains hidden calories and is bad for health. Nothing big. Just any factory-produced food won't enter my mouth. I left tomato sauces, packed sauces, even chocolates(used homemade versions). 

Nothing changed much. But I can feel the difference in my digestion (You sometimes won't feel any difference at all). 

When things started changing

Then I observed my food choices are healthy now. But quantity is not controlled. I start with eliminating one chapati(Indian bread) from my one time meal. It is also not a big change. I just took more vegetables instead of that chappati. 

This was the fourth month with results. My weight went down by 5 pounds. 

I started applying the same principle in my exercise routine as well. I started with a small 5-minute yoga. Speed up to 1 year, I currently do a 35 minute Hath Yoga session with daily dance practice. Still increasing. 

I lost 28 pounds in one year and reached my ideal weight. My weight loss was consistent throughout. I never went to the gym in this one year. Never did any fad diets(I can't diet).  It's my second year and I didn't regain the weight loss.

This is how compounding works. Small steps taken daily can give you huge rewards. Those 5 mins sessions also contributed to my weight loss journey. When there is a time crunch, I still do them.

You can use this strategy for improving relationships, health, finances and your business. In this post, we will focus on using it to start and grow your blog business.

I want you to be able to manage time for your side business blog efficiently. But that won't happen overnight. If you are doing a day job, it is hard.

Doing a day job, doing household chores, spending time with family, and then taking out time for your side business seems to be overwhelming.

Don't worry. I have been doing this for a while now. I will tell you how exactly I manage my time for my blog. And I am happy this way because everything fits perfectly in my schedule.

Use the Compound effect to make small changes in your schedule. You will gradually increment time to your side business. These increments will be unnoticeable. You will reach towards launching your blog without even noticing the change you have made in your schedule.

It is always hard to start something new. So what happens when we start something new?

We start with great excitement and try to devote maximum time to it. Then that excitement slowly fades, we start returning to our routine schedule.

It is because our mind is still not trained for the new things in our schedule. It is still in sync with our old habits. Hence we need to slowly build our habits starting from tiny changes in our schedule.

I call this a 15-min rule. By this rule, you have to devote 15 minutes to your new task daily, without a miss. You will slowly develop a powerful habit of doing that new task. Just like you automatically brush your teeth daily, your new task will become part of your life.

Here, your new task is building your blogging business from scratch.

Refer this list of tasks you can accomplish by devoting just 15 mins to your business.

Now you are comfortable giving 15 mins to your blog in the morning and night. You are habitual of it now. Time doesn't feel much to you. Also, you completed all the small tasks planned for your blog.

Now is the time to devote more to your business. You will complete some intermediate tasks by increasing by 15 minutes each morning and night.

You can plan and complete these tasks in 30 minutes daily for your blog.

Weekends are time treasures. We can use this treasure for our business to grow. Plan all your major tasks for weekends. Devote at least 5 hrs to your blog on your weekends.

In these extra hours, you can plan all the big things you are working on.

Refer to these tasks you can complete in weekends.

There will always be a time-money tradeoff. Since you are doing a full-time job, I assume you are ready to spend money on your business.

Since we working people have a time crunch, we need to spend money on our business. No business is zero investment.

Where to invest money for saving time and maximum returns?

Email marketing provider will ensure smooth sending of emails and sales sequences to your subscribers. Your subscribers are the ones who said yes to your content. They will be the first to buy from your when you come up with a good product for them. Hence email marketing is a very important part of your business strategy.

I recommend FluentCRM for your email marketing. It is affordable, powerful and you can manage it inside WordPress only. It comes so easy to manage your subscribers and emails with it.

Read my guide for Top three tools to save time for your blog business setup.

Managing time is possible. Starting and nurturing your online business is possible with your day job. That too without sacrificing your time with your family and other important engagements.

Follow the plan I gave you here for both task and time management. If you have any questions or doubt regarding them, do comment it below.

I manage my time with the help of a diary and making plans on it. Do tell me in the comments, How are you managing your time.