I’ve had chronic illness and chronic pain since 2001, which means that as long as I’ve been a blogger, I’ve been a chronic illness blogger. I’ve learned a lot about how to blog around chronic illness symptoms, how to blog while having fatigue and pain. For those of you who want to blog but haven’t started to because you live with chronic illness, I figured I would share my tips. Starting a chronic illness blog isn’t always easy, but I hope that these tips help you succeed.

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Starting a Chronic Illness Blog: Tips for Blogging with Fatigue and Pain

Work in spurts – This is hands down my biggest tip. You don’t need to have a few hours straight at a time in order to get serious work done! Work in spurts when you have the time. 

Anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before the post is due to be published, I go through my notes and decide what topics I’m going to write about. Then, once I’ve decided on a topic and a title, I can outline my post, which enables me to get right into the thick of it when I have a moment. 

If I have a spare 15 minutes, I can crank out a hundred or so words for my post. I’m not going to go entirely into my blogging process, as I recently wrote a whole post about it, but working in spurts applies to every single step in it. 

It also applies to making my editorial calendar, writing and scheduling social media posts, doing various social media tasks in general, and really anything else related to blogging. That’s why I said that this is my biggest tip: it applies to everything.

My process for writing blog posts

Plan ahead – Planning ahead of time helps me make the most of my limited time. Especially because I only have a few hours a week to work on my blog! I often start my posts weeks ahead of time, which I can’t do unless I know what I want to write about, which is where my editorial calendar comes in. 

An editorial calendar is a calendar where you keep track of your blog post dates, categories, and topics ahead of time. Basically, you decide what you will write about on what days in a calendar format.

This will look different for different people; for some, the categories or topics in the calendar are more general, while for others, they are very specific. For example, my editorial calendar itself is very general 75% of the time; I write “health,” “lifestyle,” or “blogging,” which are my categories. If I have a specific post I want to write at a certain date, then I’ll write “holiday round-up” or “recent reads.”

The whole point for an editorial calendar is to help you stay organized, so you should find a system that works for you. These are tips that work for me and my brain. If they don’t work for you, then don’t force yourself to use them.

I have found my editorial calendar to be especially helpful now that I’m not writing as many blog posts as I used to. I went from posting 5 days a week to 3, and then I went to 2, and now I aim for 1-2. Since I’m writing fewer posts, being strategic in spreading out my content is more important than it ever was.

How to make an editorial calendar as a blogger

Schedule social media in advance – This has saved me so much stress over time! I schedule my Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest content in advance. I post questions, inspirational quotes, another blogger’s post, or some combination thereof on my Twitter and Facebook pages every day. This helps me interact with my audience, which, at least on Facebook, ensures that my posts reach them more in the future. It’s also great because then my Twitter and Facebook pages do not only post my own content. 

If you went to someone’s Twitter page and saw the only things they posted were their own blog posts, would you follow them? Probably not. If you saw they posted other things and were engaging with their followers, you would have another reason to follow them. 

Making sure that my pages do not post solely my content has helped grow my networks, which then gets more eyes in front of the posts that do share my content. I schedule my Twitter and Facebook content with Buffer.

How I manage social media platforms for my blog

As for Pinterest, it’s important to keep in mind that Pinterest is more than just a social network: it’s a search engine. Pinterest has brought in 50-80% of my blog traffic for years, and that’s because a) I share posts that, once again, are not just promotions of my content and b) when I do share my own content, it’s with SEO in mind. I also use Tailwind to schedule my Pinterest posts, which has been a lifesaver. It saves me so much time – I don’t have time to be on Pinterest 3 times a day, sharing posts to grow my following and such – and it is so worth the money.

I use Buffer to schedule Twitter and Facebook posts. With the Buffer subscription that I have, I can schedule up to 100 posts on each network (aka 200 posts total, not 100 across both). One thing I really like about it is you can look at your scheduled posts in a list or in a calendar format, which is very helpful when trying to figure out if a time is already being used for one post.

I use Tailwind to schedule my Pinterest posts and I LOVE it! Basically, I schedule 90% of my Pinterest traffic in advance. I schedule Pinterest promotions of my blog posts through Tailwind, both for new posts and for new pins for old(er) posts. What I love about that feature is that I can schedule posts to multiple boards and schedule the posts to be spread out over time, and there’s a button to schedule the posts at the best time for your posts.

How to get the most out of Tailwind for Pinterest

You can also use Tailwind to make new pins. Tailwind Create is Tailwind’s new smart tool for making new images. You add a link to a post, the title, choose some photos (including from stock images they have), and it makes a bunch of images. You choose which ones you like and download or schedule them! Are these pins the best ones? Not usually. But it’s easy and perfect for when you don’t have a lot of time or energy.

I also use Tailwind for Instagram. 

For years, I used Instagram scheduler apps that would send me a notification so I could automatically copy a picture and a caption to Instagram and then post them. However, I can’t usually be on Instagram during the day because I’m busy with my “day job”. As far as I know, Tailwind for Instagram is the only app that enables you to post directly to your Instagram while you’re not on your phone.

There are a few exceptions. 1) If you post what’s called a carousel, aka multiple images in 1 post, you can only choose a notification post. 2) If you want to schedule posting to your stories, you have to use a notification post. Otherwise, it can auto-post to Instagram when you’re not even on your phone.

Like with Tailwind for Pinterest, Tailwind for Instagram will tell you what the most ideal time(s) are to post to Instagram for you. Like with many Instagram schedulers, you can save hashtag lists so you’re not always using the same ones. It also gives you the option to post your hashtags in a separate comment, and you can schedule your Instagram post to go to your Facebook page or Pinterest profile if you want.

How to make a social media editorial calendar

Cut down on the number of posts for higher quality ones – This is something I did first when I started grad school and then again when I started my current job. Way back in 2014, I wrote 4 blog posts a week, but most of them were shorter (less than 500 words) and they weren’t great quality. I cut back to 3 posts a week in 2015 when I started grad school. Then, when I started my current job in June 2018, I cut back to 2, and when I added more working hours per week to that job, I cut back to writing 1 per week. 

I like to think that I’ve written better and better posts every year, but in order to do that without sacrificing my stress levels, I’ve needed to write fewer posts. I want to like writing posts. Now that I’ve been blogging for over 8 years, I know that I won’t like it 100% of the time, just like any hobby or job. But I don’t want to dread blogging or wish that I wasn’t doing it. And I know myself well enough to know that that means writing fewer blog posts.

Schedule your blog time – If your life is busy, your blog isn’t going to get written unless you dedicate time to it. By this I mean that you should make sure you have time to work on it. Scheduling your time can mean 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there, but make sure you have the time. This is helpful because you won’t be stressing about whether or not you’ll have the time to work on your blog. Additionally, this will help you get stuff done because you’ll be prepared to work at that time. 

Devote a large chunk of time on a regular basis – If your schedule permits it, devote an afternoon or so to get a ton done. Find your ideal productive behavior/situation and hunker down! This is a great time to focus on the aspects of blogging that maybe aren’t your favorite and/or you need to make yourself do. For me, this looks like making the Google doc for the post workable offline; putting on my working playlist, which is downloaded to my computer; putting on headphones; and turning off my Internet. I am the most productive when I’m not distracted!

25 Awesome Blog Post Ideas for Beginners

Wake up earlier or stay up later – Which one you do depends on whether you’re a morning or a night person. For me, I get up a bit earlier than usual. I’m a morning person and also don’t feel well at the end of the day, so I make sure to set aside time earlier in the morning. This is super necessary if you’re working a 9-5 day! When I was teaching, I didn’t get up early because I was already getting up at 5 or 5:30 AM, but I also got out of work in the early afternoon. I would go home and do some blogging and then do planning or grade, or vice versa.

There are several things I do every single morning during that time. One is that I manually pin 5-7 pins on Pinterest, as Pinterest itself shows your content more if you directly use their platform. You can’t only schedule pins. The other thing I do is make new pins on Canva for existing posts, as Pinterest also likes when you make new pins for existing content. I learned a lot about this from the incredible course Pinterest with Ell; it was one of the best investments I ever made for my blog.

This is also the time when I promote a new blog post if I have one and engage in Facebook groups for bloggers. Facebook groups are great for networking, as well as for asking questions. What does “networking” mean in this context? The biggest way this shows us is through engagement threads, like asking people to follow or engage with them. 

These threads are when a moderator makes a post giving instructions for a certain type of social media network. For example, comment with a link to an Instagram account or post you want follows/engagement on and reciprocate. The smallest number or reciprocation I’ve seen required is 3 and the largest is 10. I also make an effort to respond to questions people ask about blogging, which isn’t just to grow social media and my blog but to also build relationships with other bloggers.

But you don’t want to post your links without ever reciprocating. You can’t just expect people to give your blog attention without giving others’ attention, too. One of the best things about blogging is community: the community you create of your followers and the community of other bloggers. No one else gets exactly the highs and lows of blogging like other bloggers; when I explain blogging problems to others, I have to explain a lot of blogging backstory.

Besides, the best way to really build an audience is for someone to like your blog and share it with their friends and/or followers, and one way to do that is through these Facebook groups. But even if the Facebook group administrators don’t kick you out of the group, if you never reciprocate in these groups, the other members aren’t going to like you or want to engage with you.

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Find a rhythm that works for you – And all of this is to say that if you work best in a different way that I do, all of this might not work for you! But I do think that at least some, if not most, of these will. Try them to find what will work for you and if it doesn’t feel right or it doesn’t seem helpful, then don’t worry. Find the rhythm that does work for you, your life, and your productivity style.

Check out the resources I use to run my blog here. I hope they help you be the best blogger you can be!

What are your tips for blogging with a chronic illness?

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