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Time is a limited commodity! When you’re a busy mom, trying to grow a business from home, your time is precious. You only have so much of it.
When you’re first growing your business, doing everything on your own makes sense. Especially if you’re bootstrapping it like I was. But eventually, it makes sense to start paying for services to claim back some of your time.
The concept of trading money for time challenged me at first. After all, I could do it by myself. Then I remembered a phrase I’d learned earlier in my life:
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should
I was spending hours trying to do it all with free resources. It took me a while, but eventually I realized I was paying. Just not with cash. Time was my payment.
I had less time to do other tasks. Overwhelmed constantly became my life. When I slowly began paying for some tools or services, I realized how relieved I felt. I no longer had to spend time researching a problem with my website to find an answer. I just found someone who already knew the answer and let them fix it for me. Phew!
I didn’t have to worry about
There are so many time saving services available to help. If you have the money, it’s worthwhile to pay for the services you need.
Here are some services I’m using to save time. Some of these links are affiliate links.
ConvertKit
When I first started trying to grow my list, I used a free MailChimp account. It worked well, until I wanted to add a second freebie.
Then I realized if anyone signed up for both of my freebies, they’d now be on my list twice. I didn’t want to waste time trying to sort and filter and figure it out.
I knew a paid account was the way to go, to save my sanity and streamline my list growing efforts.
After doing much research and asking other bloggers what they were using, I settled on ConvertKit. I’ve been using them for well over a year, and have never been disappointed I made the switch.
ConvertKit:
- Tags people based on which opt-in they use.
- Emails once a week to remind me to send an email (love this!)
- Lets me filter my list to send emails only to certain groups of subscribers.
- Has an easy to use editor to prepare my emails (no design, no dragging and dropping blocks, just simple!)
- Features easy to use landing pages and opt-in forms.
- Integrates with other programs I use.
- Makes it easy to create sequences.
Blog Maintenance
I was doing okay maintaining my blogs, keeping up to date with updates and everything. But, with more than one blog it started taking more time.
I’d heard good things about Grayson and the work he does on blogs. So I signed up for a maintenance plan with his company, iMark Interactive. Since then, he’s moved one of my sites off of GoDaddy and onto BlueHost, fixed an issue I was having with the timezone, and taken care of some other problems.
When I couldn’t log into my website, I didn’t have to fret, or start searching for YouTube videos hoping I could fix it. I just emailed Grayson and he fixed it for me, very quickly! Such a relief.
Social Media Schedulers
I like Board Booster to automate my pinning. Since I started using this, I’ve seen a definite increase in page views, clicks, and follows.
Once a week, I go through and pin a bunch of pins to my secret boards. Board Booster automatically moves them for me throughout the week, pinning to the boards I selected. The looping feature has also been helpful, though I know I still could utilize it more.
Virtual Assistance and Content Creation
Sometimes, I hire someone to make images for my blogs for me. I can do it, but it takes me longer than I care to spend. I’ve also hired people to write articles for me after I had my baby and wanted to take some time off.
If you need extra help, there’s nothing wrong with hiring someone else to do it for you! In fact, if you need some posts written or some virtual assistant help, remember you can hire me!
What Time Saving Tools Do You Purchase?
What have you purchased to save time? Tell me in the comments!
Lisa Tanner is a former teacher turned homeschooling mom with 11 kids. She's also a successful freelance writer. Lisa enjoys helping other busy moms find time to start and grow a side hustle of their own.
