How to cope without broadband as a blogger

As a blogger, one of the worst things that can happen is having no broadband.  While it can be quite relaxing without it – if it’s a planned break – when it’s unexpected, it can prove a little stressful especially if you’ve got a lot of outstanding sponsored content due to be published.

Last summer I had nearly a month of no broadband for a couple of reasons.

The first was going camping to a campsite where the promised broadband was non-existent.  I had a couple of posts drafted and ready just to hit publish, so it was a little annoying, but manageable because I just got them up on my phone when I was in an area with decent mobile signal and published or scheduled them.  Instead of posting 4 while away, I only put 2 posts up but that wasn’t too drastic.

But the worst was once I arrived back home to find out that my scheduled upgrade to faster broadband hadn’t worked, was never going to work, and that switching me back to copper cable wasn’t going to be a simple and quick process despite the cock up being down to BT’s over promising.  3 weeks and a lot of phone calls and emails later, I had wifi back again, and had experienced quite a productive time away offline while at home.

Most people lose broadband when they move home, but sometimes it’s more drastic like my experience.  So as a blogger what can you do to cope without it?

How to cope without broadband as a blogger?

1, Access broadband another way

Via mobile data (but check your data package because I easily went over mine just in a few days) or via free wifi hotspots.  In the UK if you’re with BT you have free access to BT hotpots, and if you go into any town you’ll likely find access to free wifi at coffee shops, libraries, shopping centres and cafes.  Or if your work give you access, do little bits outside working hours.

While you have access, update your social media, set up an out of office to explain that responses may take a while and generally let people you talk to online know that you’re still around but incommunicado – because people do worry if you’re not on social media at the usual times.

If you can’t access wifi elsewhere:

2, Read (a lot)

If you have a rss reader like Feedly, you can usually access these on your phone via an app or download them when on wifi so you can access them offline.  In this way you can keep up to date with blogs you follow, and if you can’t comment at the time on the blogs, write your comments in a notepad app, then once online again simply copy the comment into the relevant blog post.

Otherwise read books or magazines on subjects that will progress your blog or that just interest you – photography, design, coding, magazines on your niche.

3, Write draft posts

When I had no broadband for 3 weeks, I wrote a couple of posts every evening without being distracted by social media.  It helped me realise how much I would usually write with other windows open and therefore my posts would take ages to write.  Now I try and write in OneNote with nothing else open.  By the time I was back online I had around 35 posts written and draft titles of another 10-15 posts.  That meant I had plenty of posts to schedule or use as and when in between the immediate posts I needed to write.

4, Take and edit photos

Being offline is a great opportunity to get ahead with photography.  If you take your own blog photos (and yes you should do this where possible), take lots of stock photos, and then make all your edits ready for when you need them.  Editing is one of those jobs that often gets rushed and left til the last minute, so having that time free to do it is productive.

5, Work on your blog design

Yes it might sound weird, but if you’ve been thinking of redesigning or changing topics, then use the time for planning.  You can create a moodboard from magazines, packaging, photos and materials you like, take fonts from magazines, or create your own designs and a new layout in a sketch.

6, Visit places and do things that you can blog about

If you’re a travel blogger or write about family activities then make the most of the time you have.  Craft, create recipes, photograph, garden, upcycle, visit places.

7, Socialise with real people / have family time

Do all the things you used to do before you spend all your time online.  Get fit, see real life friends, spend time with family.  And non of it needs to be blogged about (unless you save information until you’re back online).

8, SLEEP

Because lots of bloggers especially those with kids or day jobs, spend late nights blogging and promoting.

Have you been through a period without the internet?  How did you cope?  What did you replace your blogging time with?

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