Maintaining consistency for your blog can be quite a challenge. There are a lot of areas to cover: making sure your posts are updated regularly, maintaining the quality of the content, keeping up with trends, moderating feedback etc.

As a result of this need to keep up with readers’ expectations, bloggers have to effectively use whatever time they have available. What they need is sound time management.

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This is why I’ve listed a few tips here that you might find useful. These are merely suggestions, some of you here may prefer a less rigid approach to time management when you’re writing something creative and original. You may prefer putting the art above delivery. For myself, I would prefer a balance between spontaneity and structure to make sure I still keep up with my deadlines for submitting my entries.

Recommended Reading: Popular (But Bad) Blogging Advice You Should Ignore

1. Catch Ideas As They Pop Up Unexpectedly

Like how writers and people of influence like to keep journals to jot down their experiences, feelings and thoughts, bloggers can also follow this practice to get ideas for their blog material. Apart from providing you with original ideas for your writing, jotting down those ideas as they pop up will save you a significant amount of time in the brainstorming process.

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By the time you settle down to write your piece, you’d have quite a number of ideas in hand to work with. Our mind works best by means of association, so it’s easy to flow from one idea to another when you already have a few good leads to start from.

This is also the best exit strategy from writer’s block. Instead of starting with a blank slate, you can continue on from what you’ve already gathered from your jotted ideas.

Recommended Reading: Bloggers: 23 Ways To Counter Writer’s Block

2. Plan an Outline Prior to Writing

After you gather all the ideas in your head and on your notepad, you should start off with an outline of what your post will be about. Doing a simple outline first enables you to make changes or add ideas easily.

You can also link all sorts of random ideas together to make a coherent and convincing piece. With this basic structure of how your piece is going to flow, all your thought processes will have a clearer direction, which is essential to keep your writing in track.

It will be easier to churn out the final piece, overcome writer’s block and can prevent or minimize the possibility of double work (in which case, you don’t have to start on the same project from scratch).

3. Sticking to a Routine

Humans are creatures of habit. Once you’ve started yourself off with a set of routines, follow through it day-by-day, you’ll find that it’s not easy to break the streak. That’s good for you as a blogger because that means you have a system, and that system will help you meet deadlines.

The best thing about systems is that you can pick the best time of the day to write and then build your routine around it. It takes a bit of experimentation to get the right period for the right task.

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Maybe you are the nocturnal type, who prefer to write during the wee hours of the night. It doesn’t matter; what matters is that you fix a schedule for your tasks, then it will be harder to procrastinate. Habits may take some time to form, but once formed, it is equally hard to break them.

You may interested in: Tips And Tricks For Writing Fast (And Professionally!)

4. Deal With One Thing at a Time

While working on your masterpiece, it’s often too easy to get distracted by other activities running in the background. You may have social messengers and video-streaming sites to check out, or personal emails to attend to. You may console yourself by thinking that you’re multi-tasking and getting everything done at the same time, but you’re just distracted.

Try to focus on just one thing at a time. It’s an effective time management mindset because it instills discipline in what you do. This also ensures that your mind doesn’t wander from one task to another and that you won’t lose your train of thought.

Everytime you do ‘get lost’, your mind needs to trace back to where you stopped to resume the thought process. It wastes an inordinate amount of time when every distraction adds up.

5. Have a Priority List

Listing things is one of the most basic way to manage time. If keeping such lists is a lifesaver for you, then a priority list is your guardian angel. In a priority list, you get to rank the order of importance of each task so that you can pay attention to the most urgent ones.

The list comes to be, based on the weight you put on each task. Need it completed earlier or need more time with it? Put it higher up the list. Can skip or forgo a certain task? Then, put it lower down the list.

The idea is to concentrate more on tasks that need to be completed earlier. For this to work, we can’t choose to do things based on how easy it is to complete or based on our personal preferences. Prioritization benefits your time management by first highlighting to you what needs your attention first.

The credit card is one of the easiest payment tools that could be thought up. It makes for easy transactions of large amounts, and minimizes your losses as you need not carry so much cash on you all the time. However, it can work only if the merchant accepts credit cards (and not all merchants accept all kinds of credit cards). Plus, you can only swipe your card if the merchant has a credit card machine.

So what happens when you order home delivery, or get some plumbing or renovation work done and you can’t find enough cash on you to pay them? You can’t expect them to carry a credit card machine around, do you? Well, actually now you can. As long as they have a smartphone on them, they can use the following options to accept your payment via credit card.

Recommended Reading: Mobile Payment Systems: The Era Of A Cashless Future

From Smartphone to Card Reader

Briefly, the merchant needs a mobile app and a card reader, which comes in the form of a piece of plastic (called a dongle). The card reader is plugged into the phone and the app activated. As the receiver of the payment, all you need to do is just punch in the amount for the purchase, swipe your customer’s credit card through the reader, then get their signature to authorize the payment.

Alternatively, credit cards can be manually keyed in, but there are higher transaction fees charged. Electronic receipts can usually be sent to the buyer’s emails for verification and book-keeping purposes. Here are 10 of the most popular credit card payment systems you can adopt.

1. Square Register

Square Register offers a costly yet attractive monthly flat rate that forgoes pay-per-transaction fees, which is good news for those of you who make large payments on a regular basis. It also ensures speedy payment (by the next day), and provides email notification whenever a customer deposits a payment into your bank account.

If you wish to develop a loyalty program for your customer, the Square dashboard offers some level of customizability as well. It also extends to purchase receipts, where you have the option of putting your business name and logo on them and letting your customers choose whether to get these receipts as text, email or printed out on a paper. Last but not least, Square Register’s free card reader is only an inch long and fits right into your pocket.

Fees: 2.75% (swiped), 3.50% + $0.15 (keyed-in) or a flat rate of $275 a month.

Download: iOS | Android

2. PayPal Here

One thing which other mobile payment services couldn’t match up to PayPal Here is that payment funds are deposited into your PayPal account within minutes of the transaction. It also offers you an optional PayPal merchant debit card which you can then use the funds to make eligible purchases and get 1% cashback from them.

PayPal Here also accepts cheques. All you need to do is take a photograph of the front and back of the cheque to process it. Similarly, you can take photographs of the credit or debit card if you do not have the reader with you, but you will still need to key in the security and zip code manually. PayPal will also charge you the keyed-in rate for that.

Fees: 2.70% (swiped), 3.50% + $0.15 (/keyed-in)

Download: iOS | Android

3. Payleven

The selling point of Payleven is the recently added security feature provided by their Chip & PIN device which can be remotely linked to a smartphone or tablet through Bluetooth. Customers will be required to enter their PIN on the device to authorize the transaction.

This is especially relevant if you’re doing your business in Europe, where VISA only allows Chip & PIN authorizations for European mobile Point-of-Sale (POS) solutions. When you include VISA card holders into your market, you expand your customer base.

Fees: 2.75% per transaction

Download: iPad | iPhone | Android

4. iZettle

Currently only available in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Germany and the UK, iZettle assures online merchants that their mobile payment service is a highly secured one that is EMV- (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) approved and complies with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) regulations.

No sensitive data will be stored on the mobile device and all data traffic will be encrypted. For an optional one-time fee of £20, you can request for an original chip-card reader (for iPhone and iPad) or audio jack reader (for Android devices). A £20 credit voucher will also be given to you to offset your initial transaction fees.

Fees: 2.75% (swiped), 3.5% + €0.15 (keyed-in).

Download: iOS | Android

5. PayAnywhere

The credit card reader is free, but if you happen to have already purchased one from a retail store, PayAnywhere is generous enough to rebate you $10 after your first swiped transaction. It also has extensive smartphone support with Apple, Android and BlackBerry mobile devices.

Similar to Square Register, PayAnywhere also deposits funds into your bank account expeditiously within two business days and will inform you via email when they do so. For sales reports and such, you will have the option of viewing them within the PayAnywhere app or by logging into the PayAnywhere Merchant Portal online.

Fees: 2.69% (swiped), 3.49% + $0.19 (keyed-in)

Download: iPhone | Android | Blackberry

6. Intuit GoPayment

Intuit GoPayment is an excellent choice for small businesses due to its multiple users function. Each account supports up to 50 users in the event that you have several people taking payments. This makes it easier for the company to manage their user content and subscription fees.

Full refunds can also be made for the original transaction amount on-the-spot, but partial refunds have to be done through Intuit’s web interface. Funds are deposited into your bank account within 2-3 days as well.

Fees:
Non-subscription (free) – 2.75% (swiped), 3.75% (keyed-in)
Subscription ($12.95/mth) – 1.75% (swiped), 2.75% (keyed-in).

Download: iOS | Android

7. VeriFone SAIL

Verifone SAIL contains a comprehensive inventory management system that comes complete with barcode scanning function. It even allows you to sync inventory items across different mobile devices and through its web interface, so that it doesn’t inconvenience you when you need to take payments with multiple devices and at different locations.

Unlike many others in the market, it also has a full-fledged 24/7 customer support service complete with live phone support.

Fees:
Non-subscription (free) – 2.70% (swiped), 3.70% (keyed-in)
Subscription ($9.95/month) – 1.95% (swiped), 2.95% (keyed-in)

Download: iOS | Android

8. Swiff

Swiff is the only mobile payment service in this list that offers Multi-Factor Authentication. With this enhanced security feature, online merchants can monitor transactions on the mobile device, from authorizations to location of transactions.

If you intend to authorize staff to process credit card paymenst on their mobile devices, this feature will enable you to detect fraud at the earliest opportunity. Further, Swiff also supports a large number of Apple and Android devices for you or your staff to conduct the payment transactions.

Fees: Negotiable, depending on local bank charges, country of operation and nature of business

Download: iOS | Android

9. PhoneSwipe

In PhoneSwipe (available only in he US), a single merchant account can be linked to multiple card readers so as to afford you with the ease of processing credit card payments on different mobile devices. It also has Geo Tax, a system you can turn on, which automatically calculates the tax percentages based on your location.

The account is also unique to each merchant as an added security feature. In other words, your account will not be shared with merchants and exposed to potential fraud.

Fees: 2.69% (swiped), 3.49% + $0.19 (keyed-in)

Download: iOS | Android | Blackberry

10. Groupon Payments

Groupon Payments offers Groupon merchants the lowest rates for credit card transactions, be it swiped or manual key-in, except for the case of American Express cards where the rate can go up to 3.50% (swiped) depending on your industry category.

Groupon Merchants refer to merchants who have already signed up an account with Groupon to run daily deals. Not to worry though, the entire sign-up takes only 10 minutes to complete. Groupon Payments is therefore meant as an added incentive to encourage existing online merchants to work with Groupon.

Fees: 1.80% + $0.15 (swiped), 2.30% + $0.15 (keyed-in)

Download: iOS

Are you making a switch from an iOS devices to Android operating system smartphone? If you are, this trick is good for you. Transferring your media files, contacts, calendar to Android you would be no problem. The tricky part is how to transfer your iPhone text messages to your Android smartphone.

iPhone text message formats are not Android-friendly which is why you need to convert if first to a format that your Android phone can read.

So if you’re at the edge of wanting to leave the iPhone wagon behind but got held because you can’t find a way to transfer your messages, all you need is these few steps to make that jump.

Recommended Reading: 20 Essential Apps For Your Android Phone

1. Extract iPhone Messages File

First of all we have to extract the message files. To do this, open up iTunes and connect your iPhone to your computer. On the left bar, right click your iPhone and select ‘Backup’.

Next, to locate the backup file.

• For Windows users: C://[Users]/[Username]/AppData/Roaming/Apple Computer/Mobile Sync
• For Mac OS users: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

You will see folders with random characters; open the one with the most recent timestamp. Search for file 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 . To make searching easier for you, just copy and paste the file name into the search box.

After locating the file, transfer it to your Android phone by copying and pasting the 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 file to your Android phone SD card/ storage.

2. Convert iPhone Messages to Android format

To start converting your iPhone messages to Android format, you need iSMS2droid.

Open iSMS2droid and tap on ‘Select iPhone SMS Database’. It will ask you to search for your iOS messages backup file. Locate and choose the 3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28 file.

You can choose to select which messages you want to load or you can choose to load all of them. The conversion will then start.

3. Restore iPhone Messages to Android Phone

After the conversion, you will need another app help restore it into your Android phone. Download SMS Backup & Restore. Open it and tap on Restore and it will direct you to the file directory where the converted files are. Tap OK.

You can choose to restore all messages or to only restore messages from a particular date. Tap OK to start restoring. You will be asked if you want to check for duplicates of messages during the restoration process.

Upon completion, you will see the number of successful messages restored, as well as those that cannot be restored.

Double check your messages in your Inbox to find all your perfectly restored messages.