I’ve been a content strategist, writer, and graphic designer for seven years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that our time is more valuable than money.

You can always get more money. Even if you’re broke or poor right now. There are always ways.

But the clock is ticking, time is passing, and one day we’ll run out of time.

But this is why, when you’re creating content for your business—which I hope you are in today’s digital age—you need to be optimizing the way you do it. And I’m going to show you six hacks to be a content creator pro.

1. Create and Use Templates

Whether you’re creating video content, graphics, or documents, the best way to streamline your work is to use templates.

You can spend hours just on the setting up of your content. By using a resource like Canva, which is free, you can set up templates for just about any kind of content you want to create.

This will save you hours every month—huzzah!

2. Create a Content Calendar

Do you post irregularly without any kind of strategy? A content calendar will solve 50% of those issues.

You can strategize, organize, and plan your content ahead of time so you won’t be left scrambling at the last minute when you realize, “Shit, it’s Mother’s Day!”

3. Batch Your Content

Content batching is where you create a bunch of content in one session. This is particularly handy with video content that can take a lot of time to set up lighting and whatnot.

Batching all of your content for the month in a day or two saves you hours. And as I mentioned, time is a precious commodity.

Another reason why batching is effective is, that often when you’re working on one specific kind of task you can get into a state of flow a lot easier. This is also a more efficient way of spending your time.

4. Write Captions First

With social media, often we immediately go for the visual first and then try and write the caption to match it. But what I find can work a lot better is to write your captions first.

Writing the captions first can give you more creative freedom, and if you’re not as good with words it can also be easier for you to get that done first.

For example, let’s say something interesting happened that you want to share with your followers.

You already have an idea of what you want to write, so writing a caption first in this instance would be easier than choosing a visual first and then trying to write a caption to match.

This won’t work for everything. You might have content you’ve already created that you want to post, and you’d need to write captions for those. But on days when you don’t know what to post, think of an idea, write the caption, and then create a video or graphic to go with it.

There’s always more than one way to skin a cat.

5. Repurpose Repurpose Repurpose

Don’t reinvent the wheel with every piece of content. You don’t need to create brand-new content every single time. In fact, you’re pretty stupid if you do #SorryNotSorry.

You can repurpose existing content you’ve already created. All those blog posts you’ve written, videos you’ve created, content you never got around to posting, and even unfinished content sitting on your desk or on your hard drive.

For example, this blog post you’re reading right now can be made into a static infographic for social media. I can make it animated using Canva’s motion graphic feature. I can film a YouTube video talking about this topic, which can then be transferred as a podcast episode. I can then branch off and write a separate post on each point in this blog post, and then turn it into a series for an eBook or a paid course.

And it doesn’t stop there.

My point is, to think outside the box and really dig deep into ways you can leverage the content you’ve already created.

6. Schedule Those Suckers

If you’re still manually posting your content across your platforms then, dude, you need help. When you’re batching your content, you should also be scheduling your content so it’s all done ahead of time.

There are so many scheduling apps out there, and some of them are free or very affordable. So there’s no excuse.

Just a small disclaimer here: don’t just post and ghost.

Scheduling saves you time so you don’t have to manually do it on the day. But if you’re never showing your face on your channels, and never engaging with your audience, the algorithm isn’t going to favor your content.

Make sure you’re jumping online and making an appearance, and putting in an effort with your audience.

Become a Content Machine

These six hacks will streamline your content creation efforts, so use them. They’re there to help you become more successful and save some of your precious time.

Also Read: 15 Useful Websites You Need To Know About