This guest post is by Brian Milne of The Corporate Mentality.

Work. School. Friends. Family … and kids.

We’ve all got a lot going on in our lives, and I haven’t even mentioned our online worlds yet.

Twitter. Facebook. Google Plus. LinkedIn … and Pinterest.

The list is always growing, and as our offline lives get busier and online worlds more cluttered, our blogs are getting more and more neglected.

And while it’s great spending time learning everything the above social sites have to offer, let’s not forget the importance of our own blogs, and the significance of providing readers with quality content. After all, without quality posts, you’ll be slow to take your blog to the next level and will have little original content to push out to your followers.

And, in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about? Generating exposure, traffic, leads and potential customers or partners?

That said, here are ten ways I’ve been able to carve out more blogging time of late—despite running dozens of sites and having our third child in five years this past April. (And if these ten tips aren’t enough, ProBlogger’s timely Blog Wise ebook will certainly do the trick!)

1. Get up early

There’s nothing better than starting off the day with something you really enjoy, whether it’s a nice jog around the park, a bike ride through town, or a trip to the gym. And if you’re someone who truly enjoys writing, you’ll appreciate making blogging part of your morning routine.

Just be sure to do so before you get online and open your inbox. Your writing is more impactful when ideas are fresh in your head—and you aren’t bogged down by your list of tasks for the day.

2. Write at lunch

If you can’t get up early enough to write before work, get away from it all at lunch. Take the iPad or laptop with you to the park, fire it up on a shady bench next to your brown bag and write to your heart’s content.

3. Go offline

No wireless connection at your local lunch getaway? No worries. Disconnecting makes for a distraction-free hour of writing. In fact, while you’re at it, turn off your phone, Twitter alerts, Facebook messages, IM and email inbox—anything that’s going to keep you from getting your thoughts down.

If you get the inspiration to Tweet, take that clever 140-characters and expand on it in a blog post. Remember, it’s better to own your content than get owned by Twitter or Facebook. Make those platforms work for you, not the other way around.

4. Stay up late

All the hustlers do it. And don’t just stay up late and use the “free time” to soak up more David Letterman. Kill your TV and breathe new life into your blog.

As Gary Vaynerchuk writes in Crush It, “If you already have a full-time job, you can get a lot done between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m. (9 p.m. to 3 a.m. if you’ve got kids), so learn to love working during those predawn hours. I promise it won’t be hard if you’re doing what you love more than anything else.”

5. Use an app for that

Don’t have time to post, but have a second to snap a photo? Start photo blogging from your mobile device. Mobile content is becoming a lot more acceptable in today’s blogosphere, whether it’s an inspirational image or an event photo that’s related to your site, snap it, and post it in less than a minute.

You can use the WordPress app, which allows you to post images, text and even HTML straight from your mobile device. Or set up your blog to allow for email publishing, whether it’s straight from your mobile email client or through a third-party platform such as Flickr—which can auto post images to the site and your blog via email.

6. Use shortcuts

Take advantage of additional WordPress features that streamline posting. For example, did you know you can embed a YouTube video in the body of your WordPress blog by simply pasting in the URL of the video? In the latest version of WordPress, 3.4, you can do the same thing with Tweets, embedding an individual Tweet just by pasting the link to the Tweet in the body of your blog post.

Knowing shortcuts and quick tips like this can cut down your “time to publish” considerably.

7. Accept guest posts

I know, it’s your blog, and it’s tough to allow others to post on the site you’ve poured your blood, sweat and tears into. But there comes a time—when either you get too busy or your blog gets too popular—when you have to take a step back and ask for help.

It’s a good problem to have if you think about it, because your site has likely scaled to the point where it’s bigger than you ever would have imagined. To keep feeding the content machine, reach out to some folks you trust for regular contributions. Adding different perspectives to your site often brings in new readers, and also encourages those you trust to help build and promote your brand when they post.

8. Hire some help

If you’re not sure where to turn in terms of guest contributors, post an ad on a related freelance board for part-time writers. Be sure to ask candidates to include a résumé and links to from three to five related blog posts. That way you can see exactly what types of posts you could expect when outsourcing. You never know, you might just find someone who writes as well or—gulp—better than you do!

9. Post different types of content

Have you ever created a video for your audience? How about a podcast? Sometimes turning on a microphone or camera can be easier than sitting down to craft a solid 600-word blog post.

As noted earlier, photo blogging or producing short, informative videos or podcasts can be a quick way to whip up new content and complement your writing. And in some cases, audiences respond better to non-traditional content types. New mediums also allow your audience to digest your content on the go, which is becoming increasingly important in this mobile world we live in.

10. Put it down on paper

Maybe it’s the former journalist in me, but I still use an old-fashioned reporter’s notepad to jot down quick notes and sketch out illustrations when I’m not in front of a computer (during my commute, for example).

It helps me organize and prioritize my thoughts, and keeps me from cursing iPhone autocorrect fails—which, when funny enough, lead me to waste another 15 minutes ridiculing those blunders with all of you on Twitter.

And that, my fellow bloggers, would be a waste of everyone’s time.

Brian Milne is founder of the BlogHyped Network of sites, where bloggers vote up posts and receive valuable links and exposure for their blog. Follow @BMilneSLO on Twitter to share your blog productivity tips and to be featured in his upcoming “Book on Blogging.”

bostonfed.pdf

A new study by economists at the Boston Federal Reserve found that the roughly two-thirds of Americans who did not suffer personal loss from the housing crash and whose knowledge of the housing crisis comes from media coverage have not changed their views towards homeownership.

Significant Loss of confidence regarding homeownership is limited to younger members of the approximately one out of three individuals who suffered directly from the housing crisis through foreclosure or falling home values. Older Americans who suffered losses from the crisis generally retained their confidence in homeownership and would choose to buy over renting.

Approximately one-third of the study’s sample reported that either they or someone close to them actually lost a large amount of money in real estate during the crisis, that is, those with first- or second-hand experience of the housing crash rather than those who watched it from the sidelines .

The study, by economists Anat Bracha and Julian C. Jamison, found that people who in 2008 lived in ZIP codes that were hardest hit by the crash in housing prices-as compared to those who resided in areas that were least severely affected-are significantly more likely to be confident about owning a home if they are older (above 58 years old in our sample), but are significantly less likely to be confident about owning a home if they are younger.

“We argue that merely possessing information about an adverse event is not enough to change behavior-rather, something like direct experience is required to change an individual’s confidence in homeownership. This different response is because presumably almost everyone in the United States was exposed to multiple media headlines about what had happened to the housing markets in their neighborhood and around the country, and yet people who did not personally suffer a loss from the housing crash or know someone close to them who did, do not show a similar divergence in confidence,” the authors wrote in “Shifting Confidence in Homeownership: The Great Recession” published June 24.

However, the study found widespread erosion of support for buying a home as an investment. The study found that the majority of respondents think either that (1) owning a home is without a doubt better financially than renting a home, or that (2) owning a home is probably better financially. Nevertheless, there is some variation: about 20 percent answered either that the two options (renting and owning a home) are about the same, or that renting is better financially. Moreover, even the two most common answers, (1) and (2), differ on an important dimension-the confidence that people express in the assertion that buying a home is better financially.

Even widespread media reports did not change the views of younger or older Americans. Adults aged 58 years or under who had experience with the real estate crash are marginally less confident in the benefits of owning a home versus renting. However, the confidence in homeownership among those with secondary information only did not change. Their confidence in buying a home was unaffected by their geographical location, and the magnitude of the crash to which they were exposed had no effect on their outlook.

“We find that recent housing market conditions had little effect on individuals whose exposure to the crisis came through information only, such as media accounts. For individuals who were not foreclosed on, did not lose a substantial amount of money in real estate, and did not have anyone close to them who did, attitudes towards the financial soundness of buying as opposed to renting were unchanged by the magnitude of the house price decline in their area,” the authors concluded. “Information alone may not be sufficient to change attitudes; rather actual experience is necessary to change attitudes. Furthermore, the crisis’s effects seem to be confined to attitudes toward buying a home, and do not extend to attitudes related to other homeownership decisions, such as commuting or general risk aversion.”

A new analysis of the impact of pent-up demand for homes that has been deferred by the housing crisis and recession could increase the homeownership rate by nearly 2 percent.

Selma Hepp, senior economist at the California Association of Realtors, estimates that economic factors, not slowing population, have restricted household formation in California by 575,000 and 696,000 additional households. With owner-occupied comprising on average 58 percent of households, that means California has between 333,000 and 403,000 fewer owner-occupied homes today.

Additional, some 100,000 potential more home-owners are currently renters and would by homes if they could, she argues in a post today on the Realtor.org site.

“Lastly, there are those unfortunate homeowners who are currently in a home but would prefer to sell their current home and buy another one. It is difficult to say just how many homeowners are in this situation. Over 30 percent, or over 2 million, of California’s mortgages are under water. Not all of these homeowners would necessarily move, but it is safe to assume that many would. While both of these groups add to the pent-up demand, they are not newly created households and they would add to housing supply as well as housing demand,” she wrote.

The share of owner-occupied units in California fell by about 2.75 percent from the peak, and the average for the last decade is at 58 percent. While it is difficult to say that homeownership rate should be and what rate it is going to settle at, if it moves from the current 56.2 percent to the average rate (58 percent) in California, she said.

“All things considered, this analysis illustrates the terminating effect the Great Recession has had on the housing demand. And while the uncertainty over foreclosure crisis and economic improvement still lingers, the size of pent-up demand implies that recovery of the housing market could quickly follow any economic recovery,” said Dr. Hepp.

Should her analysis hold true for the nation as a whole, the national homeownership rate, currently at 65.5 percent, would rise to 67.2 percent solely on the strength of demand that has been delayed by the economy and the housing crisis. The national homeownership rate last reached 67.2 in the fourth quarter of 2009.

On the same day the Census Bureau released the Q2 2012 Housing Vacancies and Homeownership report showing single family rental vacancies in the second quarter were lower than they have been since the first quarter of 2006, yet another well financed asset management company announced it will spend more than a billion buying, renting and selling distressed homes.

The homeowner vacancy rate declined to 2.1 percent from 2.2 percent in the first quarter, underscoring the opportunity that exist in the $3 trillion single family market.

“America is moving toward a Rentership Society, and I believe the opportunity to purchase and professionally manage single-family rental homes represents one of the most compelling investment opportunities across all asset classes,” said Oliver Chang, co-founder of Sylvan Road Capital LLC, an Atlanta-based asset management firm that announced plans yesterday to invest over $1 billion into distressed properties and convert them into rental homes.

According to a company news release, the $1 billion will be invested over the next two years, and Sylvan Road will acquire over $300 million in distressed single-family homes through initial capital from an unnamed private equity firm.

Silvan is only the latest of a variety of new, well-funded players entering the distress sale-single family rental market that is dominated by individuals and small, entrepreneurial investor-owners.

Asset management firm TCW, which specializes in fixed-income securities and oversees $128 billion in assets, recently launched the TCW Home Place Partners fund, as an opportunity for wealthy investors to invest in the “housing turnaround” by buying foreclosed homes from banks and federal government agencies.

Beazer Homes USA, Inc. in early May announced Beazer Pre-Owned Rental Homes, Inc. (BPRH)– founded by the company and includes an investor group led and arranged by affiliates of private equity ship Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. The Beazer fund will acquire, refurbish and lease recently-constructed, previously owned single-family homes on a large scale in select markets in the United States, according to Reuters.

Other players in the SFR space include Los Angeles-based Colony Capital, now in the process of raising $750 million; San Francisco-based Landsmith L.P. which is joining forces with Detroit-based Precise Associates LLC to invest $100 million in acquiring single-family homes and renting them out; GTIS Partners; Oakland-based Waypoint Real Estate Group; Carrington Mortgage Services, and more.

“Until last year, single-family-home rentals was a mom and pop market,” Stephen Duffy, an investment banker at Moss- Adams Capital LLC, an Irvine, California-based firm that finances real-estate investments told Bloomberg in March. “Now, it’s grabbed the attention of institutional private equity because foreclosures haven’t cleared and these properties can generate high yields for years.”