Running a business is hard. Especially when juggling other responsibilities at the same time.

There will be moments when you’re fully “on” and entrenched in deep work in your business…

… but also times when you’re maxed out and want mindless work (that will still move the needle in your business.)

Here are 11 surprisingly productive business tasks you can do when you’re low on mental energy.

1. Find Inspiring Content

As you scroll through social media (or whatever platform you consume most), “save” the content that grabs your attention.

Don’t worry about WHY it grabbed your attention yet…

… just start a collection of eye-catching content for later inspiration.

You can do this for SO many types of content, including:

  • Favorite emails you’ve received
  • Short form video on IG/TikTok/FB/YouTube Shorts,
  • Carousels
  • Photos
  • Tweets
  • Threads
  • LinkedIn posts
  • Pins
  • YouTube videos
  • Blog posts
  • Podcast episodes
  • Discussions in FB groups/forums.

Whatever platforms you like to consume on, create a folder where you save content that draws your eye.

Then, when you’re ready to start generating content ideas for your own business, you can move on to mindless business task #2 👇.

2. Organize Your Inspo

If you’re in a more creative mood, start dissecting the content you’ve saved and tweak it to apply to your business.

For example:

  • Email: Create a bank of email subject lines that caught your attention. Then rework them to fit your niche.
  • Short form video: Take note of the video style, content on the screen, hooks, music, and caption. Then brainstorm how you could apply these ideas to your niche.
  • Long-form content: Make note of YouTube videos you liked, podcast episodes you enjoyed, or blog posts you saved. Then adapt the ideas and titles to fit your niche.

The goal here is to batch-generate content ideas so that when you’re ready for a day of intense content creation you’re not wasting half of the day trying to come up with an idea.

Rely on your idea bank to crank out content faster when you’re in the zone.

(PS – If you don’t want to make your own, I’ve got a database of over 1,000 email subject line templates you can use inside my EXPAND Membership!)

3. Monitor Trends

Creating content on an emerging trend is a great way to stand out before the big-name brands swoop in.

When the mood strikes, you can use tools like ​Google Trends​, ​Pinterest Trends​, ​TikTok Trends​, ​YouTube Trends​, or ​Exploding Topics​ to make a list of trending topics in your niche.

You can catch trends even earlier by monitoring the research published in your niche (Google Scholar Alerts are awesome for this) and by staying active in forums and online communities.

I recommend dedicating about 25% of your monthly content calendar to “fun” topics, including trends!

4. Do Keyword Research

One of the best ways to get discovered by your ideal audience is to create content they’re already searching for.

This could be on Google, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, or other social media platforms…

… but the main idea is to use tools (like ​Keysearch​, ​Semrush​, ​PinClicks​, etc.) to find the phrases they’re searching for and then reverse engineer your content to get in front of them.

The process of finding topics that people search for (that you also have a decent chance of ranking for) is called keyword research.

It’s relatively mindless and a great task for those low-energy days. It’s like treasure-hunting for topic ideas 😜. Create a bank of your best keyword finds to create content around in the future.

Search-optimized (SEO) content tends to attract an audience for much longer than social media content, so I dedicate a large chunk of my content calendar (50%+) to this type of content.

5. Stay Informed

Keeping up on the latest in your field counts as a business activity in my book!

One of my favorite ways to stay up to date without falling into a social media rabbit hole is by creating a custom feed reader.

I use a tool called ​Feedly​ to curate the RSS feeds of my favorite websites. This pulls all their latest blog posts into one chronological feed to read at my leisure.

You can also listen to podcasts, read the latest editions of newsletters you’re subscribed to, or watch recorded office hour calls from courses or memberships you’re a part of.

If you’re low on content ideas for the week, sharing an article you loved or recapping your key insights (and how you’ll apply them to your own life/biz) is a great way to connect and serve your audience without reinventing the wheel!

6. Batch Write Tweets/Threads

It’s often A LOT easier to come up with quick bite-sized pieces of content than it is to create deeper, long-form (or high-production value) content.

If you’re in a creative mood, but only have 30 minutes to focus, try batch writing short-form content.

For example, take a blog post, podcast episode, or YouTube video you’ve published and create 10 tweets or threads about it.

You can do this by:

  • Summarizing the main points in one long thread.
  • Breaking down each sub-point into its own post.
  • Sharing a personal story, insight, or lesson on the topic.
  • Writing a contrarian, unexpected, or surprising take.
  • Forecasting a prediction about this topic.
  • Sharing recent news on the subject.
  • Posting an “inside joke” or something only someone in your space would understand or identify with.
  • Highlighting other people who are doing something admirable around this topic.
  • Taking a framework that worked well for another topic and repeating it for this one.
  • Sharing a personal win on the subject.
  • Pulling from your bank of content ideas and tweaking them for this subject.

Repeat this process each time you create a long-form piece of content and you’ll have tons of short-form content to share on text-forward platforms like X, Threads, and LinkedIn.

(Bonus points if you can tie in a CTA to download your freebie or join your newsletter so you can grow your list at the same time!)

7. Engage With Others

Did you know that showing up consistently in the comments section of other top creators can be an excellent way to grow your own audience?

For the days where you don’t have the brain power to create content from scratch….

… just commit to showing up and engaging with other people’s content.

You can do this on social media platforms, inside Facebook groups, or in other niche-forums.

If you genuinely add value to the discussion, people will click your profile to check you out.

And a certain percentage of those people will also give you a follow if your profile and content look intriguing! (Ahem, time to spruce up your bio if it’s lacking at the moment!)

8. Do Graphic Design

If you’re really in a rut, open up ​Canva​ and start creating.

Designing infographics, pins, or Instagram carousels uses a whole different part of the brain and can be a nice reprieve from writing, filming, or engaging.

If you’re design-challenged (like me) I highly recommend purchasing some templates from ​Creative Market​ to help your content stand out.

Yes, you can use the free designs within Canva too… but after a while, you start to spot these from a mile away! I prefer something a little more bespoke.

9. Pin on Pinterest

One of the best parts about Pinterest is that you can often create dozens of Pins from one piece of long-form content.

So in your low-brain-power moments, simply create Pins around long-tail search terms and schedule them to publish throughout the week/month.

(You can schedule up to 30 days in advance using Pinterest’s native scheduling tool.)

You can use Pinterest autocomplete, search refinement suggestions, Pinterest Trends, the Pinterest Ads tool, or external tools like PinClicks to find topics to create pins around.

Pinterest is a slow-burning platform (like SEO), but consistent effort over time will pay off and drive more traffic to your website.

10. Perform Tedious Tech Tasks

Tedious tech tasks are perfect for your low-energy moments.

You can:

  • Build internal links
  • Update older posts
  • Fix broken links
  • Update your plugins
  • Add infographics
  • Fix crawl errors
  • Work on core web vitals
  • Improve accessibility

Or do any other website-related tasks you’ve been putting off.

These small improvements will add up over time! (And conversely, ignoring them for too long may hurt you, so don’t overlook these!)

11. Pitch Yourself

Last but not least, use your extra time to promote yourself.

Poke around in Facebook groups and submit yourself for media pitches and roundup requests.

Browse quote opportunities on platforms like ​Connectively​, ​Source of Sources​, and ​Qwoted​.

Draft a template email for pitching yourself to podcasts and then batch outreach to the hosts.

Or even just make a list of people to reach out to in the future!

Take advantage of opportunities to get your name in the media or in front of other people’s audiences.

This will go a long way in building your brand, expanding your network, and boosting your niche authority.

To Summarize:

We all have moments where we just can’t get into the deep work.

But there are plenty of low bandwidth tasks that will move your business forward, including:

  1. Find inspiring content.
  2. Organize your inspo.
  3. Monitor trends.
  4. Do keyword research.
  5. Stay informed.
  6. Batch write tweets/threads.
  7. Engage with others.
  8. Do graphic design
  9. Pin on Pinterest.
  10. Perform tedious tech tasks.
  11. Pitch yourself.

I challenge you to pick one of these 11 tasks to do during your low-energy work hours next week.

You might be surprised at the long-term payoff!

Thanks again for being a part of this community ❤️.

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Founder of The Unconventional RD

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Erica Julson is a registered dietitian turned digital marketing pro. She has over 14 years of experience blogging and building online businesses and has taught over 1,000 people inside her programs.