This post is Day 19 of the 28 Day Blogging Breakthrough Challenge. You can chat about the challenge on social media using the hashtag #BloggingBreakthrough. Click here to view all of the challenge prompts.

If you’re using Twitter but you’re not using Twitter lists, you’re really missing out.

This is the one thing I wish I’d learnt when I first started out on Twitter.

Your feed is hard to keep up with at the best of times. I'm betting you follow a lot of people – and with retweets, quotes and sponsored content, it can be difficult to take it all in.

You don’t want to miss the best tweets. You don’t want to miss the best opportunities. But how do you make sure you see them?

With Twitter lists.

These let you see the most important, exciting and original content from the people that you’re bothered about the most. It’s like you’re using Twitter more than what its purpose is. You’re using it intentionally and mindfully.

I absolutely love Twitter lists. Like Tom said yesterday, not only can they help you find inspiration, they’re also there to find communities and to look for opportunities to interact.

But there are so many other ways to use them too. So today’s task in the #BloggingBreakthrough challenge is all about why Twitter lists are so great and how you can make the most of them.

Why Are Twitter Lists so Great?

You Can Create Lists of Your Favourite People

Your favourite bloggers, brands, friends, magazines – you don’t have to scroll through your entire feed to see if you’ve missed their updates. You can make sure you catch all of them by putting them into a special list. I have a Twitter list that’s exactly like this, and honestly? I never scroll through my entire feed anymore – I've got the most important updates right where I want them.

You Can Catch the Latest Opportunities

Whether you’re a budding freelancer or you’re looking for campaigns to get involved in, you can create a Twitter list for that too. Just like we already said – you don’t have to scroll through your whole feed to see what opportunities you’ve missed. You can make sure you never miss any of them. Once a day, you can check in with this list and get formatting emails ready to send to get yourself in with a chance of getting these opportunities.

I've got a Career list on Twitter. For all the accounts that post Freelance job opportunities I've got them all in this list. This makes it much easier for me to keep up to date with all the ones I can apply for, plus it helps me be more productive too.

They'll Save You a Lot of Time

Seriously. If there’s one thing we always want, it’s more time. And if you want to cut back on the amount of time you spend on social media, Twitter lists are the way to go. With lists, it’s like you’re putting your own unique filter on Twitter. You’re not scrolling through pointless tweets that don’t mean anything to you. You’re actually curating your own content that you want to see.

You'll Be More Organised

Not really a shock, but it’s still true. As we already said, you can categorise the people that you’re following into different themes. For instance, some of my lists are:

Bloggers
Business
Magazines
Career
Experts
People

This splits who I'm following on Twitter into clear categories.

Now, you don’t have to have all these lists – and you don’t have to put everyone that you follow into a list. It’s about who you want to hear from the most.

You could go even further and split “Bloggers” up into “Fashion Bloggers”, “Beauty Bloggers”, “Lifestyle Bloggers” and so on – but I’d rather have a bit of variety which is why I keep them all in one place.

Even so, you’re still going to be so much more organised!

You'll Interact More

The thing I love most about Twitter is real-time interaction. So if you’re not interacting on here already, Twitter lists will let you do that. Why? It’s giving you more opportunities to, because you’re seeing more.

Think about it – when you’re scrolling mindlessly through your feed, you don’t pay attention to anything. But when you’ve got your lists, you’re looking through them intentionally and actually taking notice of what people say. That will give you more confidence to interact – and you’ll see the benefits of this most of all.

Sounds great, right? So how do you create one?

On your profile, go to “Lists” and then click the button to the right that says “Create new list.”

Then all you need to do is give your list a name, a description if you want, and decide if it’s public or private. Once you’ve sorted that you can just start adding people.

And remember – you don’t have to follow people to add them to a list. That’s another great thing about them!

Today's Task

So for Day 19, I just want you to have a go at creating one Twitter list. Just one.

You can go and create more if you want, but for today, I just want you to try and get one together.

Follow the steps and pick an easy one to start off with, like “Bloggers”. Then go ahead and start adding people! Feel free to look at my lists on Twitter for inspiration.

Remember, if you’ve got any questions, reach out to me on Twitter at @abranchofholly or leave a comment. And if you take any pictures of your progress be sure to use the #BloggingBreakthroughhashtag!

TO GETTING A BREAKTHROUGH WITH YOUR BLOG

Remember - there's something exciting coming for the #BloggingBreakthrough challenge. It'll be launching in the second week of February & I can't wait to show you. Watch this space for more info!

Let's chat in the comments - do you use Twitter lists? If not, do you think you'll give them a go after reading this post?