There are times when the tasks associated with running two blogs and consulting become quite demanding. I realized early on that if I wanted to be able to handle everything effectively, I was going to have to plan and create some type of schedule.
You’d be surprised how something so simple as planning can really save a lot of headaches and frustration. My worst bouts of writer’s block happen when I’m not prepared and have no clue what to do. The Nothing takes over my mind and threatens to devour every creative thought I’ve got.
Google Calendar to the Rescue!
I publish a post just about every day of the week and sometimes on the weekends. To keep myself sane, I use Google Calendar to plan out which posts I want to publish on which days. I used to use a very simple table in MS Word, but I got the great idea to use Google’s calendar function from Rod Kirby of The Success Center a while back. And I’ve been loving it ever since.
I use it to plan out my entire month ahead. I love it because it sends reminders that keep me on track even better.
Plan out your Month
Now, you might think, planning for an entire month ahead is an impossible feat – but let me clarify. I’m not saying that I’ve got a month’s worth of posts written – what I have is a month’s worth of tentative blog post titles and ideas. I might have a few posts written, but for the most part, I do my planning based on ideas, which is something anybody can do.
I find that when I at least have a topic and a few ideas, writing comes much easier. Just knowing what I need to write about ahead of time does wonders for warding off the dreaded writer’s block.
Be Flexible
Of course, don’t fall into trap of thinking that what you plan is set in stone. There are many times when instead of posting what I’d planned, I published a post on a trending topic that couldn’t wait until a later date. Had I posted it later, it would’ve lost all of its freshness.
Leave Some Room for Guest Posts
Whatever schedule you decide on for yourself, whether it be daily, every other day, or weekly – be sure to leave some room for incoming [intlink id="3037" type="page"]guest posts[/intlink]. I know it’s hard to predict when you’ll receive them, but don’t pack your schedule so tightly that you can’t bend a little. This ties back into being flexible.
Create Some Series
It also helps to have some recurring series that you intend on returning to weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. This makes it so much easier to select topics for your blog by removing some of the mental strain that comes with writing.
Even if you don’t create an official series, you can still have a general rotation of topics. Take cues from your chosen categories, and organize your posts based on that.
If it wasn’t for this type of approach to blogging, I really don’t believe I’d be able to keep up. There’s just so much to do and so little time. Keeping an editorial calendar helps me stay out of the meltdown zone.
So, how do you organize your blogging schedule? Do you keep a calendar to help you stay on track?
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For tow months, I did the “select one day and write the blog posts for the month” thing until I started feeling sick and tired frequently. It took 1 week away from my blog to make me realize that maintaining a blogging schedule had suddenly become stressful for me thus I took a step back for my heath as that’s all that really matters in this life.
Right now I’m yet to make up my mind whether to switch to once a week or twice a week blogging schedule.
Nice and well written post.I mostly post on my blog every day ? Tell me is it ok ?
Regards,
Sophie
When you have a schedule it is very important to follow it, but it is also important to know that you can change it too. I am talking about the part when you say Be Flexible. But do not mix this with just changing because you are lazy. You are allowed to change your schedule ONLY if you have new information that is causing this.
For example if you find new more efficient way of doing something in your schedule, you must change the time that you spend on it.
I don’t really post all that frequently. I’m down to one quality post per week. I know it’s not much, but after a few months experimenting with posting more frequently, I’ve found that once a week is as much as I can do for right now. Plus that gives me time to promote each post with commentluv posts.
i keep paper notes for my to do list . NO gadgets or web services . I find it most simple way to keep my things organised
Hi Keisha,
Planning is probably essential for most people who are seriously seeking success in most fields. There aren’t so many who can “wing it” and maintain good standards on a consistent basis – so the tips you give are definitely very sensible and useful ones for the vast majority I think.
And the biggest problem for me, like ileane, is dealing with distractions ! Sometimes there are just too many things going on in the “real” world – and this is again a good argument for planning better
Best wishes
Will
P.S. Thumbs up to Google Calendar ..
Hi Will,
I totally understand those distractions. The thing about it is, that there aren’t all necessarily bad distractions either – sometime the mind needs that in order to feed your creativity, but the problem comes when they get out of control. Keeping a schedule helps me keep them under control.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hey, Kiesha, this is a great post. I appreciate the shout out. I love the tip on creating series. They take a bit more work and research but the results are undeniable. You’ll gain more traffic, new readers, and everyone will think you’re uber-awesome. FYI, I still use Google calendar for my calendar stuff, but now there’s a Wordpress plugin called, “Editorial Calendar” that does a fantastic job of keeping me on track. Here’s the link for it if anyone wants it: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editorial-calendar/
Hi Rod,
Thanks again!!
So glad you enjoyed the post! I’m definitely going to checkout the plugin. I think you’ve inspired yet another post…
Rod, thanks for the information on that plugin, thats going to be a great help with my time managemant.Thanks again.
Great idea to set things for a month ahead just so you know what you might want to do during the month and get yourself on the right track. I seriously just might have to try this and see if it works well for me.
I currently have a plan set up in OpenOffice Writer and the actual things I get done in OpenOffice Spreadsheet that I use to basically track how I’m doing throughout the week. It’s hectic sometimes but getting it done and moving forward is what counts.
How does it remind you though? I mean, do you need to be signed into a Google account for it to pop up a reminder or is there some other way? I’m just curious as I might actually need reminding for signing into Google lol.
Hi Eric,
You do have to have a Google account, but since I have my Gmail emails forwarded to the email I check regularly, I get the notifications the day before via email (but I’m sure you can adjust the settings so that it reminds you at the time you prefer).
I definitely encourage you to give it a try and keep me posted on how it works for you
Hope this helps.
Keisha, I’m not a blogger, actually, so I don’t keep a schedule.
I do agree with your methods, though.
Google calendar reminds me when I need to send out an email to my list.
I have a weird series that I just started on my blog and, I gotta tell you, nothing focuses your mind quite like having to answer the question, “Awright, what should be the next post in this series?!”
Cheers,
Mitch
Hi Mitchell,
Glad to hear you’re enjoying the benefits of Google Calendar as well. That is a weird series you’ve got going, but it definitely sounds interesting. I’ll have to check it out.
Great. I am what I twatted, twot…tweeted? Whatever. I saw this in my email inbox and dreaded reading it. It’s confirmed. I’m a loser.
I just spent entirely too long (3 minutes) on Twitter responding to #becauseimagangsta just because it looked fun. It was.
And I did it, #BecauseImAGangsta
Great post!
Hi James,
LOL! I refuse to believe that you are a loser. I’ve spent longer that I can to admit on Twitter responding to nonsense. We are human, right?
Hi Kiesha, this is a very good and informative article! I too have had to learn how to squeeze blogging into my very hectic schedule…I try and post every 2-4 days, though I dont hold myself to a rigid schedule. One thing that I think saves me a lot of time is writing about whatever I have been dealing with lately as a freelance web designer. This may not work for every blogger, but since my blog is aimed at web designers and bloggers, and I am a web designer and a blogger – it works well for me. By writing about some of the issues I deal with on a regular basis (project management, clients, running a business, etc.) and some of the things I have been busy with at the time (sharing tips and tools with other web designers), I save myself the time of having to think of what to write about, and I never run out of things to write about! AND – web design is something I am passionate about, which also makes it easier for me to write about regularly. Anyways, that’s all I would add – is to try writing about things that you deal with regularly, rather than trying to come up with random topics off the top of your head.
Hi Libby,
Sounds like you’ve got a good system going. Yeah, I think that would be better than randomly selecting topics. I’m glad you mentioned that you’re passionate about your topic, because truly that’s what keeps the creative juices flowing.
I have done this on my Romanian blog in the past 7 weeks. My traffic DOUBLED. I have a plan for the entire week and at least 30 drafts in store. I publish now DAILY and it’s easy, once you have a plan set up.
Will do the same with my “official” blog and I am confident my traffic will rise and I’ll attract more people to the project.
Hi Ramona,
Sounds like you’re doing an awesome job. It does make things so much easier.
Very useful tips Kiesha. I’ve always had a problem with following a schedule and posting constantly. Now I really started scheduling everything, planning posts and also keeping some backups posts for the days I’m not able to write.
Hi Alex,
Having backup posts definitely keep me from losing my cool. Otherwise I wouldn’t know what I’d do.
Scheduling is definitely good advice especially if you have the discipline to stick to using it. Any method of organization that a person implements and actually sticks with is going to benefit them and make them much more productive.
If you are willing to post somewhere just about every single day, then I don’t see how it would be possible to not experience at least some level of success after a whole year. That kind of commitment will get you results just form brute force alone.
I have been using Google calendar (multiple G calendars actually) on and off for years now. I find myself sticking to a simple desk calendar though. If I had another monitor with the Google calendar up on it all the time, then I would probably use it even more. I need to have my calendar in front of me all the time so I can glance at it periodically throughout my day. That is one area where the Google calendar falls short for me. Aside from that and the occasional synchronization problem it is totally awesome.
Hi Kathy,
Sounds like you’ve got a method that works for you, and that’s really the important part. I like the email reminders, because they always seem to come right when I’m off task, reminding me that there’s something important that I need to be doing.
Nice tips, I especially find myself writing simple drafts of possible future posts on my Evernote (so I can access and edit anything wether I am at work, home or on the move) and even keeping brief drafts as voice notes on smart recorder for my iphone.
You never know when you will get an inspiring moment
Hi Gabriele,
Those are awesome methods! Sounds like you’ve got a good system in place. Thanks for sharing them.
Having some sort of a schedule is always a good thing. Without it you just get lost in the dozens of blogging things you should do. Although using Google Calendar definitely seems like a good idea, I prefer going with a more traditional approach. I have a notebook where I am keeping track of what is done and what should be done.
Hi Daniel,
You are so right! I’ve definitely had my share of everywhere days, where I end up all over the place, but didn’t actually get anything accomplish. At the end of the day, it felt like such a waste.
Planning is essential and making sure you have enough content for days you will take off is important. I always feel a little stressed when I am blogging only one or two days in advance, I like a good weeks worth of posts as a cushion.
You are right. Currently when I have the time, I try to write as many posts as I can. Hopefully I’ll manage to have posts for one month written down.
Hi Justin,
Yeah, whenever my “extra post” stash dwindles I, too, start feeling quite anxious, which makes it even more difficult to write. Makes me what to kick myself whenever I get disorganized.
You sure have a busy schedule Kiesha. Yet you are so well organised and I like the idea of monthly planning. I usually do weekly and I don’t publish nearly as often as you do. Didn’t know about the Google calendar but it sounds like a practical tool I need to look at implementing. At the moment I use a large diary and keep everything in there. Thanks for a thought provoking post.
Patricia Perth Australia
Hi Patricia,
If you’ve got a diary, sounds like you’re pretty organized as well. I can’t say I’m perfect with this, but I at least need a base plan. I don’t always stick to it, but it helps for sure.
Kiesha, we have talked about this before and I admit my scheduling habits have not improved one bit. I like your tip about using Google Calendar and I’m going to give it a try. My problem is dealing with distractions and they say once you figure out the problem, you’re getting closer to solving it. Pray for me please
Thanks for your much needed encouragement.
Keisha, You’re even busier than I thought you were! I have no idea how you find time to blog daily, guest post and run a consulting business at the same time. I use my Outlook calendar to keep me on track but it doesn’t seem to do the trick. It’s helpful but I’m still writing my weekly articles just before I post them.
You mention recurring series. How do you identify an article as being part of a recurring series? I’m thinking of a 3-part series that I wrote when I first launched my blog. When I wrote it, I clearly identified it as being 3-parts. Other than writing a new related article and linking to it, do you have any other tips? What I would really like to do is build awareness of that series. it didn’t get much attention originally because no one knew I was blogging back then.
Hi Sherryl,
Believe me, sometimes this busy-ness gets to me. Keeping a schedule is the only thing that keeps it bearable. Honestly!
As far as a series, whenever I create a new series, I link to them internally, but then I post a link to the series in my sidebar. If you use the /topic/ function with your tags it’ll pull up everything from that series. Or you can create a separate category and do it that way, too.
Thanks Keisha. I’ll hve to try that out. I don’t have any links in my sidebar yet. Something else to add to the to-do list.
Hi Ileane,
You’re doing an awesome job in my book.
LOL! I totally understand – it is super easy to get distracted. That’s why I have to have a schedule, because I would end up spending hours blog hopping.
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