Sticking to a Posting Schedule

As I’ve started to get more serious with my blogging in the last couple of months, I realize that there is a need for some organization when it comes to posting. I’m struggling with keeping it all in order and remembering what I’ve posted and when.

Blogging is a lot of work and people who look at it from the outside tend to take it lightly. Seriously speaking, if done properly, even putting out one blog post can be significantly time consuming.

Just like with everything else though, it’s all about practice. I’ve read about people who churn out 700 word blog posts in 15 minutes. All achieved through months and months of practice. Of course it helps that they also have a knack for writing.

I think it’s easier when you’re on a platform like Medium or WordPress.com where a lot of the work and formatting is much easier. Doing the same thing on your own blog, takes some extra effort. It’s even more time-consuming if you’re looking to grow an audience through broadcasting your blog on social media like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook.

The happy news is that there are a bunch of online tools out there to make you life significantly easier. But you still have to do the work. It’s not enough to just write anymore. You have to put in pictures, create Pinterest worthy pins, Instagram synopsis and on and on.

Above all, you need to come up with content that is remotely interesting and probably do some research as well.

Once you’re done with all this, in a couple of weeks you start to realize that you’re losing track of what you’re posting and how often you’re posting.

Some writers advise that you need to post daily. An ambitious thought, to say the least. My idea has been to start with once or twice a week as you start out and then up to three or four times a week, if you’re a full-time blogger.

These days I’m not struggling with finding content so much any more. The more I write, content seems to find it’s way into my life. The challenge is keeping it all organized. Scheduling posts ahead of time is a great idea but not if you’ve forgotten what you’ve scheduled.

A good way is to go analogue. Planning out posts and making sure you log them in some sort of planner or calendar.

Another way is probably to start a regular feature instead of pre-scheduling your posts, stick to posting on certain days. So far, my Thursday feature has been working quite well for me and if I stick to posting one other day a week, I should be fine.

I like working with deadlines and plans but I don’t necessarily want to hold myself to a rigorous posting schedule. Why? Because I don’t want to make it seem like work. I want to write for the love of writing.