Organisation Is Everything!

The clock is ticking. You're nervously clicking your pencil, just waiting for the clock to strike the hour when you are free to write. As soon as you are home you remember a fair amount of more pressing tasks. Suddenly it's Sunday night again and you have not managed to write a single word.

How did this happen?

We all know that writing and in particular blogging is a time consuming hobby. For now, we'll look past the plugging, coding and social media presence. You simply need to be aware of how long you need for a blog post. Then the time needed for revamping it, and, somehow, you need to know when you have time to write it!

Truth is, if you're badly organised as a blogger, you're already on the losing side. I discovered that when it comes to blogging organisation is everything!

For many of us blogging can not always be the number one priority. Instead we have to juggle it with work, uni, children ... the list is endless. I must admit that I am an organised person to begin with.

Years ago I have been gifted a brilliant (and personalized) Filofax organisier. Truth to be told, I write EVERYTHING in it: monthly tasks, weekly tasks, daily tasks. Even when I should water my plants! This has, in fact, saved my life because now I can tell exactly when I have time for blog writing.

At the moment my week of writing basically looks like this - let's roll with a double header week*:

Monday - publish blog post and the finishing touches on the tribe post.
Tuesday: publish the tribe post
Wednesday: put the finishing touches on the second blog post.
Thursday: publish second blog post
Friday: write blog post for next week
Saturday: write tribe post for the next week
Sunday: put finishing touches on blog post

As you can already see, these weeks overlap. In fact the first time I settled on a fixed schedule in which the tribe and blog got along I had to sit down and draw up a monthly chart to get a grip of it. I can only recommend this for everyone who struggles with keeping up a routine. It gives you a good overview. Not only that it also tells you where you have a buffer should you be unable to write on the usual day.

Nowadays this would look even more complicated with monthly favourites filming and editing, alternating plugs do the double header week - which causes the Monday post from the next week to slip on Thursday  and ... You know what? I refrained from drawing up a new sheet, out of the fear of headaches.

However, especially because of this, it is very important to have a schedule. Not only to tell if you even have the time to write this much and when. At the same time organisation is the holy foundation of a good blog. It gives you info when blogger chats are on, when you need to publish, when you have the time to write so you have anything to publish to begin with.

You are never going to forget to plug anything because your trusty calender is going to remind you! Not sure if you have time to take photos for the blog this Thursday? Oh turns out there is little to nothing to do on Tuesday, let's work a little ahead. It's going to help you to reduce stress so much!

On an aside, your readers are going to love the routine as well: posting regularly every second week is far more comfortable than posting twice a week and then not at all for three weeks.

Honestly, just get into a habit for a month or two and stick to it like motor oil to clothes. Soon afterwards you are going to fall into a routine. Then you can start to experiment and add more smaller tasks, or more blog posts. You can try to shift days and with a little bit of luck a you can work ahead.

In the end, with good organisation you are far less likely to miss posting regularly. Furthermore, you are going to be less stressed about blogging. So get a small sheet and start organizing!



*FYI at the moment every third week is a double header week.