Focus

Should I Blog & How Often Do I Post?!?

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WHOA Blogosphere, it’s the day before BLAUGUST!!!!  Who’s excited for tomorrow?  The pre-show has been amazing to see as the event hasn’t even started yet and everyone is booming ideas, posting some crazy cool stuff, and brainstorming like mad!

Here is to a PHENOMENAL month of creativity, connecting with new friends and blowing the doors off the interwebs with great content.

So….as we come down to the final hours of prep week, here is my small contribution going into the event.  It’s all about scheduling, should I blog, and how often do I post….which are all major questions for anyone who has ever stepped foot into the arena of blogging has had flash through their brain before!

Do you have an insanely busy schedule but love to write and throw those thoughts on a blog?  This post is going to break down four simple steps I’ve used for years which have helped me stay organized “CHAOS” and allowed me to do what I enjoy….WRITE!  For years I struggled to find time to write and get anything past a draft status at most.  Why you might ask….well I’m a family man and as much as I love writing, I love my family more!

I’m a husband, and father to ten year old triplets….yes TRIPLETS 🙂  I have two boys and a girl who stole my heart the moment I got to see them.  Ten years ago I had to figure out how to prioritize life, my writing, and “Adult” all those things that were needed from me as a husband and father as well.  Writing being one of my biggest passions I had to put a system in place that allowed me time for all of what life was calling, and time is the one thing we don’t get more of.  24 hours in a day and it’s so easy to fill all those time slots up if we aren’t careful.  OK, enough about me and more about these four steps I talked about earlier. It took quite a long time to get a system down of when I wanted to post, what content I wanted to do, and that system isn’t perfect by any means but it works for me, and I’m hoping it might help you as well.

It takes a lot of hard work to develop something creative that you love doing, even if it’s just a hobby, you wouldn’t be doing it if you didn’t love it…or I wouldn’t at least.

Hopefully these steps will help you outline some ways to condense the long hard efforts it takes to create content for a blog.

#1 Should I Blog, What Content, and How Often? 

First up is figuring out if you really want to blog and you are the only one who can answer that.  I would encourage you to experiment with it and see what might work for you.  Also, if blogging is something you want to pursue ask yourself exactly how much content you want to produce in a specific amount of of time.  Are you shooting for a daily post, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly per say.  It doesn’t matter how much you want to post or how often you post….what matters is what works for you.  Best advice I can give you on this is preset yourself a bit and plan out what you want so you give yourself enough time to research and pull material together. This will help so that you aren’t overloading the plate and playing catch up everyday.  I’ve been all over the board before….daily, weekly, etc and it was all due to my schedule and making those priorities fit together. So plan accordingly for yourself and you will have a lot more fun blogging.

#2 Categories, Categories, Categories!

Now that you know how many posts you need to write, come up with some working categories so you have a good idea of what you are going to be working with.  Pinpoint what you want to write about and keep those categories current so that multiple topics can be posted to one category.  If you only have a certain amount of posts you can publish in one month, you have to be selective on how you spend that time. That ultimately means some ideas go to the chopping block and some may get stowed away for a rainy day.

#3: Challenge The Organizational “CHAOS” Skills.

Now that you have your ideas formed and categories made, you may be wondering how on earth am I going to get all this organized and finished like I want.  It can be chaotic at times I know…. trust me I know.  I have triplets remember 😛

Organization, Organization, Organization.

Check the inventory every once in a while and see if you’ve got so much material planned you honestly can’t meet the timeline you originally had.  Don’t be afraid to cut back, and chop chop some things if needed.  A couple of key things to remember here are….

  • Research: How much time do you need for researching topics? Will it take a considerable amount of time, or is this something I’ve already got ready to go? This step can save you a ton of time and frustration if you will do it. .
  • Content and Format: Some posts are more difficult to write than others. This can be a huge frustration if not planned out well as you can spend hours getting things formatted, planned, and ready.  Do you have five posts lined up back to back that are heavy topics and take lots of research?  If so, scramble that schedule up and space those suckers out a bit.

#4 Take the Time to Review and Schedule

Take a gander at what you’ve written before you hit that submit button.  Does it play out like you want, or does it look like someone dropped a bag of scrabble letters?  It’s always nice to have things pre-planned out, but I also know that’s not always possible.  Scheduling blog posts throughout the week or whatever timeline you create is very challenging.  You put a lot of hard work into writing this content so make sure you enjoy what you’ve done.  Enjoy the process, and have fun with creating the content you are passionate about.  Once you get that down….get those posts scheduled for whenever you choose, rinse, and then repeat all four steps for next time.

I’m super stoked for the event and watching all of you blow the doors off of this years Blaugust!

Have an amazing night!

Cheers,

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Newbie Blogger Initiative 2016 – Writing With Focus

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Starting a blog is easy for the most part as the tools you can get now days makes the startup pretty seamless.  What isn’t so easy is staying focused while writing as it takes time, and time is the killer for most writers.  Either we don’t have enough of it, or we lose focus over a period of time and get frustrated with what we were trying to accomplish.  I’ve been down these paths quite a lot before but over the years it’s helped me learn how to stay focused, or at least narrow it down so I can enjoy writing.

One of the questions I hear a lot from new bloggers is am I doing this blog thing correctly?

That question is very broad but when you break all those pieces down into why you started your blog and even why you started writing…..that question becomes pretty easy to answer.

Doing this blog thing comes down to personal preference overall but be willing to focus your material and niche so you can reach an audience.

These are just a few things I’ve stumbled over and even sometimes fallen on my face while writing and blogging.  I’m no professional by any means, but I enjoy what I get to do with my little corner of the internet and I want to make it the best I can.

One of the ways to improve your blog is step back and examine all of the aspects of what your blog brings for readers.  Do you have a vision for the blog, or at least an idea of the direction you want to go?

The more you narrow your focus, the more you broaden your audience.  This is where vision and an idea of where and what the blog will look like helps.

Before you begin writing, consider your subject (what you want to write about), then figure out the the theme (your angle and area of focus), then put it into action and figure out what you want to accomplish.

What subject or subjects are you writing about, and what are you passionate about?  If you can bring those two ideas together then you’ve made a huge step as that’s something most writers struggle with for years.

Take a look at the theme of your site and writing style as well.  Think of it as a subset of your main topics and figure out what that looks like for you.  Ask yourself: What will my writing “VOICE” be? Will it be tackling the humorous side of things, or maybe you take a more practical approach to writing.

Lastly, take a look at what you want your blog to accomplish overall.  This is the main goal of this little exercise so take some time and look at what impressions you want to leave the readers with.  Ultimately the question is why am I blogging and how does it bring enjoyment to my life?

For me writing is a passion but connecting with people is a bigger passion and that is where my enjoyment and focus comes from.

One of my writing mentors gave me this little nugget years ago and quickly became a favorite quote and one I stuck to when I was struggling with writing.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”         – Louis L’Amour