Jun
27
Being a new father as well as an Airman who works 10+ hour days I am often asked, “How do you maintain a consistent posting pattern?” I post consistently on my two professional blogs (Betaflow and GibThis) and at a decent rate on my personal blog. What’s my secret? Scheduling.
Each morning I wake up 3 hours before I have to be at work. This not only gives me plenty of time for my daily rituals (shower, shave, polish boots, etc.) but also provides time to take care of what I refer to as the blogging basics. My morning activities consist of replying to emails, basic site maintenance, a review of the logs from yesterday, and a quick glance through Google Reader – starring any items I want to return to. If time permits, I’ll write up a few posts, or put the final touches on drafts, and either publish or schedule those posts for a later time to auto-publish.
Luckily enough for me, my work schedule permits a few minutes during the workday to work on more blog posts – which are usually nothing more than the short news blurbs and commenting on articles I have found elsewhere. Weekends are when the real work is done – where I dedicate at least 3-5 hours to finalize what is most commonly referred to as cornerstone content. The weekends are when I conduct all of my interviews, gather up my notes, and get those more difficult articles finalized and scheduled to auto-post later within the week.
Take advantage of Wordpress‘ auto-post feature, where you can schedule an article to automatically post in the future by manually changing that posts timestamp. Combining this, with your own consistent schedule, should undoubtedly give you the results you are looking for. You will find you have more free time by focusing on your blogs in a consistent timespan throughout the week rather than rushing to shotgun out a few posts each day.
Michael Wales is currently a Senior Airman in the United States Air Force awaiting a July promotion to Staff Sergeant. Michael also writes a blog at http://www.betaflow.com/ about Web 2.0 companies and new media.
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I also use the Wordpress’s timestamp
When I’m off out of town for a week, it really help. But I just have to make many posts for a week and make me tired…
I really should use WP’s timestamp, usually I post my posts around 7-8am, and could use the time for an extra 20 minutes kip
. I really should learn how to do this – is it a case of editing the timestamp and clicking publish, or what?
@Rhys,
That’s pretty much all there is to it. In the right-hand menu there will be a section called “Edit Timestamp” – just change the date/time in those fields and your post will not go live when you hit Publish – but it will go live when the timestamp says it should.
Just subscribed to your bloglines, hope you subscribe to mine too.
The link is at
http://anitokid.blogspot.com/2007/06/have-glass-of-blogjuice-from-bloglines.html
Faved you too at Technorati! And oh! My 1st-yr anniversary as a blogger is just around the corner. Please join the AnitoKid Anniversary Review and get a chance to win US$100! Details are at
http://anitokid.blogspot.com/2007/06/win-100-in-anitokid-anniversary-review.html
More power! Mabuhay! AnitoKid at http://www.anitokid.blogspot.com
It would be a good thing to be organized. Hmm, have to try using the time stamp for that purpose…I have used it, just not on a consistent basis.
I love the future posting ability of Wordpress. I took a trip in March and set up a whole week’s worth of posts to go off each day while I was gone. Don’t know what I’d do without it!
Speaking of future posting – I’ll be taking vacation to Alaska for two weeks (8 July – 22 July).
If anyone would be interested in guest blogging for me, check out the site to ensure it’s niche interests you and something you are knowledge of, then shoot me an email (webmaster [AT] michaelwales *DOT* com) with links to your current blogs.
We’ll work out something for repayment. If I can one person to really dedicate their time to the blog and make posts in real-time I’d be willing to switch all the AdSense ads over to their code for the time I am gone.
Woops – this in reference to my blog: betaflow.com.
GibThis.com has a team behind it that will keep it running fine.
I agree completely I wake up 2-3 hours earlier everyday and do my blog reviews, check up on the site etc… Lately been out of the pattern and although it’s not that hard it is mentally exhausting if you feel behind the 8 ball. Good advice and great post.
I am trying to wake up earlier to work on my blog and read other blogs. Right now I spend 2 hours a night after everyone is in bed. I need to flip my schedule.
Don’t feel bad… I’m the same way. I do most of my blog stuff late at night too.
now I try to schedule everything … and if I can i’ll schedule out as far a possible so i’m always ahead of myself!
Darin