I can sit down and put time in one article, call it a day and leave. Or spend extra time fixing up what I am working on. But it feels like it’s slow, and it forces my mind to focus on one topic rather than clear my mind and find my mistakes. So I have a process. This is me sharing a little secret about blogging, and making it easier.
tl;dr Drafts. There, it’s out in the open. That’s all there is too it.
If I decide I wish to publish a blog post today, I will sit down and dedicate time to it. Every other moment of the day when I have an idea to blog about I write it down as a draft post. Consider it a post-it I’d stick on my monitor to look at one day.
When I am done with publishing my post, I go through the list of drafts and pick a topic I want to work on. Open it, think about it, and write out what’s on my mind. Save the draft and let it go. If I think ‘I can use this screenshot or that image or video .. ‘ I go and make that rich media and include it. I can tweak it before publishing at some point.
Finally, I go through old published posts and read through them. Since they were not on my mind or recently written it’s easier to find broken sentences, grammar issues or it provokes thoughts like ‘I can put a picture here to demonstrate what I mean’, enriching the content.
There you have it, three things I do when I publish a new post. I start and finish one to publish. Or, I pick a draft and finish it to publish. Then I work on created drafts. And if I have the time, I’ll go through a couple of old posts to improve on them.
And why? Because if I have a writer’s block, I am not in the mood, or have nothing interesting to share, but I still have the desire to publish something, I can pick a nearly finished topic, spend five minutes on it making sure it’s ready to be published: and publish it. This way I will always have ideas and content to work on. Plus, the more draft posts you have (talking about 15+ vs just a couple) the easier it is to figure out if it’s worth posting or worth deleting.
If you’re interested in blogging but do not know how you can do it frequently. The trick is to write down your thoughts as a draft, building up a queue.