Setting A Blogging Schedule And Sticking To It

Now that I’ve been blogging solidly for nearly two months, I feel like it’s time to finally establish some sort of rhythm. That’s why I’m looking at doing a blog posting schedule.

If there’s one thing I’m not real good at, it’s following a schedule. Much the same as to-do lists, I find them quite constricting and stifling when it comes to my nurturing my inner creative beast.

So it might alarm you that I’m going to test setting a blog posting schedule.

This comes off the back of advice from a few big “how to blog” bloggers. Everyone seems to recommend setting a regular routine for the types of posts you send out to the world and somehow I’m starting to see why. Some structure guides your creativity.

My Plan

The approach I’m going to take will be (as most things are with me) a guideline. As this is a weekday blog (meaning I don’t post on weekends unless I absolutely have to) I think I’ll start off something like this:

Monday: Reflective posts. Updates on things that I’m experimenting with, new ideas, random thoughts, etc. More of a hippy (free spirited) style post, like this one. I might even throw in some surveys.
Tuesday: Article style. This will be a bit of a long form post where I explore some topic a little deeper and call for thoughts.
Wednesday: Long form list post. It’s a list post with useful content, who woulda thought?! Hopefully this will be more like an article mashed with a list post. Exploring some facet of internet business with a range of tips on some area.
Thursday: A research based article style post. Might be on a new technology I’ve found, or reviewing a product/service.
Friday: Short form list post. The last thing I want to read on a lazy Friday afternoon is a long winded article and I’m sure many of you are the same. That’s why I’m making this a shorter and sometimes for humorous style list post. It’ll be light, but hopefully with a tinge of usefulness thrown in there for good measure.

I publish my posts at 2am Brisbane time (+10 GMT) which should be around lunch or just after in the US. If you have any better suggestions for this let me know in the comments below, but I’ve found this to be the best time so far.

Why Would Anyone Want Rhythm?

Rhythm in blogging works for a number of reasons. The first one that comes to mind is consistency.

When you establish consistency it becomes easier for the audience to know what to expect from you. If not consciously then subconsiously. This will allow them to see if what you write about is a good fit for them, and if it’s interesting enough to subscribe. I’m hoping to do this in order to see an increase in the number of regular readers here at Code My Own Road.

The other reason for me is more personal…

Creativity and Rhythm

I think creativity comes into play a lot for me.

When I feel like writing about a particular topic, the words just tend to flow. I can write thousands of words when I’m in the groove. But if I’m not, I struggle to get anything coherent on paper which is where list posts and research style articles come into play.

Keeping a regular blogging rhythm will give a rough guide on what I need to do next. As some of you may know, I struggle with traditional to-do lists and work on a hybrid system jumping between pen and paper, google documents, and automatic reminders on my phone.

Rhythm Can Be The Groove

The groove I described works in bursts. I need to tame this beast in order to get what I want out of it.

I’m suggesting to myself that blogging rhythm is a subtle way for me to keep on track while still allowing myself to explore different posting styles. I have expectations of what I’m responsible for delivering and having used all of these blog post styles in the past, I know that I regularly achieve my “groove” in all of them.

I’m working with what suits my writing styles and that is important when your trying to establish consistency.

Conclusion

So I guess we’ll see where this leads. I’ll put this posting schedule up into a page that can be accessed off the navigation bar.

Thank you to all my loyal readers that keep coming back. You know who you are. I’m just so happy this blog is taking off and turning into something I can be proud of.

If you would like more of CMOR (heh, rhyming is fun too), I’d really appreciate if you signed up for my RSS feed. You can review my back catalog of content and you’ll be the first to know when I post a new article.

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