Keeping to a Schedule

Regular content makes for regular traffic which is a good thing if you’re trying to build your readership. The easiest way to keep your posts regular is to write out a blogging schedule. A schedule will give you a clear picture of what needs to be done to get posts out on time and will make it easier to write posts in advance. It also can help you avoid accidently putting up your best post on a holiday or big event (like the Olympics) when very few people are going to be online to see it. A schedule can be incredibly useful if you can manage to keep up with it.

1) Make your schedule realistic and varied. Don’t plan more posts than you can realistically write. Use a variety of different post styles to keep your content interesting and to keep things manageable. Figure our how much crafting you can do in a week and base your schedule around that. I only do enough in a normal week to have 2-3 posts on what I’ve been making. Other posts in my schedule have to be made up out of other kinds of content like my mini series and that stuff generally has to be planned in advance.

2) Keep backup posts on hand. If maintaining a consistent schedule is important to you, write a handful of timeless posts when you find yourself with spare time. Keep them saved for days when you’re too busy to squeeze out a post or when a secret project pops up that you can’t blog about. The best backup posts are things like inspiration posts and technical posts that don’t age or need to be in chronological order with other posts.

3) Roll over extra content. If your schedule was meant to only have two posts on what you’ve been crafting and you happen to finish four small projects that week, save two of the projects to post the following week instead of lumping things into two extra long posts or posting more frequently than normal. That gives all of your projects a chance to shine, and it also gives you some wiggle room if the following weeks aren’t as productive.

4) If you decide to write a series, write your posts in advance. It’s weird when you start a series and leave things hanging or randomly have huge delays between posts. If you have to photograph things, photograph them as soon as possible so you don’t do something dumb like lose your swatches for a series before you get a chance to photograph all of them while traveling back to school from Christmas break . I might have learned that from experience…

5) Don’t worry if the schedule doesn’t work out. I tend to write my schedules when I have a lot of free time, but when school, work, or life becomes too hectic, my schedule gets forgotten. I just try to squeeze out a post when I can. You know who notices when I deviate from my schedule? Probably just me because I never publicly announce my blogging schedule. Not keeping up with a schedule isn’t a big deal when other people don’t know about it. When life mellows out, I sit down and try to write a new schedule that will hopefully be easier to maintain in that period of my life.