How To Create A Blogging Schedule And Stick to It

*This is a collaborative post on how to create a blogging schedule you’ll stick to

Blogging can be an excellent way to make money on the side and do something you enjoy at the same time. But it’s easy to get off-track. Bloggers don’t usually work for employers, meaning that it’s all too easy for procrastination to become a habit, and weeks go by without getting anything done. It’s also easy to let other things distract you when you should be working on the task at hand, or get writer’s block. 

One of the tricks you can use to prevent going off-track is to create a blogging schedule. This simple tool organises your time and motivates you to do what you need to do. 

What Is A Blogging Schedule?

A blogging schedule is essentially a plan that outlines how and when you will publish content on your blog. It’s a non-negotiable timetable you stick to, ensuring you get things done promptly and on time. 

It has other purposes, too, including:-

• Helping you create consistent content for your audience to enjoy
• Avoid stress and burnout by letting you compartmentalise your work
• Help you grow traffic by feeding your audience a constant pipeline of information, insight and knowledge
• Grow your traffic and engage a broader audience
• Achieve various blogging goals you might have, such as creating an income from your work

Written down, these benefits seem wonderful. But achieving them requires actually creating a blogging schedule you can use. 

How To Create A Blogging Schedule

In this post, we take a look at how to create a blogging schedule that works for you. Here are the steps you need to follow:-

Define Your Blog’s Purpose

The first step is to define your blog’s purpose and what you want it to achieve. Think about its purpose for your audience. Are you using it to educate, entertain, inspire or persuade?

You should also consider whether you want your blog to make money. Having a clear vision of your blog’s purpose will dictate the content type you create and how much you post. 

Know Your Audience

The next step to creating a robust blogging schedule requires knowing a little about your audience. You want to understand their demographics, characteristics, and pain points so you can arrange your content to better solve their problems. 

For instance, some audiences require you to drip-feed them regular content every few hours. Good examples include fitness coaches, meditation gurus, and e-sports commentators. 

Other audiences, though, require fewer interactions and posts, focusing more on quality than quantity. For example, a writing coach might only produce one high-quality blog per week. The same goes for a geopolitical commentator. Publications might be more mini-projects than quick thoughts or advice. 

Knowing your audience makes it more likely you will arrange your time to suit them. Bloggers producing longer-form content will benefit from blocking large amounts of time for specific tasks, while shorter-form writers will need to think more carefully about how they arrange each hour of the day. 

Choose Blog Topics And Categories Wisely

The next step is to consider the main themes or topics you want to cover in your blog. Inevitably, these will relate to your core interests, but you can branch out a little if you think your audience would appreciate it and your brand would benefit. 

Whenever you consider categories, think about how they will:-

• Fit into your blog’s purpose and goals
• Meet your audience’s needs

Once you choose several blog topic categories, it will help you organise your posts. You can keep them in the same storage space, without users having to scroll through everything you write to find topics of interest. 

Decide On Post Frequency And Length for your Blogging Schedule

After that, you’ll want to decide on post frequency and length. You’ll need to think about:-

• How often you’ll post
• How many words you will include in each post

Most bloggers post something every week and, sometimes, daily if they are productive. Posting two or three times per week is the sweet spot for most bloggers, but it will depend on your specific requirements. 

Generally, there is a length-quality tradeoff. The shorter you make a post, the harder it is to generate quality. 

That’s because the purpose of long and short writing varies considerably. Shorter posts focus on engagement, while longer ones are more geared towards education, learning, and adding value. 

Most bloggers balance short and long posts to provide a variety of advantages. Sometimes they require longer posts to get their ideas across, while other times they just need to get something out there quickly to take advantage of a new development in their niche. 

Create Your Editorial Calendar

The creation of your editorial calendar is perhaps the most critical part of your blogging schedule. Editorial calendars are tools that help you plan ahead and submit posts in advance, getting software to post them once written. 

Editorial calendars should include:-

• The title or heading of the post you want to write
• The blog sub-category it fits into
• The keywords you want to include in the post, if any
• The date and time you will publish each post
• The current status of the post – draft, in progress, ready to publish, etc. 

The titles you choose don’t have to be final. You can just write a description of the type of title you are looking for and then come back to it later. 

Including the date and time is essential, though. That’s the purpose of the calendar – to show you when you need to complete and publish projects. 

You can create an editorial calendar by hand, but today, you can use many AI-powered tools to help you. These can suggest topic ideas when you get stuck. 

You can also use helpful timetabling tools to manage how much time you spend on each task. Google Calendar, Trello, and CoSchedule are all good options. These let you see the bigger picture and can help track individual tasks, showing you what you’ve done, and what you need to do in the future. 

Stick To Your Blogging Schedule

The next critical step is to stick to your blogging schedule. It won’t help you much, otherwise!

Sticking to your schedule can be challenging, so here we provide some advice. 

• Set realistic goals. Don’t ask yourself to do something that doesn’t feel achievable. It needs to be difficult enough to engage you and help you progress, but not so challenging it feels exhausting after a couple of days. 
• Break down large tasks into smaller ones. Keeping things small prevents you from feeling overwhelmed by the tasks and challenges in front of you. 
• Batch your tasks together. Try not to switch between wildly different activities during the day. It can harm productivity. Instead, batch similar tasks together, and prioritise the most intense activities for the morning, and more relaxed ones for the afternoon. 
• Use various tools and apps to streamline the process. Traditionally, you could use content management systems to post on your behalf and save you time. Today, the ability to write efficiently is greatly enhanced by AI tools. These can give you ideas, write posts, and insert keywords for you after you complete the work, without having to go through it yourself, saving you massive amounts of time. 
• Be flexible and adapt to changes. You may feel you need to adjust your content strategy to meet your goals. Don’t be afraid to make changes to stick to a rational schedule. 
• Have fun. Enjoying yourself is perhaps the best way to stay motivated long-term and get the job done. 

Optimise Your Posts in your Blogging Schedule

When scheduling your blogging timetable, you’ll also need to optimise your posts for SEO and readability. You can do this using tools like SurferSEO, Hemingway, and Yoast. Just remember to factor this time into your planning. Adding these tools to the mix means that writing posts will take considerably longer. (But, hopefully, the results will be much better). 

Editing and proofreading your posts is becoming easier, thanks to AI proofreading tools. These are significantly better than legacy spelling and grammar checkers because they have a better understanding of context and know which words should probably come next in a sentence. 

Allocate Time To Finding Other Sites To Post On

Most bloggers need to adapt their schedules to allocate time to find other places to post their articles, not just their individual blogs. Unless they are highly successful, this is usually the only way to substantially increase traffic. 

The trick here is to work your way up through the ranks, looking for opportunities on low-domain authority sites, and then working your way up from there. Bloggers wanted for their skills can find outreach opportunities across the web, provided they are willing to collaborate with third parties. 

As a blogger, you’ll want to spend around 25 per cent of your time on outreach. That corresponds to just over a day’s work in a standard working week. 

Tips For Beating Procrastination

Beating procrastination can be exceptionally challenging, particularly if you’ve suffered from it for years. It might have started in high school but still affects your life today. 

Unfortunately, if you don’t deal with it, it can make sticking with a blogging schedule virtually impossible!

Remember, procrastination isn’t a sign of laziness. Most commonly, it means you are afraid of what might happen if you take action. Many people procrastinate because they want to put off an unpleasant task, such as calling a family member or taking their first steps in the world of business. For many bloggers, putting their work “out there” can be anxiety-provoking, encouraging them not to do it. 

Unfortunately, procrastination can have dire consequences for productivity. It can also create a vicious cycle of self-criticism and low self-esteem.

Do you struggle with procrastination? Here are some of the ways you can beat it:-

Forgive yourself for past transgressions

Try to get out of the habit of feeling guilty every time you procrastinate. These emotions can create a vicious cycle, discouraging you from moving forwards and getting to where you want to go. The best approach is to let yourself procrastinate but avoid going through the pain of reflecting on it. If you find you don’t want to do anything on Monday, treat Tuesday as an entirely separate day. 

Seek support from people who can help you

Another strategy is to seek support from people who can help you stay on track. These might include colleagues, mentors, family members, and friends. 

Having someone else there makes you more accountable. You are much more likely to push through the fear and pain with their support and get things done. 

Forgive procrastinations of the past

Next, remind yourself you don’t need to punish yourself for procrastinating in the past. You can always change your approach and improve. Many people move past procrastination and lead happy and productive lives.

Critically, procrastination isn’t a permanent character trait you need to live with for the rest of your life. It’s just like any other habit and will fade once you get used to dealing with it. 

Reduce the number of decisions you need to make

The next step is to reduce the number of decisions you need to make in a day. That’s because every decision you make requires cognitive energy. For instance, simply considering whether you will write a blog or go to the gym is tiring. The trick is to do things automatically, like brushing your teeth. It should be baked into your actions before the day starts, instead of requiring conscious decision-making effort at a later date. 

Plan the day in advance

Related to the last point is the idea of planning your day in advance. You want to know precisely what will occur so you can just execute, instead of thinking about it. 

Don’t get side-tracked by random distractions online. Put your plan together and stick with it. 

Creating A Blogging Schedule Is Easy

By now, you should see that creating a blogging schedule is easy and offers a host of benefits to keep you engaged. Careful planning and measurable goals make it easier to create a blog your audience loves.