My Blogging Life is a Mess, Tips for Organizing
Unmotivated? Are you going through a period in your blogger life where the day seems to run by without accomplishing much or things are piling up and you just can’t bring yourself to do them? If so, you’re in a blogging rut.
I always love the vintage graphics because they just seem so ridiculous. Oh how women and the times have evolved. The look on this gals face actually depicts the way most of us feel when overwhelmed by the daily chores, blogging or otherwise. Sometimes we get into a rut; I’m sure we can all relate to each other in this regard. For me, I find I go in spurts; I’m usually accomplishing something but not everything at once. What I mean is, if I’m accomplishing a lot of my blogging chores, my house seems to suffer. If only there were more hours in the day.
With all the events I take part in or run some of you have asked me how I keep everything straight. Some of the ways I organize my blogging life are by sticking to a strict schedule. Whenever I let the schedule slide, everything seems to get off track.
>>Gmail is one of my favorite programs to use, not only because of the ease of use for my email but for the use of Google Docs and Google Calendar. I schedule slots of time in my Google Calendar for certain chores and set a pop up alarm to notify me when the next chore is about to start or I should complete a task. When the pop up comes up, I save what I’m doing or if I’m close to finishing, I will give myself a few extra minutes to complete the work before moving on to my next chore.
>>My Blackberry is my best friend when it comes to a portable access point for my blogging chores. No I cannot do most of what I can do on my laptop but I can keep a great schedule and set myself timers by using the calendar and alarm features. My Twitter and Facebook apps also keep me in touch with my blogging pals and quick access to my Gmail account allowing me to keep track of new emails as I complete some of my household chores. I carry my Blackberry everywhere and is my first point of access to my blogging life or my family life; I use it to store almost everything, appointments, blog deadlines, you name it.
>>Using the timer on my microwave or my oven is also another handy tool I like to use to keep myself on target. I usually set this for intervals to remind myself to complete household chores, such as dusting.
There are many other tools that bloggers use to manage their time and keep track of their chores while doing so but these are the ones that work well for me. I prefer to use the least amount of tools that keep track of most of the tasks I need to should accomplish each day. I’ve tried the basics with just using a good old pen and date book but it’s just another thing I have to carry with me. With 4 kids, in a toddler usually on my hip, an extra item is not a welcomed addition. I type a list of tasks I’d like to complete each day using my tasks option in Gmail and on my Blackberry and it serves as a constant reminder. Keeping important chores on alarms ensures that I won’t miss anything. Of course in a perfect world this would mean I ‘d be supermom and that would be far from the truth but these tools do help me keep my forgetfulness to a minimum.
What are your tried and true ways to keep your blog chores and household chores on task? The blogging community would love to know.
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Google CaLendar practically runs my life. I would be absolutely lost with out it. I have two things I do that can help drive me through an uninspired patch or get me through a busy week. The first is that when I do feel like writing or on quiet weekends, I will often write several posts and just save them to be published at a later date. My other coping mechanism was introducing my “You Had Me at Woof!” feature, for days when I have no time, no inspiration and no desire to blog. This is just a one or two sentence quote that reminds me why I love my dog’s. It gives me the freedom to kind of “phone it in” when I need to focus on something else.
I write several at once and schedule them for later also but sometimes I get a little publish happy…need to hold back on the left click of the mouse. 😉 Your unique feature is such a cute idea; my fury family member is a big 200 lb gentle giant whom I have yet too write much about; I may have to just do that. He’s sure a sweet pup; you should see how gentle he is with my 16 month old. 🙂
I wrote my own tips here last month. I use the timer trick too, and I also have a daily blogging task list that I roughly follow to keep me on track (it’s so easy to get distracted with all the links and articles and giveaways that pop up!). I should work on scheduling posts in advance more.
Workflowy!
I do my blog chores when my daughter is at school (if my newborn sleeps). During this time I also write up blog posts. Do housework here and there throughout the day and on weekends (housework never seems to end).