I don’t know about you but sometimes I just don’t have enough time to write a whole blog post. Writing a post/article can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours (with research, reading it over a few times for review, fixing typos, etc…) and sometimes I have a ton of other stuff to attend to. You might not have enough time to write a whole post at once… but have you heard the saying/joke “How do you eat an elephant? – One piece at a time”? Well, that can be applied to a lot of things – including blogging. So when you get a good idea, a good sentence or just have a few spare moments you should write down a word or two.
I’ve started using “drafts” (unfinished blog posts) more and more. All the major blog platforms have a “draft” feature – it’s usually a button that says “Save as draft” or similar. In WordPress when you’re writting you should see to the right under “Post Status” you can select Published, Draft or Private. So, to save your post as draft just press “Save” and make sure “Draft” is selected. Then the post will not be published on your blog and you can continue working on your post later on.
You hopefully can manage to spend 5-10 minutes per day (or whenever “the spirit comes over you”) and write a couple of sentences, random thoughts or just a few keywords about your topic. Then, before you know it you got a whole blog post :) You might even create a collection of drafts that will hopefully soon turn into valuable content for your blog. I’ve actually got several drafts saved in my blog right now just waiting for me to add the finishing touch (but sometimes the last 20% can take the longest time).
Also, if you don’t have access to the internet you can just write on a text file on your computer (I use Notepad a lot for these kind of things). But if you don’t even have your computer close to you, you can just write it down on a piece of paper – and you should always have something to write on when you leave the house. I’ve actually written a few blog posts while riding the bus to school – a great time saver. Another trick is to leave yourself voice mail or write some notes on your cell phone if you can.
How about you? Do you use any tricks to write as many blog posts as you can with the time you have?
How long does it take you to write a new post?
Would you like to get more things done every day?
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Keywords: blog tips, drafts, wordpress, 80/20, notepad, cell phone, paper, tricks
11 responses so far ↓
Felista // Jul 5, 2007 at 7:00 am
why did I not think about this yet it is so easy
Angie // Jul 5, 2007 at 3:34 pm
This is just an electronic version of using a scrap of paper to jot down ideas, topics, and partial entries. I use the draft function some, but I still enjoy the old fashined scrap of paper, as well.
Hannes Johnson // Jul 6, 2007 at 12:18 am
Felista – yes it’s easy and effective. Remember to use this “trick” as much as you can :)
Angie – yeah, like I said… you can also use a piece of paper (especially when you’re not close to your computer). But some people write faster on the computer so you can get your ideas faster “out there”. Also, if you have some links you want to use for research or link to in your post it’s good to be able to easily paste it into a draft post or a Notepad text file.
But… another aspect – if you only have your pen and a paper in front of you it’s less likely that you’ll get distracted. So, writing on a piece of paper could increase your blogging productivity :)
Angie // Jul 11, 2007 at 8:26 pm
My only problem with the pen and paper mthod (which I actually prefer) is that I lose the papers! My office is a wreck right now and notebooks and papers get blown around by my ceiling fan, my daughter sneaks in and takes things to color on, and I’m just generally disorganized as I get closer to moving residences.
I really need to rely on draft blogging more.
Steven Smethurst // Jul 17, 2007 at 5:37 pm
I keep many drafts (+40) that I work on daily.
Once a week I deadacate a full day to making posts and finishing off my drafts.
But instead of posting them right away i schedule them for a post a day. Currently I have 15 posts in que, I don’t have to write for the rest of the month but I still do to keep up my back log of posts.
The reason that I do this is that I want to be able to post regularly, and if i go on vacation away from my computer for 2 weeks I still want my website to be updated regularly.
This only really works with timeless content like my games site
http://www.abluestar.com/games/
EveryDayFiction.com // Aug 1, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Get other people to write your content for you.
its a pretty simple solution but its so hard to find the right people.
Most of the time people that I can find to write posts for me aren’t that great at English in the first place (not saying I am any better) and I end up having to review and fix mistakes in there posts. Finding the right people is so hard some times.
One way I found that really helped me motivate me is to have a partner or two working on the site. Each of us take a day that we must make a post. the fear of letting my partners down motivates me to get my posts done on time.
- Steven Smethurst
Hannes Johnson // Aug 2, 2007 at 1:37 am
Steven – Yeah, finding the right people to outsource to can be tricky… If I start a new blog I might find some people to work with – but since this is supposed to be a bit more of a personal blog I’m probably not going to get too many “guest posts”. But you never know ;)
Saman Sadeghi // Aug 10, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Great tip! I wrote an article on Publish To WordPress From Word 2007, you could use this method for drafts too!
Etienne // Aug 14, 2007 at 3:39 pm
For myself i have close to 20 over drafts in my blog and they are all titled with what i want to blog next. if i don’t want them then i will remove them from the drafts, simple.
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