Hello, hello, hello!!
When I started blogging, I had no idea where to start. I was so nervous the first time I hit publish, however, I knew that I would not get anywhere unless I put my content out there. So I did. That’s when I began to feel overwhelmed. It seemed like I couldn’t get ahead of where I wanted to be, like I was always playing catch up. I realized that one of my biggest problems was planning out my posts. I’d would have a surge of ideas and then crickets in my head. I had been making notes in all sorts of places and no way to really keep track of all of them or turn them into full blown posts that I was proud to share with the world. I kept telling myself that I was new and I would pick things up as I went along, but I was still not where I wanted to be. In order to get organized (and ease my anxiety) I put together a binder for all my blog posts and brainstorming ideas.
So, what did I do to organize the notes for my posts?
I designed this blog post outline (you can download your own from my printables library) so that each time I got a wild idea I could scribble it down, write a few bullet points, and keep all my thoughts in one place for when I had time to come back to it later. All the thoughts that were written down on paper scraps and random notebooks finally had a place to go! YAY!! I added dividers to my binder, broke each section down by category and then subcategory. Once I have a completed outline, I file it in the correct subcategory so it’s ready when I come to it. Once posted, I file the outline under the main category section for future reference.
Problem solved! Or not…?
After I organized all of my thoughts I encountered my second biggest problem, tons of post ideas for a couple categories, and only one or two in others. I like keeping all of my categories equal with the number of posts and that was definitely not what was happening with my current plan. Once I knew where to focus my efforts in developing new content for my readers, I felt much less overwhelmed and ready to tackle my posts head on. I have begun moving through each subcategory of my binder (which now travels with me everywhere I go!) to try and even things out little bit.
What do you do to stay on top of your own blog posts and keep yourself organized? Let me know in the comments below!
