3 Reasons I Love My blog Schedule {Love Story}
Written by Sarah E. White of Our Daily Craft

I’ve never been a very consistent blogger.  Actually, that’s not true.  When I’m paid to blog I can do it with consistency and style, and even work ahead of myself when the need arises.

When it comes to personal blogging, though, it’s a different story. I have good intentions, and lots I want to write about, but my blog is always at the bottom of the to-do list, and often after all the commitments of my for-pay writing there aren’t enough hours with my daughter out of the house to get personal blogging (and, heaven forbid, a little house cleaning or exercise or something) done, too.

This year I resolved to do better, so I set myself a blogging schedule, or maybe more precisely a framework for my posts. Each day has a theme into which I try to fit my writing. This will be different for every site but here’s mine:

•  “My Life” Monday: this is the place for postsabout what’s going on in my life and household, parenting, general crafting essays and other stuff that doesn’t fit into the other days (recipes, bookreviews, etc.)
• Tutorial Tuesday: just like it sounds. Here I’ll teach my readers how to do something or share a crafty project.
• Whatever Wednesday: Wednesday is sort of a wildcard day. It usually looks a lot like Monday, with posts about crafting,parenting, what I’m working on and what we’re playing with.
• Things I Love Thursday: a place to talk about books, websites, companies, people, products or whatever else I’m into that week.
• “Found it on Pinterest” Friday: to keep myself actually creating some of the things I find on Pinterest, these posts feature my take on projects on my boards.

The Case against Schedules

I know the thought of a schedule for blogging is pretty off-putting for a lot of us. I didn’t actually expect to like it. Our blogs are personal, they have to do with what’s going on in our lives, and you can’t schedule that.

Furthermore, blogging is creative,and you never know what you’ll want to write about from day to day, right?

That’s true, but it’s also true that a framework for thinking about what we’re going to write can be just the thing we need to get us on track, keep us motivated, even make us more creative as bloggers. In fact, there are plenty of reasons to love scheduling.

Organization Will Set You Free

1. My schedule makes planning my week easy. Instead of wondering what I’m going to write about from day to day, or thinking “maybe I should write a tutorial,” I know basically what I need to be thinking about to fill my week. And it’s already happening pretty naturally. Something will happen during the week that will be great to write about for a Monday, or I’ll be doing something and think it would be perfect for a Thursday post.
2. It makes me more creative. Knowing that I need to have a tutorial every Tuesday and something I made from Pinterest every Friday means there needs to be more crafting built into my schedule. But beyond that I’m thinking like a blogger more, seeing post possibilities everywhere. I find myself trying out new things more often and taking lots of pictures and notes so I always have a steady stream of post ideas at the ready. I’m also visiting more blogs, learning from other bloggers and getting more ideas to try.
3. It helps me stay focused. I started this on January 4 and managed 17 posts in January compared to just seven in December, when I thought I was trying to post more often. More often than not, I’m posting every weekday now. I usually know at the beginning of the week what my posts are going to be about, which means I’m already thinking about them before I start writing. That makes the actual writing go a little faster, and a couple of times I’ve actually managed to do a little writing in advance.

I won’t say a schedule is foolproof, and I’m sure there will be slipups, vacations and days I just don’t get to the blog, but on the whole I love my new arrangement.

I’m getting more posts written, getting more blog traffic and having more fun. Who wouldn’t love that?

Sarah E. White is a freelancewriter, editor, blogger, wife and mom of a 2-year-old based in Fayetteville.She’s the Guide to Knitting for About.com and writes about her crafty life at Our Daily Craft .