WHILE ON MY TEN WEEK MOVING HIATUS, I FOUND THAT I WAS FINALLY MOTIVATED TO FURTHER ORGANIZE PARTS OF MY BLOG.
I took this time to get the blog much more in order, and set things up for the future. While tidying up my digital space, I developed a content planning system that has already improved my workflow.
I use OneNote to keep all of my blog posts and notes digitally organized. (I used to use EverNote but this app is…free-er.) They both can be used as an app on your phone or computer, but are always available online as well.
I created a section in my blog notebook to build a very basic list, and it has already been a game changer for organizing and scheduling my blog post ideas.
I have tried several different versions of this over the years. EverNote, a Google Doc, Google Sheets, and even paper and pen have not been as useful for me as this style of tracking.
ONENOTE IS BROKEN UP INTO NOTEBOOKS, WHICH EACH HAVE SECTIONS, WHICH ARE MADE UP OF PAGES.
I think the best part about this method is that it is digital. I can copy and paste blog post titles if I decide I want to schedule them at different times. OneNote comes with Tags, which all have different little icons you can assign. I use these tags and color coding to help me keep organized. They allow me to add other aspects (instagram posts, newsletter topics, video ideas, etc.) to the schedule without it getting too cluttered or messy.
I create a page for the entire year first. Under the year I listed every single month. Each month is then given a checkbox to hold a space for each blog post. In my case, I like to post three times per month, so each month gets three checkboxes. (In some months you’ll see I have more but my minimum is three to give me a baseline.)
Related: How I Content Plan in My Bullet Journal
Every checkbox will then get a title, which doubles as it’s respective blog post title later on. This gives me a jumping off point but I also like that it provides me with the space to brainstorm titles for my content. These check boxes will eventually get moved over each quarter into my content planning bullet journal.
This yearly content planning idea is super simple and although I have no idea why it never occurred to me before, I am so glad to finally have it now. I hope sharing it helps someone else get more organized as well!
Love and aloha, V.