Friday, April 15, 2016

To Schedule Posts or Not To Schedule Posts

Ever since I first learnt how to schedule posts on blogger - something that probably took me much longer than it should have - I hardly ever post anything 'now'. For my resolutions this past January, I decided that I wanted to try not scheduling posts quite as far in advance.

You see, sometimes by the time a post goes live, I feel a little removed from the topic. It's not quite as immediate for me as it was when I posted it, and perhaps even my thoughts have changed.

So, throughout much of January and February, I was blogging only a little in advance. Then, during about half or two-thirds of February, I had no energy for my blog at all. My blogger subscription were burying me. I wasn't commenting very much. I wasn't writing any new posts.

I finally, in the last week, managed to get some of my energy back - but by then I decided to just skip most of my 'planned' posts for February and head straight to scheduling March posts.

This isn't unusual for me. Often I'll go through spurts of being super energetic and schedule a crazy amount of posts and other times I have absolutely no ideas for any posts.

I've discovered that trying to 'blog as I go' - maybe only a week in advance - doesn't work for me at all. I need a buffer so when my muse deserts me, I have enough scheduled posts to fall back on until she comes back. (For example, this post was written March second and I would have scheduled it sooner, but I actually had all my discussions between then and now filled.)

The answer for me is definitely to schedule posts. Though, I admit, I'm a little less likely to schedule certain posts/topics a crazy amount in advance, especially if they're answers that can change over time. (Like the end of last month's TTT post about favorite books. That wasn't scheduled really far in advance.)

I'd love to know if scheduling posts is something that works for you and why or why not.