Blogging ProcrastinationPhoto from iStockphoto

It’s been a long time since I last wrote a post. I have a bunch of them in Draft, but I never get to write as often as I would like to. At some point the reason behind this was the fact that I had a lot going on, working on personal and client projects. But I have to face the truth now: I’m procrastinating big time!

I still have to deal with procrastination in regards to my personal projects, but in regards to blogging there’s something I want to try that will hopefully help me get more useful blog posts out there: write them as they come to mind, the same day. Don’t plan, just write!

The Rules Of The Game

Every game has its rules, so here goes:

  1. When I get an idea for a post, I will make a note and I will have to write the post by the end of the day.
  2. More ideas means more posts, that can be saved and published at a later date (only 1 per day max).
  3. If an idea doesn’t turn into a post the same day, it means it wasn’t exciting enough and it’s discarded.
  4. A discarded idea might be recovered later on if I have a new perspective on things.
  5. Not every day means a new post, IF I have at least one post prepared for the next day.

I would like to make these ideas public as they come to mind, each and every day, so the best way to do this seems via Twitter. Like I said, some ideas will be discarded, but you can follow me and reply or DM if you think I’m tossing a precious gem.

Those of you who are subscribed for a while might know about my previous attempts to resurrect this blog by planning a list of posts and trying to make a blogging commitment. So you’re probably saying “Bull****ing us much?”.

You’re right, the whole planning and commitment thing didn’t work very well (although I haven’t given up on those titles yet), but I really think this new strategy will! :)

Today’s Specials

Here are some random ideas I had this morning. Still working on the titles, but I will turn these into posts by the end of the day:

  1. Keeping Your Email Organized Using Folders – I receive a fair amount of email so it’s fair to say things can get… complicated. So I’ve put together a little system, using folders in Thunderbird. It’s definitely not rocket surgery, but it’s something that helps me a lot and might help others as well.
  2. What’s The Deal With HTML, CSS And WordPress? – I got the idea for this post a potential client asked me what’s the difference between CSS and WordPress. And because I’m such a nice guy, I just had to set the record straight for him and for others who might ask and turn this into a post.
  3. And the day isn’t over yet!

The Good

People who met me in the real world know that I not only tend to talk a lot, but I also tend to jump from topic to topic. Sometimes it’s more of a topic inside a topic and back (like recursion, if you’re familiar with this programming techniques) and sometimes it’s like clicking from link to link on IMDB, from movie to actor to movie, etc. :)

This doesn’t happen as often when writing (my fingers would have been on fire), but it does happen! So whenever I start writing a blog post I sometimes get to a certain paragraph and say “Hey, this is an idea worth building on!”. So plenty of new ideas each day!

The Bad (sort of)

One might think that the downside to all this is that I won’t be able to write so many posts and that I will eventually burnout. Or that I will post mediocre posts just to stick to a schedule. I don’t know… I hope that the refresh factor of my strategy (new ideas each day) will be the one that will prevent this from happening. I actually think the biggest challenge will be to keep these posts short and sweet!

The Results

I know I might not be able to sustain this effort on the long run, but I hope to be able to do this for at least 1 month (that’s 30 new posts!!!) and see how that affects my traffic and subscriber count. Stay tuned as I will resurect my Building Traffic for Your Blog series, with juicy charts and delicious statistics. :)