Using calendars to organize your blog postings
Thursday’s Management Tip for Graphic Designers
When I decided to join the cyberspace blog world, I faced the daunting question that I think faces every writer: what do I write about?
I remember watching a show called “Chefography” featuring one of my favorite television chef Giada De Laurentiis. She was talking about how when she first got her television show the producers asked her to write down about 125 recipes for the first season.
She called her aunt in a panic, “What am I going to write about?” and the aunt said “That’s easy! All you have to do is think of what you can make with rice and write recipes for that, then pasta and write recipes for that. By the end we had 300 recipes!” I’m paraphrasing but that as the gist of it. This is the approach I used when I decided to blog.
Step-by-step way of creating topics for my blog:
- Decided on the main categories of what I wanted to discuss (Creativity, Design, Marketing, Pet Peeves, Printing, Productivity, Resources, Reviews, Technology, Tips and Techniques, Web Design, …)
- Then I created sub categories from these (ex: in Design I needed typography, basics, color, …)
- Made a list of possible articles / subjects in each that I can talk about
- I then created a monthly calendar (see below) where I wrote what subject I’d talk about and on what day
CONCLUSION
What this did for me was organize and focus my thoughts. I was able to see at a glance what I’d talk about everyday that month and it also showed me if I was repeating a subject — or talking about it too much.
Then at the end of last year, I had a brainstorm. I decided to tie my blog in more closely with my website. So, Mondays’ I would devote to a promotion topic, Tuesdays were for design, Wednesdays for produce, Thursdays were for manage and Fridays’ were any of my liking.
Creating this structure really helps me focus and helps when I have to come up with topics.
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