What I Learned Posting Every Day for a Month

editorial calendar

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I don’t know if anyone even noticed, but I have written some kind of post for this blog every day this month. (I want to say that as “every day this year” because that sounds so much more impressive.)

I didn’t really set out to do it, but it happened that the beginning of the month somehow went well so I just kept going. Part way through the month I decided I was committed to seeing it through.

But I don’t expect to do it again any time soon.

It’s not that it was hard, really, but you’ll see when I share what I learned from this experiment.

  1. I have a lot to say. It wasn’t that hard to come up with things to write about. I have a lot of topics I’m interested in and had a series of posts that took up one day a week, and kind of general themes for a lot of the days that were pretty easy to fill in.
  2. But that doesn’t mean I have to talk every day. For one thing, those weekend posts barely got promoted, so they barely got read. And needing posts for the weekend that I hopefully don’t have to actually write on the weekend adds some stress to the end of the week that just doesn’t need to be there.

    editorial calendar
    My super-full editorial calendar.
  3. Editorial calendars are your friend. Yes, calendars, in my case. Well, really it is one calendar, with four colors of ink on it. But having a plan really helped me see the month through.
  4. But it pays to be flexible. This month has been all about the need to be flexible, and as the month progressed I deviated a lot from my calendar. It’s far better to write what you want to write about rather than what’s assigned if you don’t want to.
  5. Promotion is as important as writing. As I mentioned above, if no one is reading those posts, it doesn’t matter that I wrote them, unless it was just something I needed to share and the act of sharing was enough. (That’s rarely the case. I like to know that people are listening.)
  6. But there’s no time to promote when you’re writing in this volume. At least not for me. I was actually posting daily on two of my three sites (the other one I may continue, because it’s easier) and I felt like I was writing and editing right down to the wire of when I had to go get the girl (or I was rushing through because she was home and she needed me and I wanted to give her attention) and maybe I had time to throw a link up on Facebook or Twitter. But I’m sure nothing I wrote this month got promoted more than once anywhere, and probably nothing got mentioned on all the networks I touch.

I couldn’t keep it up anyway. I’m getting into deep book-writing season, so I’m going to have less time both for creating stuff and for writing about it. So not only will I be going back to non-daily, some weeks I’ll probably not even post every weekday (which has been my goal in the past).

I’ll write when I really have something to share, and when I can make time to promote it and be a good member of the community as well.

And that’s a big lesson, too, that I actually miss the community of having time to read other people’s blogs and share and comment and virtually hang out with my friends. So there will be more of that ahead, too.

 

If you’re a blogger, do you know what your longest posting streak is? Do you even care about trying to post daily or on a schedule? I’d love to hear about it!


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10 Comments

  1. I posted everyday for November. It was brutal. Of course, I work all day blogging but just not for myself. Finding the time to blog for me was difficult. It meant waking up really early to get it all done. I also did a daily newsletter and promoted it all too. Would I do it again? Yes. But only if I did it all WELL in advance.

    Now I try to post every weekday on my blog. I don’t always make it but it’s a good goal to have! I’m not sure what the longest streak is for me—probably around 40 days?

  2. Wow, congrats on such a feat! I don’t think I’d have the patience or discipline to post every day (or have something scheduled to be posted every day).

  3. I like your reflection on this. When I first started blogging I tried to post almost every day and realized what you said, if I was writing all the time then I didn’t have the time to promote so I was basically spinning my wheels. Now, I’d rather post a few times a week, make an effort to promote those posts and have more of a balance in my blogging life.

    <3 SITS Bloggers

  4. Yes. And I don’t think readers really expect it or necessarily want it, either. We just feel like it’s something we have to do. When we write when we really have something to say rather than when we think we need to say something, I think it works out better for everyone.

  5. I agree, having a plan but being flexible are so important! I had posts I wanted to write, but I also had days where I just didn’t have time to really “write” an entire post so I would go with something simpler like an image. Great lessons learned, thanks for sharing & for stopping by!

  6. Thanks for visiting! I think that’s key is that when you don’t have time — because you won’t every day — you need to have simple go to things to write (or not write) about. Or just be OK with not really doing *every* day.

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