Little Blogging Tips Series: Organisation

Hey lovelies! Yes, in this week's post I'm bringing up the dreaded 'O' word, that I'm sure we all love. It seems like people are always telling us to be organised, and is given as the solution to almost any problem. Want to do well at school? Stay organised! Want to have a great blog? Organise! Personally I was always that teenager who randomly shoved paper into my file, and couldn't care less that it wasn't in order, but somehow I would virtually never miss a deadline and was 'organised' in my own way. Being organised as a blogger is about finding what works for you, so even if you are terribly unorganised, you can find little ways to become more productive and organised on your blog. There is hope!

IDENTIFY YOUR PROBLEM

If you find yourself in a vicious circle of not being able to meet your expectations - ask yourself why this is. Are you setting up unrealistic goals? If you do three posts a week, but struggle to do the third consider cutting down to two posts a week - quality is much better than quantity especially if it's stressing you out. If you find yourself posting sporadically, get into the habit of a schedule so you know what posts to get ready for the week and when you'll need them by. If you're scared by the idea of being constrained by a schedule, try to have at least one day a week that you always post on so you get into the habit. Another problem you may be facing or might face is not wanting to blog because it's stressing you out - in this case take a step back and think about your blog identity, chances are you might be doing posts for your reader and not really for yourself. If in doubt remember why you started.

BINGE BLOG

I probably could have made this sound a little more attractive, but anyway... You know those days when you just want to blog or take loads of photos or you're bursting with ideas? Take advantage of these to get a head start on future posts. Take photos in groups and upload them to new posts ready to upload later, start new posts in your drafts with a few ideas that you can come back to later or even write a few completed posts. Take advantage of your inspiration in preparation for those days where you're too busy to blog or don't feel inspired.

GET INTO GOOD SOCIAL MEDIA HABITS

When you've just finished a post, it's easy to sit back, relax and completely forget about sharing it on your social media. I won't lie I do this all the time. One of the things I like to do is create a mental (or physical) checklist for social media, so that I don't forget to share it on my social media straight after I've put a post up. Trust me it is so much easier to share things straight away then having to stress about not having done it later. Alternatively you can use sites that help you organise your social media like tweetdeck that allow you to organise and track your tweets.

EMAILS

I think most of us can agree that checking our emails can be quite a stressful affair because there's usually a lot of emails that are either spam, or newsletters we really don't care about. The problem with this is that the important messages we need to answer can get completely lost amongst all of this! The easy way to avoid this problem is to have multiple email addresses - I personally have three that I use (gmail lets me link all of my accounts). One for my blog (for PR, people contacting me and blogger newsletters), one for spam (use this to sign up to sites, etc...) and one for personal use (non-blog related/important things). This means that your email boxes will be much less cluttered and won't be hiding important emails that need your attention. Trust me this really works!

PLAN AHEAD AND PREPARE FOR THE BUSY TIMES

Chances are blogging isn't your full time job, and if it is, wow I'm jealous of you! Make sure you're prepared for exam seasons or the holidays. If you're going on holiday for example, plan a few posts to have on your blog whilst you're away - or simply choose not to post. For exam season, make sure you're not prioritising your blog over uni or school work - people will understand if you're not active for a while because of that but it's best to make a decision to post or not to post - and if you do decide to post make sure you're being realistic! Another option is to get people to do guest posts for you when you're doing exams or going on holiday, this will take some pressure off your shoulders and new content for your blog. A great idea is to get a diary or online diary so you can plan ahead and have something to go back to to stay organised.

Thank you for reading lovelies! Let me know in the comment section below if you found this helpful!