Have you noticed that I have blogged daily for the past 30 days? (actually 31 counting today) It is part of the 30 Day Blogging Challenge led by Cricket Walker.
This challenge was the motivation I needed to make a commitment of posting to my blog regularly. I’ve learned a lot along the way. It’s been fun to do research, plan the photography, etc. I appreciate you stopping by to peek into my life and musings, and I’ve enjoyed hearing from people who have taken time to leave comments, too. In fact, I am having so much fun, rather than winding down, I think I am just now winding up!
One of the things I am finding helpful for keeping organized and motivated is the WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin by Stresslimit and Zack Grossbart.
This calendar is now my command center for managing posts on my blog. After installing and activating the plugin, the calendar is accessible directly from within the WordPress Dashboard under the Posts section. The user interface is intuitive and well-designed, thus working with me rather than against me. The calendar automatically picks up posts that have already been published. New posts can be entered for any future date. Sometimes I just enter a quick working idea as a title placeholder for a date. When I actually start working on the post, I can spiffy up the title, or even drag and drop that post to another date.
I first heard about the Editorial Calendar from Glennete Goodbread, another member of the 30 Day Blogging Challenge. You can check out her blog article here.
Even though I’ve learned a lot, it has made me realize how much more I want to learn and do with my blog. I have set up a test environment to play around with a new template. And maybe some other new features I can bring to my blog for you to enjoy in the future. So please subscribe or come back to visit each day for “taking time to smell the roses”.
p.s. A shout-out to all my fellow Blogging Challenge friends who have been blogging along with me these past 30 days. Here’s to all of us to keep going! Thanks for your support and encouragement.
how do we use the calendar
hello
Congratulations on accomplishing the 30 day challenge, it is a great achievement.
Paul
i’m glad you have finished the 30-day blogging challenge. it’s a feat that i haven’t conquered yet. Your story is very inspiring.
Casey Farsh
Spurpress
This 30 day blogging challenge reminded me of a quote from
one of my favorite trainers in oral communication which said, “Smart people
write things down.” For some people, the
idea of blogging everyday might be a little time-demanding but I think the
value of blogging every day helps one slow down and put things on the ground neatly
one by one so you can see all of them together in one big picture. Many of us rush too much. Blogging is definitely one way f taking time
to smell the flowers.
Portia ~ http://www.spurpress.com
Blogging
for 30 days straight is something I have yet to accomplish. In fact, I have a
hard enough time blogging for two days straight! This post convinced me to move
to WordPress though, as I don’t think my current blog host offers features like
the WP calendar. I think that would really help me post more often.
Congratulations
on your success and please wish me luck on mine!
Cheers,
Mela
T.
http://www.whitespaceinternational.com
Great idea with the WP calendar. I’m soon off to check it out. Usually I have so many ideas and so many things to do that it is hard to keep track of things.
This tool might just help a lot.
Great that you learned something from the Blogging Challenge! That plugin for the editorial calendar was developed by a member of ProBlogger’s problogger.com paid forum.
Hope you keep up the blogging every day!
@Glennette You are welcome.I’m looking forward to doing more and following what you do, too.
Congratulations! isn’t it amazing what we can do when we put ourselves out there and make a commitment publicly?
Thanks for the mention and the link. I don’t think I could have done this without that plugin!!!
Glennette Goodbread
Premium Web Design and Hosting
Great post Jackie, like you I have learned a lot during our challenge month. I feel I want to do more!
Congrats on your success with the challenge. You are inspiring.
And, thanks for describing the editorial calendar. I had heard about it before but didn’t understand how it was better than just a paper and pen list that I thought would be more flexible. But I see how what you do is flexible, too. I might just have to try it soon.