Planning with Simplicity

They say your blog should reflect you and be real.

A friend often tells me I have an “all or nothing” personality. If that is the case, my blog definitely has been a reflection of the nothing part. It has been seriously neglected lately.  In fact, it has been bordering abandoned.  

For a variety of reasons, I decided to get back on track.  If you have an “all or nothing” personality, you know that a challenge in making changes is creating obtainable, yet satisfying, goals.  I need to be careful to not go all grand plan and try in an effort to make myself an overnight sensation of the homeschooling Blogsphere.

Baby steps.  I must do this in baby steps.  I also need to keep in mind, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” which is a really old saying that is still around, so there must be something to it.

When Mosaic Reviews asked that its team of reviewers check out a list of blog planners and select one for review, I sort of cringed - and possibly even twitched a little. While I know I need to plan, I quickly became overwhelmed with some of the really awesome and elaborate planners out there. They just didn't fit with my writing-when-inspired approach to blogging (a.k.a. flying by the seat of your pants and hope it works out).

A simple blog planner is what I need.  

I found it.

Check out this planner offered for FREE by Girl in The Woods.

A whole month of planning is on *one* page.  It gives you space to think about daily topics (weekends off!) with a side column to note tags, categories, and links.  Up at the top is a short and simple reminder list for each post.  Following this checklist would have saved me some past headaches!

I’m not sure if I will be able come up with enough topics and inspiration for a daily blog post. I think I’ll commit to posting two or three times a week for starters. Perhaps I can use the other days spaces to plan for blog hopping, posting on my blog’s FB page, or some other non-posting activity.

Also, if I think of a topic, but don’t have time for it at the moment, I can just jot it down for a future week, rather than trying to recall that great blog post I had thought of when I didn’t have time to write, but was sure I would remember. Some weeks I have tons of ideas and little time.  Other weeks when I actually have time to write, I've got nothin'!  This simple planner will help me organize my random thoughts and time into something that just may work.

The simplicity of this planner, available as a free download, doesn't make me overwhelmed and feel like I have to fill in every blank or I'm a blogging failure.

Thank you, Girl in The Woods, for the inspiration to get back on track.