How to Stay Organized & Consistent as a Blogger - Essential Guide - Blogging 101

I've been asked by a few people about my blogging schedule and how to stay organized and consistent so here I am sharing my personal tips how I manage to post three times a week and stay consistent with that schedule and try not to go insane while I'm at it.
Disclaimer: Not a sponsored post.

For those of you that don't know, my blogging schedule is usually this:
Writing and editing throughout the week, and posting (90% of the time) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Be sure to follow my blog (button to the right of your screen) to stay tuned and be notified whenever I post! You can also follow me on Google Plus, Instagram, and Twitter. All the social icons are somewhere on the sidebar to the right.

If you would like to read more of my other posts from my Blogging 101 series, click on the link below:

• How to come up with more than enough blog post ideas

Consistency requires you, as a blogger, to be passionate about your blog and passionate about what you write on. You need to set goals and be determined and also have will power to be able to consistently post on the days you plan to post on.
If you don't like/support the content you are writing, then you will end up slacking and posting less frequently than you hoped. Write about whatever you love and what you know about. The more you know about and love the topic, the more you'll have to write and the more quality content you will end up creating because you are actually interested in that subject.

Make a proper schedule. Write it down on the first page of your planner or write it on a sticky note and stick it on the wall right in front of you where you work. Somewhere on your workspace, you should have a reminder of when you want to publish articles on your blog. A constant reminder will help you get work done in time. Say you are just sitting at your desk, bored to death. You don't have anything to do. Your eyes will wander around the area to find something you can do and finally, that sticky note will catch your eye and you may end up blogging in that free time.

Another way to stay consistent even when you have a busy day or if you are out on vacation (or simply because you want to do a front load and then be free for a few days) is to pre-write and pre-edit your articles/posts. Write the entire blog post, edit it, add pictures, format it, etc. And keep a few posts ready so that your future self isn't burdened as much. 

The way I stay so organized is simply by using a spreadsheet software. You can use Microsoft Excel if you have a Windows PC or the "Numbers" software if you use an apple device. However, I like to use Google Sheets (you can also use Microsoft but I prefer Google). I've had a lot of instances where I lost data due to viruses in my laptop or other problems causing my laptop not to work and I am also bad at backing up data frequently. Hence, I like to be extra safe and work online. 

Note: It's also important to stay organized so you can figure out what posts to link in which posts and make sure the order in which you publish your posts is right. You don't want to publish a post and then realize it should've gone after the post that you linked inside that published one (make any sense?).

So, this is how I exactly use the spreadsheet software to manage and keep my blog post ideas/etc organized:

I make different columns and give the headers a specific font style (usually just bold)

"Prerequisite" basically means what blog posts have to come out before the one I've just added to the list. It also lets me know while writing the post, what other posts from my own blog I should link.
"Status" is basically the completion of the blog posts. Usually in this column will be either "Framework created", "[particular thing] remaining" or "Ready for publishing".
Finally, "Type" is the category (photo album, planning-related, etc).

Here's a small part of my sheet and the key I use:

If you want your spreadsheet software to automatically color code your "Status" column then here's an easy method how you can do so (example below has been done in Google Sheets):

If you have more than a few blog posts ready for publishing and want to keep track of the number, here's a simple way you can use the features of the spreadsheet software you are using to do so (I have done it in Google Sheets, as mentioned before):

And the last (but definitely not the least) way I stay organized is keeping a common checklist for all my posts.
This is my checklist:

🔲 Write content
🔲 Format text
🔲 Add pictures and main header picture
🔲 Add appropriate labels
🔲 Think of a clickable title for the post
🔲 Add Title and Alt Text to all images
🔲 Customize the Permalink

I hope I was successful in giving you a detailed guide on how to be consistent and organized as a blogger!

If you would like to read more of my posts from my Blogging 101 series, click on the links below:

How to come up with more than enough blog post ideas
How to effectively plan out and create a complete blog post.