A New Time Management Method

I'm trying so hard to fit more actions into my days. Of necessity I've added a lot of gardening into my routines. Now I need to add back in things like journaling, writing, and art table time. I'm desperate.

I created a new daily time tracker sheet using Word. A piece of paper listing all the things I want to do in a day. Something to remind me what else can be done, aside from time wasting. I honestly believe that the more I organize my thoughts, the more I'll get done.

I could post a copy of my activity tracker page, but it is personal to my goals for my time, so I'll not do that. I'll just say I'm using Word, adding tables with my lists in them. I'm printing only one page daily because it is bound to change as I adjust my goals and expectations.

How To Create a Blogging Editorial Calendar on a Spreadsheet

Today I've been working on setting up my blogging editorial calendar for the final four months of this year. Blogging, especially blogging on multiple sites, as I do, requires the same kind of pre-planning that goes into creating a magazine that will be published monthly. I need to keep my blogs up-to-date and filled with useful content that will really help my readers.

I created my blogging editorial calendar using Excel. I once used a WordPress editorial calendar plugin however found it to be too simplistic for my needs. It doesn't allow for pre-planning on multiple blogs; I had to access the calendar on each individual blog, so I found it confusing. I need everything represented on one page.

Each year I start a new Excel file for blog organization, and the editorial calendar is one page of that file. Other pages are for notes on various blogs and aspects of my blogging work. I create a new file annually because I've had Excel files cease working in the past, due to being overly used. It can be a huge challenge when the file that stops working contains a record of your annual business expenses for the last five years!

Here's the page for my blogging editorial calendar. If you would like to have a copy of this to help create or design your own editorial calendar, just click on the image. Below this, you'll find explanations of the sections I use.



Date Posted: The day this project is completed.

Platform: What blog (or YouTube channel, for vlogging)

Post Type: See the "Types" page in the spreadsheet.

Category: What category in your blog will this fit into? Blogger.com blogs refer to categories as "labels."

Proposed Title: Suggest a possible title. Change later if need be.

Sources: Where will you get your information for the post? ie: research, experience, etc.

Graphics: Where will you get your images?

Multimedia Needed: What do you need?

Request: At the end of the article, will you ask your reader for something?

The rest, in small font, are the social media platforms you plan to use to let people know about your new article or video. ...

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Internet Radio

I just spent the last 70 minutes listening to an internet radio show and honestly, don't believe I've enjoyed it much. It keeps me from being able to write, and I'm reduced to the few activities I can manage without using my brain in productive ways. I really need to recover from time wasting!

Easy Template Change

It was another time management decision. Rather than designing another blog template I decided for now I'll use one of blogger.com's new templates... plus I've turned off the archives for the time being. Maybe later I'll restore the other pages that were here but for today I don't want to deal with it.

Why did I change my blog template? Because I was tired of seeing pink! It was pink, pink, pink for several years and somehow that color no longer fits my personality.

Leaving AFRA, a Time Consuming Activist Organization

Today I made a major time management decision. I said "no" to AFRA. Oh my... I cannot believe how liberated I feel. Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE AFRA. I really do. And I love the people there. That's why it was a major time-consuming addiction for me. So I wrote to the founder and the vice-president and said I'd no longer be participating.

In case you're wondering, AFRA is the American Family Rights Association. I'm an activist more than an advocate but call me either. I care about family rights and am concerned about families torn apart by false accusations. So I've had a family rights website online for four years.

My decision is to moderate my time commitment by participating only in my website and not in AFRA activities in the future.

After turning off the mailing lists and adjusting to my new activity level today I had the pleasant sensation of having time for other things like my writing (remember that!?).

Project of the Day & The Internal Alarm Clock

My project-du-jour was my webdesign website. This is actually my second attempt at getting this together. Tonight I changed the photograph, wrote the HTML and javascript, and worked out some problems with the graphics. I haven't got the individual pages done yet so.... it will be a while before this is ready to be looked at close up.

Isn't it strange how our internal alarm clocks are so often right-on? Lately I've been leaving the computer from 7 to 10 pm for my daughter to use. During those three hours I like to lay down and relax. Well, since I'm fifty now and stay up all night most of the time, this is reasonable... so I lay down at seven, fall asleep, and suddenly just before ten every evening I wake up... via internal alarm... not a physical one. I think it is just amazing. So far it has always worked just fine for me.