My Blogging Routing (Part 2) | Scheduling & Color Coding!

Hi, guys! As promised, here is Part 2 of my blogging routine! 🥳

In the first part, I spoke about the tools I use every day that help me to stay on track with blogging, but also with other numerous daily tasks. I shared with you my love for Google Calendar and Google Docs and explained a little bit about what type of events I track on my calendar, how I color code my blog posts, and basically how I attempt to stay organized. So you can find all of that here: My Blogging Routine (Part 1). 

Today, I wanted to dive a bit deeper into my organization method and share my weekly schedule when it comes to blogging. Or at least, the schedule I try to keep up with, but it doesn’t always go the way I want it to. 😀  Also, Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books recently posted her organizational tips and how she plans book blog content! Make sure to check out her post as well. 🙂

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WEEKLY SCHEDULE

It’s not easy to figure out a schedule that works for you, and mine undergo many changes over the years. There was a time when I didn’t have a schedule at all and was posting whenever I had a post ready. This meant that sometimes I posted every single day, and other times I skipped a day or two [or a week]. 

I don’t really think that having a schedule is mandatory. We all have different amount of time that we can put into blogging, and that’s something we need to figure out for ourselves. Personally, I always tried to keep a steady schedule, but it never worked out well until the end of last year.

As much as I love blogging and interacting with you, guys, and as much as I would love to post every single day. It’s just not possible for me. I often work until very late and on the weekends, which makes it impossible to keep up with 7 blog posts every single week. After much thought, I decided to limit myself to only 3 posts per week. 

The second dilemma was on what days of the weeks I’d be posting. I love participating in Top Ten Tuesday meme, so Tuesday had to stay. On the other hand, I don’t like posting on Fridays or the weekend, because that’s usually the time I dedicate to next week prep. It turns out, that my “ideal” schedule to post is Monday, Tuesday and Thursday! 😀

Besides figuring out the days when I wanted for my posts to go up, I also needed to figure out when I would be writing posts, editing them, taking photos, blog hop, etc.:

1. When do I write and prepare blog posts?

Usually on Friday evenings! That’s why I like to not have any posts go up on Friday, so I can dedicate the evening to preparing blog posts for next week. Sometimes this doesn’t work, particularly on Fridays that I work late, then I try to get everything done on Saturday morning [morning often leads to afternoon and evening 😀 ]. 

I know that if I at least sit down and write all three posts on Friday evening, then on Saturday I will only need 2-3 hours to edit and prepare photos / graphics, and then I’m free to read or do other things.

2. When do I reply to comments & blog hop?

Blog hopping, as you all know, takes a long time. I try to blog hop every single day to stay on top of my WordPress notifications. I’m usually better at it on the week days and slack a bit on the weekend. Lol 

I also try to reply to the comments every single day, but sometimes it’s not possible, and that’s why I don’t post on Wednesdays so I can have that day to reply to all of your lovely comments on Monday’s and Tuesday’s posts.

There is a reason for everything! Ahaha 

3. When do I take book photos?

I used to post on Instagram every single day, but it’s been difficult to maintain this schedule ever since my internship started and I prefer to dedicate more time to my blog and blog hopping, over Instagram. But I still take book photos to use on my blog. I always try to take a bunch of them in one go, this usually means that I only need one Saturday or Sunday morning to take enough photos that will last me at least 3-4 weeks. 

COLOR CODING

I already mentioned this in my previous post, but very quickly:

• Red = post not yet written;
• Yellow = written but not edited;
• Green = edited and scheduled to go live! 
• Gray = book releases (mostly to keep track of ARCs);
• Purple = personal events (i.e. birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)

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OTHER ORGANIZATIONAL TOOLS I USE:

Google Keep used to be one of my main tools, but I slowly drifted away from it. I still use it sometimes to write down notes on books as I’m reading them to later use in my reviews.

Google Task on the other hand is very useful! Especially because you can pop the bar next to the calendar. I keep track of all my book tag nominations there. 🙂 [Thank you everyone who nominates me on book tag! I’m really horrible at doing them, but one day I will finally sit down and answer all of those fun questions! instead of coming up with my own… 😀

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And that’s it for my blogging routine – from tools to organization! I hope you enjoyed this little series and found some helpful tips! Also, if you have any other questions or anything else you’d like to know about my routine, feel free to leave your questions in the comments below! 

I would love to hear how you organize your blogging! Do you have a certain routine you try to keep up with? How do you feel about blog schedules? Let’s chat in the comments below!

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