This will be post #35 of the 100 day blogging challenge, and here I am, still at it.
Over time, I’ve refined my blogging algorithm and have seemed to settle in on a good one. Here is what works for me:
- Stop working about an hour before I intend to sleep. Since I sleep late this tends to be anywhere between 12 midnight, and 3am. Today, it is was 2:30am.
- I give myself about 15 minutes to come up with an idea. Usually I choose something that was on my mind during the day. I have old drafts in WordPress, but rarely use them. I just don’t happen to be inspired to complete them. If 15 minutes is up, I choose the best topic I’ve come up with.
- Start writing, and publish it before I go to bed.
This has been surprisingly effective, and I think it may be sustainable.
They keys here are really the two forcing functions. I must pick a topic in 15 minutes, and I must hit the publish button before I go to bed. I can take as long as I want to write, but at some point, I am sleepy and it is time to publish.
The result is that every morning, I wake up and think two things:
- “Oh man, I could have made last night’s post so much better”, and then
- “I can’t believe that I’m still blogging!”.
The first thought kind of sucks, but hey, no one said blog posts have to be perfect. On the plus side, it leaves room for future blog posts.
The second thought is awesome, and it makes me feel better about the first one.
Now it’s 3:03am and it’s time to sleep. I don’t even need to wait until tomorrow morning. This one could have been way better.
Still, for you aspiring bloggers, I hope you picked up something useful (pro tip: its the two forcing functions!).
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P.S. This is post number #35 in a 100 day blogging challenge. See you tomorrow!
Follow me on Twitter @alexshye.
Check out my current project Soulmix.
Alex Shye 
Hey, thanks for sharing. The way I do it is sit and think “damn, I haven’t blogged for a long time, I should write something” then I think of something interesting and if I feel I could write a post about it then I fire away. If not, meh. I try again tomorrow, or later. Your 15 mins idea sounds genius and I might try that (if I may 🙂 ). Peace
Hey there! Yup, the 15 minute rule comes in handy almost every day, and you should definitely try it if you are trying to write often. Usually, I think, “well, I know there must be a more interesting topic to write about, but I’ll save it for another day.” Hopefully some of them end up interesting 🙂
I try and not make my blog too much of a ritualistic thing so I blog when I feel like it sometimes that will be once a week and sometimes 3 times (thats only happened once hehe) Usually i record ideas I have for a blog on my phone and then later sit and listen to them and either type it or scrap it. The 15 minute thing will come in handy I think. 🙂
How I learned to track my habits | Alex Shye