Welcome to 2017!!!!!
As always, the first post of the month is a blogging tips post. So pour yourself a cup of your favourite warm beverage (I think mulled wine still counts) and enjoy!
You know when you get a kick-ass blog post idea and start hammering it out…. only to come across it two months later while browsing your blog post drafts because you’re too lazy to write a whole new post?
Anyone?
I am definitely guilty of this.
Sometimes putting posts into drafts can be legit. Sometimes I need to sleep on it or just come back to a post another day. Drafts can also be super useful for written posts you just haven’t added pictures to yet. But there are also countless posts that I have great ideas for and start researching but never put into actual coherent words.
So how to save blog posts from this cruel fate? I’m so glad you asked.
1. Make sure you’re still into the idea
I hate reading blog posts that someone clearly put no effort into. I get that some posts are going to be lazier than others but I believe that your readers will always know if you’re not passionate about your topic.
When coming back to blog post drafts, I always make sure to imagine it up on my blog. If I’ve taken a different direction since I had the post idea, it might seem random and disconnected. In this case, into the trash it goes. #noshame
2. Don’t be afraid to totally change what you have
The whole point of a draft is that you can change it before anyone else seeing it! If you have a great idea but seem to have forgotten how to write when you first stated the post, it’s 100% okay to reword it all. It’s still your fabulous idea!
3. Keep writing!
The other purpose of blog post drafts is to save stuff for later. Honestly, sometimes I just stop feeling a post halfway through and send it to drafts for another day. This lets me come back to it and make it a great post later.
Just make sure to finish eventually. Otherwise you’ll probably totally forget about your budding post and the world will never get to read your genius.
4. Or….. trash it.
There are also some posts I start, stop and then realise they’re terrible ideas. One was ramblings on American tourists (ie. me haha). Another was a filler post on luggage tags.
If you do end up trashing an idea, it might be worth writing it down somewhere. Inspiration might strike later.
I always tell myself, quality over quantity!
The aftermath of all this might be less posts, but probably better ones. I’m always proud of myself when I write a post I actually took time on, no matter how much time it spent in my drafts. Which is actually why I’m only posting once a week now.
Posting once a week lets me really focus on making one well thought out post and makes it so much easier to juggle the rest of my life.
So next time you add to your blog post drafts, try not to think of them as stale ideas, banished for life. Think of the drafts folder as a shopping cart-ish thing instead. Or not.
Just finish those posts! (Or not).
Do you draft blog posts? Do yours also get stuck in there forever?
