5 Minute How To: Save Time With Future Posting
Published June 22nd, 2007 in 5 Minute How Tos, blogging, blogs, productivity, time management, wordpress, writingSometimes it’s hard to find the time to write a decent post every day. Some bloggers resort to really short posts of less than 100 words just to have a post. Others will relentlessly re-blog on recent news items, or just post a bunch of links to other bloggers’ articles.
There’s nothing wrong with any of these practices, but your readers are most likely interested in reading something from you. They’ve come to your blog to read what you have to say and that’s why they keep returning. This is one of the most important things to keep in mind as you blog. The information you blog about is what draws visitors in the first place, but it’s your unique voice that keeps readers coming back.
So, how do you deal with the problem of not having enough time to post today? Easy. There’s a feature of WordPress (you are blogging with WordPress, right?) that allows you to save a post to be automatically published on a future date and at a future time.
All you have to do is go to the Write Post screen in your WordPress Administration page. Write your usual awesome article with a great SEO title and interesting, unique content. Then you just change the date and time in the Post Timestamp box in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Click the Publish button and you’re finished.
There are a couple of great reasons to make use of this feature. The first one we’ve already discussed; if you have time to write today, then you can write your article and have WordPress post it for you exactly when you want it to. Another great reason to make use of future posting is that it can help you become much more productive.
You may only have time one day a week to block out a few hours for blogging. You can best make use of this time by writing several posts as once while you’re motivated and focussed. Instead of taking you an hour a day, five days a week, it’s quite likely that you’ll be able to write those five posts in three hours or less. If you can reserve that time when you’re going to be free from distractions, you can be far more efficient in your blogging.
If you think this sounds like a great idea (or not), leave a comment and tell me about it. Also, if other common blogging platforms have a similar feature, write a how to post on it and I’ll update this post with a link.
Another great way (but maybe not so great as one you posted) is to take a very old (many months back) post, change it a bit, make it actual and repost.
Will look new to newcommers, familiar to old visitors.
A big advantage of this “tool” is not only that one can fill the blog with something and save visitors.
Re-viewing - re-editing an old post may “reinstall” blogger`s creativity and then write a good totaly new post …
I think this is a great idea and I do need to know all that I can do with wordpress now that I moved my blogger blog to bluehost! (today). Blogger does have the option to change the date too but of course it will not publish posts on its own, you do have to log into your account and ‘publish’ them.
And I like Valentin’s idea too, but of course the key there is to go back “many months back”
Some pretty popular A-Listers like to bring out old posts or do summaries of past posts from time to time. This can work out, but only if it’s used sparingly. Remember that new readers will be finding old posts through the search engines anyway, so they are definitely still useful. Subscriber numbers will grow only with fresh new content, though. Thanks for the comments!
I think tht the related posts plug in can help revive old content too.
Thank you for this article.
It is very helpful.
I knew there was a way to do that…
It is a great strategy to keep posting to my blog, even if I know I am going to be very busy in the coming days/weeks.
Kenny
Hey Funny Guy, that’s a great idea. I had intended on installing that plugin a while ago and forgot all about it. Thanks for the reminder!
Hi Kenny. I’m glad you found the article useful. This is a great way to keep a blog alive through those periods when you just don’t have time to write. Thanks for your comment!
I accidentally stumbled upon your page looking for Google toolbar buttons. Great page and the advices you give or those of your Guest bloggers are excellent.
As with regard to this post, i sometimes find myself lost for anything to write, so i find a trivial topic and put in a creative streak if i can so as to just have something to post and not to bore the readers and leave them waiting for ever!
Or sometimes, going back to old posts and updating the readers how you resolved a certain problem that you discussed earlier or moved on from a situation they would have read is interesting…
Regards
Shafi
Hi Shafi. Thanks so much for your kind words. That’s a great idea for finding something to post about. Even in the most trivial of things, we can sometimes find something useful or entertaining.
Your idea about following up on older posts is a great one, too. It’s definitely worthwhile, then, to go back over old posts occasionally and see if there’s a spark for a new post.
I’ve looked over your blog and I find it absolutely fascinating. Thanks for commenting and I do hope you return often!