Spontaneity: Scheduling posts vs writing in the moment

Two years ago I attended a conference for sewing professionals, which included multiple sessions on managing social media content. Talk about an eye opening event! I had no idea that content could be planned and managed ahead of time. Here all this time I thought people who had blogs were writing in the actual moment and posting at the time when their post was dated on their blog. I am sure that some do, but after that conference I started looking at my blog with new eyes.

I have kept a journal since high school, and my blog tended to follow more of a journal model. Writing has always been in the moment for me, based on things that are happening in my life at that time. I enjoy doing that, and I enjoy sharing my experiences in that manner, but when life gets busy, it gets really tricky trying to make sure I have the time set aside to write and post as things happen and on a regular basis. I would submit the dearth of posts on this blog as evidence of how well this was working…

I have decided to try a different approach this year and schedule posts ahead of time, planning what I am going to write about. I am planning to work about one month at a time. Posts will drop on Monday mornings at 07:00 central time. I am starting a running list of possible topics to use for my post. I can still be spontaneous – I can always change the schedule of a post or I can drop in an extra post in a week if something really grabs me. In this plan, I will write posts in a clump and schedule them to drop over the month.

I have always been a creature of habit and I know my life runs more smoothly when I plan ahead. If I want something to be a success, I map out a plan and a timeline and then work towards the completion. I learned how to do this very effectively at work, and I am now applying this process to things at home. I have gotten to the point where I meet my sewing deadlines this way, so it is just logical to apply this same approach to keeping my blog active and regularly updated. I would love to be one of those people who just wakes up and wonders where the world will take them today, but I am not. I need to be ok with that. I am just wired differently than those people. Somewhere along the line, I equated creativity with spontaneity: if I was not spontaneous, then I was not being creative. I’ve decided they are different things. I can be creative but go about it in a different manner. I can be open to changes along the way but still start out with a plan to get me to my deliverable.

So here’s to planned creativity. Map and agenda in hand, let’s see where it leads me.