I love to meander, but I also like to get stuff done. I stay very busy, and sometimes I accomplish wonderful things, but I do so in a disorganized fashion.
In a never-ending quest to have my life be tidy, sensuously-hued, and easy to navigate (like decorating magazine image of shiny, sparse homes) as well as filled with people (unlike a decorating magazine pic,) I am reviewing many aspects of my everyday life. Why? …because I need to. See Monday’s post. This is because for the next six months I will be working in a temp job at a nearby academic library and will have to be more disciplined to keep my own projects on task.
I am fortunate that I can even go out and find employment in these times. Many people cannot find anything, especially someone my age (pushing 60 in a few years, let’s not speak of it,) and the last time I tried this I could only find a minimum wage job (this little old Master of Science holder was majorly disheartened by this.)
So what am I, as a content business owner, doing to organize my business and life?
Hootsuite Set-up and Postings
Spreadsheets. The secret to an organized life is boxes. Sometimes the very powerful cultural practice of naming can be used to organize an out of control life. The organizational boxes into which we put things in order to impose order on our lives only need to be mental ones for a few lucky people. Knowing the categories and processes to be accomplished is all some folks need.
Other folks, such as me, need paper boxes. The boxes can be the ones on a spreadsheet, or they can be literal, physical boxes with labels.
In this section I only talk about spreadsheets; literal boxes will have to wait for another post. I have used Hootsuite to organize and “feed” tweets and posts for paid social media campaigns I’ve done, but for some lazy reason I’ve not done it for own posts. Stupid huh? That has to change.
I will start putting some tweets and FB posts together ahead of time and format them in way Hootsuite suggests so as to be able to upload a spreadsheet of prepared tweets and facebook posts ahead of time. Or if you are not old school, you can scan and schedule via Hootsuite built in features, such as publishing option, and that are getting better every day.
Bloglovin’ Feeds and Info
I cannot write without inspiration. Systems need through-put. I draw inspiration from various places such as newscasts, science feeds, and the online writings and ramblings of bloggy friends. For the next several months I won’t have time to peruse various blogger groups on Facebook and read the pieces as I have done over the past couple of years. I will have to rely on a feedreader. My choice to organize posts is Bloglovin’. The ease with which I can categorize, group, and regroup blogs and news sites and the multiple ways I can view those categories comprise the best features of Bloglovin’ for me. Bloglovin’ shows signs of merging feed organization with content curation. Nifty.
- Have I seen this news, tech info., or a friend’s blog entry?
- Have I read this? Did I like it? Should others read it?
It also provides a way for other Bloglovin’ users to share not only their own work through the site but to also direct readers to that option and save what they find in a seamless process that provides interactive options for organizing by topic, saving, sharing, and marking as read. I could use Hootsuite for this function too, but Bloglovin’ has elements that are social media channels in and of themselves, while Hootsuite is backend and publisher oriented.
Editorial Calendar
I have installed an editorial calendar plugin on WordPress. It is helping me to use a calendar to plan posts and go through the 200 (!) drafts I have saved as unfinished documents on my site. I am also implementing a 7 plus or minus 2 category structure, because that is how our brains work; and it shouldn’t be difficult. But for me it is. Changing taxonomic structure on my own content makes me disintegrate into near-apoplectic seizure. The act is no less stressful than selling a home and purchasing a new one… and I have lived in the same home for almost 25 years, if that clarifies my willingness to go through that.
But as I go through draft posts and schedule them, finish them, or delete them, I can review what I write about and how I might better use categories. I’m currently tossing around über simple categories like: Read/Write, Tech, Travel, Social Good, Kith & Kin, Making, We will see what comes out in the wash.