Guest Post—How I Manage Multiple Blogs
Jan 24th, 2008 by Nut
[Recently, I've been considering starting a second blog, one based on my love of baseball and things like sabermetrics. Knowing the demands on my time for just one blog (this one), I decided to get some advice. So I went to Lazy Man from the über popular Lazy Man and Money and Lazy Man and Health. He also runs writes for The Prosper Blog. He was kind enough to write a great post on the subject:]
When Writer’s Coin asked me the other day to write a short article, I was instantly excited. I had thought about writing such an article on one of my blogs, but the process of writing is outside the scope of any of them. The Writer’s Coin is a much more appropriate venue.
Writing multiple blogs is a lot of work. I have trouble keeping up Lazy Man and Money, Lazy Man and Health, The Prosper Blog, and one additional blog with insignificant traffic. If that sounds like an absurd amount, it’s worth noting that I quit my day job recently. I don’t believe I would be able to keep up that kind of workload with a normal 9–5 job.
Most bloggers find themselves having to make a choice—do I write quantity or quality? We’ll ignore the bloggers who write neither. An argument could be made for focusing your writing on either. When in doubt, I’d suggest going for quality. Some of the biggest bloggers don’t necessarily write that often, but when they do write it’s thought-provoking content that people love.
If quality is more important than quantity, why start two or more blogs? The answer lies in the creative process. It’s very difficult to write on demand, but I find that I get bursts of inspiration from time to time. To manage two blogs successfully, this is a crucial time to get all the information written down somewhere. Once your idea is gone, it’s very, very difficult to get back. Organization is your best friend here.
How do I stay organized? Crimson Editor is my savior. I originally picked up the Crimson Editor source code editor for my software development. That’s what it’s designed for. However, after using it a bit, I realized that it has almost everything that I want in a writing tool. While there are plenty of text editors and word processors on the market, here are some of the things I love about Crimson Editor:
- Free - If there’s a person out that doesn’t like free, I haven’t met them.
- Lightweight - Software doesn’t have weight in a physical sense, but some programs require more computer resources than others. Microsoft Word will take ten or more seconds to start up on my computer. Crimson Editor is like Notepad, it’s there in an instant.
- Easy to Use - Some word processors like to be everything to everyone. Crimson Editor doesn’t concern itself with fonts types and sizes. I don’t have to draw or chart for my writing, so all this functionality is wasted for me. Though the spell checker isn’t great, I supplement it Firefox 2.0’s spell checker before I submit a post.
- Multitab Interface - I fell in love with tabbed software programs, when if first appeared in a version the Mozilla browser.
It’s the multitab interface that’s really drives my organization. Bare with me for a second bulleted list. Here’s what’s in my Crimson Editor now:
- New Blog Idea - a document containing ideas for yet another blog… At this point, I would have to have four months of content lined up before it gets off the ground.
- Blogging Tips - each line contains a short description and an URL to an article I should read.
- Scratchpad - Any idea that I’ve ever had for an article is here. I try to prune it as I write an article, but often times I forget. When I need an idea, this is where I go.
- To Do - One line per item. I have a short, middle, and long term items in it. My short term is going to get one item smaller when I send e-mail this to The Writer’s Coin.
- Lazy Man and Money Articles - These are articles that in the process of being written. I typically have three or four in various stages of completion. The article that you are reading now is probably one of very few that I’ve written in one sitting.
- Lazy Man and Health Articles - It’s important for me to keep these articles separate from my Lazy Man and Health articles I find that everything has a place and I always know were to look for what I need.
There’s a lot more to blogging than writing. Every blog requires a bit of marketing, but that’s a topic for another day.
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Correction… I write for the Prosper.com blog. I don’t run it.
Nice article… Once same correction to your intro. LazyMan writes for the Prosper Blog (weekly). He does not run it. RateLadder (http://www.rateladder.com) runs the Prosper Blog and is editor-in-chief.
[...] Coin is thinking of starting another blog. Since I have a couple of existing blogs he asked me how I manage writing for multiple blogs. The short answer is that it’s not easy. It’s a treadmill that doesn’t stop. [...]
I’m in the same boat, it is incredibly hard to manage multiple writing gigs. Between my main blog, About.com, Prosper, and the occasional guest post, I can easily lose my mind. The main difference with my organization system is that I’m almost 100% analog. I hate trying to keep track of things on the computer. It seems as if I never accomplish them.
So, I went out and bought a huge glass whiteboard calendar and hung it on the wall right in front of my desk. Then, I try to plan out a month in advance articles and deadlines for individual posts or major tasks. As they are completed, they are simply crossed off.
Then to help keep things organized, I color code each item. I put a red dot in front of an about.com task, a blue dot in front of a prosper task, and a green dot for my blog. This visual cue really helps to scan the coming week and see what needs to be done.
The only other organizational tool I use is a regular paper notepad and keep it next to my keyboard. As ideas come, I jot them down and brainstorm. I use the paper to freely write ideas, and then use the big calendar to post deadlines.
It has helped tremendously over my past method of trying to use an electronic version of everything. The only problem is that I could still use more hours in every day.
Sounds like you’re very organized Lazy Man… I need to follow suit. I write for 3 blogs currently and my posting is so haphazard it’s ridiculous. Maybe I’ll check out Crimson Editor to get things a bit more organized.
[...] Lazy Man and Money muses Britney Spears: A Small Factor of the Recession? LazyMan also wrote a guest post at the Writer’s Coin where he tells us How [to] Manage Multiple Blogs [...]