Blogging every day can be a bear.

To blog every single day takes considerable effort. And just a bit of planning.

I find that maintaining a regular routine is helpful. Establishing a rhythm and maintaining it is very helpful to meeting a post-every-day objective.

My normal routine is to always write at least one day in advance. So if I write a post in the morning before work, that post will be scheduled for five minutes after UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) so that the post will have the correct date. For me, that’s 4:05pm or 5:05pm depending on if daylight savings time is in effect or not.

So, by knocking out a post and scheduling it, I’ve effectively taken care of tomorrow’s post. That’s a good feeling. You’ve given yourself a bit of a cushion and you can adapt a bit if something unexpected takes you away from your normal writing time.

If you’re going on vacation and won’t have access to a computer, you need to kick it up a notch and have enough posts queued. So far the WordPress scheduling feature hasn’t let me down.

What sucks is when you get knocked off that routine. I’ve been really sick with phlegmitis for far too long. (Tomorrow will be officially two weeks.) And I was out of town two weeks ago and was one post behind on auto-scheduling for the vacation. So I got behind on my blogging rhythm and I’ve been behind ever since.

Now when I sit down to write a post in the morning, I’m writing for the current day. If I somehow don’t get it done before I leave for work, then I’m screwed because I won’t be home before WordPress rolls over to a new date. And that will mean I missed a day. It’s now or never. That adds a bit of pressure.

When I’m on my routine the days seem to fly by. When I’m off my routine I find myself worrying about how and when I’ll write my next post and everything feels off-kilter.

Hopefully I’ll feel better soon, get an unexpected chunk of free time, and maybe even enough energy to get back on my game. It could happen.

What are your blogging goals and what methods do you use to help you get there? What works for you?