One of the critical parts of establishing a blogging goal is to track how well you’re making progress toward meeting it consistently.
Back in February, I wrote about the concept of a 90-day plan for bloggers. One of the goals I established for my blog going forward was to try to reach a point at which I always maintained a few posts ready to run, including staying at least two days ahead.
The reason for wanting to stay at least two days ahead would be to take immediate deadline pressure off my shoulders. The reason for wanting to have a total of four posts completed and scheduled in advance (the four would include the two for the next two days), would be to give myself time, on days when I already had a post scheduled, to continue working ahead of schedule.
It also gives me the option to make a quick substitution at the last minute in one of those occasions in which “life happens.” It happens to all of us, after all, so it’s best to prepare for it.
Since I use an editorial calendar to schedule and plan posts in advance, having posts already written a few days out makes it that much easier to move things around in a pinch. There are even times when I might have a post ready to go when a more timely topic pops up, and I end up writing a post for the next day or so and then postpone the post I’d originally planned for a later date.
So the way I’ve come up with to track this progress is a simple daily two-point system.
For the month of April, I’m going to give myself one point for every day on which the next two days’ posts are written and scheduled. I’ll give myself a second point each day if on that day, there are at least four posts total scheduled ahead, whether it’s the next few days or even a month or more in advance.
The month of April has 30 days. If I make the goal every day, I’ll have amassed a total of 60 points.
Just a few days into April, I can go ahead and tell you I won’t have 60 points on April 30, since I didn’t create a system of “extra credit.”
But then that’s the whole point: I’m trying to measure my own adherence to the goal as it is. The last thing I’d want to do, especially during this early phase, is to try to devise some way to cheat my own system to get away with not making the goal.
At the end of the month, I’ll reveal how well I kept up with the monthly goal. Hopefully, I’ve not only done a good job by reaching at least 50 points, I’ll have gotten into the regular habit of writing in advance.
