Stay Organized in 2015 | my blog planner set-up

During the second half of 2014, I started to be very intentional about planning blog posts and getting them ready for the blog.

Then things started getting overwhelming and I realized that I needed to get organized.

Enter: the Pretty Documented blog planner

Like I shared last week, I’m already using the Pretty Documented planner for my daily organization and scheduling (which I love!). So it was quite a natural decision for me to use the Pretty Documented blog add-on for blog organization.

As I tried to figure out how I should plan out my blog planner, I read Andrea’s post and really like how she organized everything, so my planner is loosely based on her structure. After all, if the Queen of Organization has it all figured out, why not take a cue from her instead of reinventing the wheel, right?

Similar to the Pretty Documented planner, Caylee provides a ton of options in the blog planner so you have plenty of formats to choose from to make something that works for you.

Tip: Figure out your blogging process and decide which pages you will use from there.

You can also use the steps listed here to customize your blog planner.

Here’s brief overview of how my blog planner is currently set-up:

2015 blog planner set-up

After the blog cover, I have an index of pages in my planner.

Then the details of my blog, elements, sketches, and blog planning. This is the “big picture” stuff – the overall of my blog.

On the editorial calendar page, I list all the various events and holidays that I want to plan blog posts for.

This is followed by a monthly section.

I have a calendar view and list view that help me to plan blog posts for the month. I like having both formats because it gives me a different idea of how that month’s blog posts look like. Not sure if that makes sense; I guess that is just how my brain works.

After the monthly overview, I have the posts and social media pages where I write the blog post titles for that month and get a good overview of what I need to work on, what is complete, etc., and where I’ve shared my posts. This page is especially helpful when I need to figure out what I should do when blogging hour comes around.

This is repeated for all the months until December.

Then I have three pages of ideas and features.

And a stack of post planning pages.

I use the post planner pages to write down initial ideas and thoughts when my phone or computer aren’t close by or easily accessible. It also gives me a tangible way of recording and staying organized for all the blog posts I write, instead of having random post-its or digital notes scattered everywhere.

Note: This part of the blogging process differs for everyone. My fellow bloggers Andrea and Caylee like to hand write their posts and leave pages for those, while I like typing mine out in Evernote (or emailing a draft to myself) because I edit a lot and my hands just can’t keep up with my brain sometimes.

There’s no “better” way to write your posts, just the right way for you.

The last section is for guest posts and everything related to that.

So there you have it! My blog planner for 2015.

If you want to be intentional in blogging this year, now is a good time to organize and get started since we are only a couple of weeks into the new year – definitely better sooner than later!

P.S. Caylee and Andrea also have great posts on how they use their blog planners.

All words, photos and enthusiasm are my own. I am in no way compensated for this post. I just love what Caylee and Vanessa did so much that I wanted to share it with you!