Blogging is full of stops and starts. This is a post, not just about planning but also about those beginnings and endings. An analysis of sorts ( I am a highly analytical person). It all leads up to my intentions for this year. When I started a blog several years ago, I had no plans because I had no intention other than just to produce content. Namely I wanted to share projects for various scrapbook challenge blogs around the web.This worked for awhile and my blog did grow. It was however, quite selfish. It was all about just me and whatever I had done for whichever challenge. It worked ok, but it wasn’t fulfilling ( I’m pretty sure my audience got bored with that too).Realizing my selfishness was in itself a new beginning for me.

Back then, at the start of my first blog, I was also very active on the Club Creating Keepsakes member boards. It was a community full of giving and sharing. A place to help each other with a mix of inspiration and encouragement sprinkled in. I realized I wanted to do that on my blog. I wanted to share not just to say ” Hey Look what I made” but rather to tell people ” Hey, you can do this too. Here’s how.” And so I set out to do my best. I wrote. Sometimes I wrote often. I shared tutorials. I learned how to shoot video. I learned how to promote my blog.  I would like to say it was all in the spirit of giving but in blogging, there is often a touch of the selfish too. Writing was a way for me to keep my vocabulary strong, especially important to me in the days which my only grown up conversations happened when my husband came home.

I wrote as often as I could. Never with any planning in place. I just chose whichever project and shared it when I felt like it. I had heard of the proverbial editorial calendar, but felt it would stifle my passion to write. A mom’s life is full of planning and this was the one place I had without a plan.  I guess you could say it was a safe place to be spontaneous which worked fine for a little while. As with everything, ideas were being sparked and I needed/wanted to create more posts. The ideas needed direction. I wasn’t really planning yet, but the promise of those ideas turning into posts became a virtual to do list in head. I promised myself to do something with that growing list and when I could not fulfill the promise guilt began to creep in.

The downside to all of this was that I was constantly on the edge of burnout, always feeling hectic and overwhelmed. When you have guilt or expectations of yourself, it’s often natural to begin beating yourself up. We forget that we self imposed those very promises.We forget that it’s ok not to keep them. I did what so many people recommend doing. I started saying no to new projects more often. I cut back on projects and collaborations but soon realized I missed doing them. There had to be a way for me to find balance and to become a more organized blogger. In 2015, I attempted to create my first dedicated blog planner. It was another new beginning and my first try at an editorial calendar. I learned a lot but in many ways that blog planner failed me.

Why Did my Blog Planner Fail Me?

There seem to be three main issues that I struggle with in any planner.

1. It’s not big enough. I lack enough space to jot down notes and ideas.
2. It’s bound in such a way that I can’t move pages around easily. Let’s face it. I have more goals and plans than I can achieve in one week. I wanted a way to move forward with the to do list. Rewriting it made me feel like I had failed which led to to feel more hectic and overwhelmed.
3. I either have the time to decorate in the planner or I have time to actually use it. I never seem to be able to do both. I WANT that pretty planner but realistically, it just wasn’t going to happen for me unless I sacrificed somewhere else within my creative life.

Knowing what doesn’t work is allowing me to move forward. It seems like a new year is often when most of us think about planning. So like many, my new beginning starts now with my 2017 blog Planner.

What do I Want to Achieve with my 2017 Blog Planner?

Editorial planning is my main goal. I have the creativity. I have the drive to write. I just never seem to get all those ideas organized. My plan is to make 2017 the year of the organized and consistent editorial calendar. I want to publish often and I want to publish regularly. To do that, I needed to find a way to manage not just my blog, but the various creative teams and project collaborations I am a part of. I also need to find a way to balance my role in homeschooling my son and caring for our home with the work I want to do on my blog.

The idea for using a binder as a planner was born. It may not be the most innovative idea ( nor may it be the pretty planner that so many people desire) but hopefully it’s going to be practical and fit my needs. Would you like to see inside? It’s still a little bare, but the bones are there. I think it’s got a chance to work!

Do you have a favorite planner system? What things work or don’t work for you. I would love to know. Feel free to share your tips in the comments below.

Thank you for reading a story from #BehindTheBlogger Hop. Every 2 weeks a group of bloggers is given a writing prompt. These prompts are very open ended, so our bloggers can write about whatever they desire. The main rule is that their blog post directly relates to the topic of that week. The point of this hop is for our readers to get to know us on a personal level.

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If list making is your thing, try finding inspiration on the MSE Planner Love: Bullet Journals Pinterest Board