Right now, I’m writing this post when there are 44 posts in my drafts. Call it shiny object syndrome, a chronic lack of concentration or anything else you want, sometimes I still don’t know what to blog about! I’ve been working on improving my systems this year and I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made in finding a schedule that works with everything else in my life, but it’s always going to be at least partially a work in progress.
How To Avoid Draft Blog Post Fatigue
Well, firstly, you need to know what it is. Though it’s mostly self-explanatory based on my introduction. Draft blog post fatigue is when you have a ton of posts in drafts, but rather than finishing them off, you keep writing new posts.
As a blogger, you probably fall into one of a few camps:
- The Never Proof-reader
- The Compulsive Editor
- The Create-A-Title-But-Never-Write-The-Article-er
So, how do you avoid draft blog post fatigue?
I used to go into WordPress, go to posts, drafts, then edit each individual post. That way I could see and immediately edit the post, with a view to scheduling and publishing. The problem is that I would open a post, see how much work there was to do on it, move my mouse back over to posts, and have a bunch more clicks onto drafts before I could even get to the next post to see if I wanted to finish off that one. It’s just like what people write about sales strategies online – the fewer clicks you have to go through to do something, the happier everyone is. It works for you too!
I thought this was the most efficient way to do it. And it’s not bad as such, but I’ve since found a new way that works with my brain and energy a bit better. What I do now is go to my drafts folder, and do a right click – open on the preview link of the blog post. Yep, that way I get to see it in a “completed” state. I find that this works much better for me in motivating (or, frankly, demotivating) me to choose which posts to finish off and publish. It is visually easier to for me to skim and see how much more I have to do to finish this post. It’s also easy to go to the edit post button at the top of WordPress when you’re in Preview to finish it off.
I think the preview also works well on me for stimulating ideas – it’s a bit like reading a “real” post.
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How many posts do you have in drafts? Do you have any advice on how to finish off blog posts?