As I begin posting on my personal blog more often, I have slowly began picking up a few readers here and there. If I’d like to continue this trend, I think a few changes are in order, and I’d like to get the input of anyone interested in giving it. Here’s what I’m thinking:
Change #1 – Setting up a publication calendar
I’ve been posting once or twice a week for a while now. My goal has been twice-weekly posts, but I’ve never really thought about what day or time I publish. This is a horrible habit. I had a twitter exchange with James Clear, author of (the wonderful!) productivity book Atomic Habits about this yesterday in fact where both he and another reader gave great advice:
I think twice-a-week is a good schedule to have, but now I need to figure out which days work best for me. I have a lot of moldy post drafts that have been growing in my Ulysses petri dish, so I will work on refining those into something postable.
Change #2 – Pick a topic(s)
This is a personal blog, right? That means I should be able to post about nearly anything.
Well…yes and no. If I want to build this little blog into something worth reading, I need to have a tight enough focus that readers know what to expect. My problem is that I’m interested in so many different things I want to write about that it quickly gets overwhelming.
But change is needed. I must reign myself in.
My primary interests (and the interests which have brought my dozen or so readers here) seem to be in writing, reading, tech stuff, and productivity. I think I can combined writing and reading together into a single topic and I can do the same with tech stuff and productivity, since the two usually go together from my point-of-view.
At the same time, I want the freedom to write about coffee, D&D, religion, notebooks, or anything else that interests me at the moment. What to do?
This train of thought led me to the following potential weekly publication schedule:
| Day | Topic | Notes |
| Monday | Tech/Productivity | Monday because that’s when we need to start getting stuff done |
| Wednesday | Writing/Reading | This is all about mine and others words |
| Friday (optional) | Personal Choice | If I feel like it, write about whatever else I want |
This way, I can work on honing in audience while also having an outlet for random thoughts. What do you think?
Change #3 – Words over pretty images
I like to make my blog posts look nice. I spent an inordinate amount of time selecting a WordPress template so I could lead with a hero image and try to make my personal blog both minimal and profession with a bright pop of color from the hero image.
That said, I just spent 10 minutes trying to find an appropriate hero image and almost shelved this post instead of publishing it. That’s no bueno. When in doubt, go ahead and publish. I can always edit in the pretty later on.
Edit – the Twitter screenshot was made the default hero image and this looked horrible with my header, so I found a generic photo and posted it instead. Source: Fairfax Computer Repair
David Galloway 
No idea if you’re missing anything. But I’m going to watch and learn!
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