For me coming up with ideas for blog posts is like coming up with ideas for games… it’s easy! It happens without me even trying. In fact I have so many ideas that I can’t possibly put them all into action. It’s the same for business ideas too.

In this post I’ll explore how to capture blog ideas when they occur. In a subsequent post I’ll be suggesting some ways that you can generate ideas for blog posts.

Capturing Ideas

One thing that’s important is having a mechanism to catch the ideas so that you never loose them if you are too busy to write a post straight away. Here are some suggestions:

– Have a folder called Blog Ideas or something that you keep on your Desktop for easy access. In fact it’s best to make the actual folder in a location that will get backed up and just have the folder as a shortcut on your desktop.

– You could have a single file and store all the ideas and research notes in it but I tried that and found it to be too unwieldy once it got large (although I do have a small file where I keep the titles of current topics that I think I might write about really soon). So I tend to make a text file for each blog idea and give the text file an approximate title.

– Then I can add notes and links to the text files straight away or later when I feel like doing more research. Sometimes I sit down and research and write a blog post all in one go, but other times I only feel like doing the research and pasting it all into a text file, and other times I only feel like typing up my research into a proper blog post. It’s good to have these different options depending on what mood I’m in.

– If your computer is switched off, but you are in the same building, make sure that you have a notepad and pen ready on your desk so you can scribble and idea down at any time. You can then add the idea to the Blog Ideas folder later on (it’s best not to have multiple lists floating around).

– You may also want to consider having a notepad and pen by your bed so that you can write down any ideas that occur as you are dropping off to sleep. But don’t get too carried away or you may get overexcited and stay awake for hours (this has certainly happened to me quite a few times!)

– If you are away from your home/office then carry a small notepad and pen or a mobile device that you can quickly make a note on. Type these up when you next get to your computer.

– If you are at work and you write your blog at home and you get an idea, just email yourself the idea in a one-line email. You can collect it when you get home and add it to your list.

– Another possibility is using your own voicemail if you really don’t have a pen and paper handy.

Now What?

Great so you’ve got all these ideas for posts, but they mean nothing unless you actually write them up into proper posts. I’m pretty motivated to write posts at the moment and I don’t even know why. Sometimes I think I’ll just write a short post but it ends up being quite long because I realise that each point can be explained in more depth, and before I know it I’ve written a long post.

I don’t force myself to write posts, but when I’m in the mood I make sure I write one (and finish it). I’m doing it as a preference to playing games at the moment for some reason – I just feel like I have a lot of information that wants to get out and I also like seeing the finished article (the development time of a blog article is way less than that of a game ;-))

Unless I’m 100% driven to write a particular post (which does happen quite a lot) I check out my Blog Ideas folder and pick a post that I’m into writing up right now. I have so many ideas that I’ve actually had to split up my Blog Ideas folder into high priority ones and medium and lower priority ones. Possibly some of the lower priority ones will never get written, and some of them even become obsolete over time, but that’s OK because I’m enjoying writing the ones I write.

Sometimes I even write multiple articles in one day but I realise that it’s not so good to post several in one day and then have a gap (from a point of view of returning readers), or to post a less important article after a really great one thus pushing it down the front page – it’s better to spread them out. So I really should start scheduling the posts to automatically publish on certain days…

I hope that this article aids you in some way with your blogging.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 3:36 am and is filed under Organisational Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.