This post was written by Glen Stansberry of LifeDev (feed). Check out LifeDev for tips to increase creativity and productivity in your writing.
If you’re wanting to generate a little bit of buzz around your blog, you might think about writing a blog series. I’ve found that they usually generate a fair amount of link love, and if anything it gives your regular readers something to look forward to.
However, writing a blog series isn’t always the easiest thing to do. It can be a daunting task, and the potential to stop halfway is very high.
I just wrote a blog series on digital vs. paper productivity tools, and while writing stumbled on a great little tip. I found that the best way to write a blog series is to write it all before you hit publish. Just by writing them all up, and use the advanced posting feature to automate the process over a few days (or however long your blog series is), you can kick back and watch your series take care of itself throughout the week. It’s a beautiful thing.
I know writing an entire series ahead of time sounds scary and daunting, but it’s really not that bad and it will pay off. Here’s why.
1. Failure of completion is impossible. If you’ve ever written a blog series, you know it can be a little draining, and you might get bored with it after a while. By writing it all in advance, you take away the temptation of stopping halfway through (and hoping that your readers don’t notice).
2. Continuous thought. If you decide to sit down and power through the series in one sitting, you’ll find that it helps you keep the series as a cohesive unit in your mind. One way to think of it is like an over-sized post. If you can break the big post down into many smaller posts, you’ll keep the continuity and the writing will go quicker. I even use multiple windows to write in as many as 4 different posts at a time.
Previously, I’d find myself rereading my previous posts again and again, trying to remember what the devil I was talking about a few days before. The one-sitting approach takes care of that problem in a hurry. Even if you can’t get all of the posts completed, outlining all of them works great too.
3. Keeping the idea alive. This one’s fairly easy. Usually I think of post series’ on a whim. So if I write the entire series while the idea is still fresh, I’ve got great potential of staying excited with the idea, thus ensuring I’ll complete it.
4. No procrastination. This leads into the previous point. If you can have the self-control to wait to publish the series as a whole, you totally eliminate the inevitable procrastination that comes with writing a blog series.
Sadly, there is at least one series that I’ve stopped half way through. Pretty pathetic for a guy who spends a good portion of his time writing about Getting Things Done, eh? The main reason why I didn’t finish is because I lost motivation. The posts in the series were pretty time consuming, and I completely underestimated the undertaking.
So there you have it. I’d encourage every blogger to at least try writing a post series if you haven’t already. It’s lots of fun, and it’s a great way to write a week’s worth of posts in one sitting.
PS from Darren: If you want to learn more about writing a blog series you might like to read a mini-series of posts that I wrote on the topic:
