Bookwyrms hi, hello, welcome. I know, I am still alive. It’s shocking isn’t it, we all thought I’d only post once on here and be gone forever. Alas… not the case. *sips tea*
So with all that done and said, Soph does still have my soul as I mentioned in my first post here. I’m a contributor to this lovely blog, as I’m helping Soph out with formatting, thus she has my soul.
However, I figured since my own blog is on a semi-hiatus whilst I stress of the redesign process and just give myself a breather. I’d come to bother Soph…and obviously all of you lovely lot. I love planning, scheduling and basically, I’m a HUGE, HUGE fan of pretending to be organised.
There, I said it. I love pretending to be organised, literally the only person I’m fooling is myself haha. I love stationery, pens, notebooks, sticky notes and planners. Owning them, makes me feel like I have my life in control, however, I also realised when I get them I don’t really have much to plan…
2019 though, I have a ton of things going on, mostly within the blogging community. Exciting stuff, so I decided to go ahead and buy some pretty things (aka notebooks, pens, post-it notes…) to help me get ready for next year. I also began planning out a rough content guide for my blog for next year.
I actually started doing this midway through October, early November.
Here are my 5 reasons for planning for the next year a few months in advance!
3 Months Isn’t Long Really…
Wanna know something? 3 months isn’t long, its about 12 weeks, which sounds long if you’re not doing other things. I’m pretty sure we’ve all got other commitments in our lives, whether that’s education, job, a relationship, a family (including kids maybe?). Those things are very time consuming, and it can make it hard to find the time to read and blog as it is… so why would you want to take time out to plan ahead?
Well, for me at least, it gave me a sense of where I was heading. What I wanted to try and achieve next year with my blog, with my college course and the direction I feel like I may take. Visually planning and writing out the types of posts I want to create for next year gives me an idea of when I need to write them. When I should be getting things done and ready by… the spreadsheet looks pretty too is also helpful as I map it out roughly on calendars.
Content Planning Ahead = Less Stress
We make plans, we may change them, trash them or chew them apart. Rarely do we stick with our original plan. Planning ahead allows you to see what you’re wanting to happen when in an ideal world, of course. Even our best-laid plans go awry, but we can avoid this as much as possible by planning ahead. Not just the content.
Set aside days, segments of time to get certain tasks done NOW instead of leaving it all till say December. When you won’t feel like doing it, get lulled into thinking you have agesssss yet. Then DING DONG New Year’s here and you turn into a headless chicken running around frantically. Yeah. We don’t want that now, do we?
Planning ahead DOES NOT mean you have to stick to your plans, it means you have a starting point to work from. It usually leaves you with less stress, and you feel like you’ve got things semi under control. It’s time to breathe.
Gives You Breathing Room
Let’s face it, if you’re trying to juggle assignments/homework/work life/kids/home life or any mixture of that, you won’t be relaxing much. It’ll be go, go, go and not much “let’s sit down with a cuppa and breathe.” Giving yourself a rough plan, outline or whatever you wanna call it will allow you this room to either breathe or focus on other things.
Either way, it’ll give you a bit of room to have one less thing to worry about.
Excuse For MORE Stationary
Hi, I’m Clo, resident tea addict, sarcastic book dragon and STATIONARY HOARDER! If I can find any reason for stationary, you’ll bet I’ll be finding it. I’ll dig it up, unearth it and run off to buy some notebooks, pens, diaries whatever I feel like I need. I’ll buy. except for when my bestie tells me I don’t need it and ushers me out the shop…she saves my purse from crying constantly.
Do you have a favourite type of stationary? Favourite type of pen? Notebook? Let me know!
You Have A Chance To Juggle Better
If you have a plan, or notes or something written/drawn down somewhere. It can help you see what’s happening when, what you’d like to happen when and how to juggle everything. What you may need to move around, what can be moved and what can’t. I know for sure that this has been super helpful, although I do need to get myself back onto planning now as we’re nearing 2019… WHERE DID THE TIME GO?
So do you guys plan? Check out Soph’s post on our love/hate relationship with planning. Do we think I’m insane for planning in October?
Clo is a 20-something book dragon from the UK, England primarily found on her own blog, Cuppa Clo. She studied Graphic and Digital Design. Sarcasm is her default, and she's addicted to tea. Oh, and she'd rather you didn't save her from a dragon.
She was also a Co-Founder of Bookend Events, a quarterly event with the aim to bring the bookish community, closer together.
Hahahaha Clo you are invading Soph’s blog! I agree with all that you’ve said but I can’t seem to plan so far ahead LOL
hehehe *waves* I am, aha I mean planning ahead is an art in itself. Something I struggle with is actually sticking to my plans, I’m great at deviating or overthinking it and wanting to change it. So I gotta remind myself to stick to the plan, remember I have wiggle room if I need to use it AND to not overthink things 😉
Not going to lie, I’ll probably do something like this and schedule posts until around the end of February.
Oooo I mean you should, if scheduling is your thing hehe.
I think my favorite reason is “more stationary”. But seriously, I admire you. I am only more than a week out when it comes to tours. I pretty much do the same things each week (reviews M, Th; discussion F, TTT, CWW, Sunday Post), but I don’t even pick out what I will read until the week before. Good for you. That’s awesome that you are looking that far ahead.
ditto on the favourite reason hehe
awww thanks, I mean I’ve just got a good 6 month back log of reviews which are coming out on my blog in the New Year. Thankfully I didn’t read a ton of books, otherwise that would’ve made the first few months a problem xD I’ve planned out the content I want to include in the month, but they don’t all fall of the same day…they have a weird pattern to them *shrugs*
Also not planning far ahead is totally cool too, I envy you guys who are able to be content with being a week or less ahead. I was like that…then I realised I procrastinate too much for it to work xD
I am the worlds worst planner! I still have a lot of Christmas shopping to do 🙁 (I WILL get it done tonight!! I have a plan … sort of haha) I am super impressed you started planning so early! Kudos 😀
Hahaha hope you get that Christmas shopping done! Aha thankssss I mean it’s productive procrastination…also helps me panic less about content and stressing myself out 😉
I definitely don’t think you’re insane for starting 2019 planning in October! In November I started working on several January posts, and I always keep a list of upcoming releases ready to go so I can do those types of posts. I’m like you, I like to have some breathing room in case other stuff comes up.
phahaha I mean, for the sake of breathing room I think it’s a fair deal. Plan ahead and you won’t feel overwhelmed not knowing what you’re posting, when the month hits you in the face with Jan 1st xD Ooooo I never know what upcoming releases are coming out when, I’m just like oh that’s out didn’t know that xD Terrible with that I am, thanks for stopping by!
I do plan! Maybe not to the amount you do – because google docs don’t really work for me but I love how organised it keeps you! I make to do lists, and that is mostly a list of ready to go blog posts or ideas I have ready to go, and on what date I intend to share them. I’m pretty sure I have the first three to six months of 2019 all planned out. And three months ahead isn’t that long, and if it keeps the stress under wraps then GO FOR IT.
OMG snapsies Olivia! I’ve got the first 6 months roughly outlined, the first 3 months are more in depth plan with Jan and Feb mostly planned out with posts hehe. Google docs and I have a love hate relationship, hehe I just love planning and yasssss the stress needs wrapping up with a bow…so it can’t reappear and be rude.
I think it’s a great idea. I go back and forth on actually planning ahead though…just in terms of time and keeping up with it. I have some time in the next couple weeks to hopefully get posts scheduled ahead and plan out some other ones too. By the way, this is a perfect post to share in my Keep It Together link-up which went up today if you want to share! 🙂
-Lauren
Awww thanks for sharing my post! Aye I agree with the back and forth, I’ve been like that with planning mostly with trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Although I think I mostly know what works for me now, there’s always times I just really don’t wanna sit down and plan things out xD
Oh Clo, it is fabulous that you have it all planned! I am still trying get on board and I so understand what it means to ‘pretend to be organized’. One of my goals for the new year is start scheduling posts well ahead like you did.
aha you’ll get there! it just takes practice I guess, and figuring out what works for you. I hope scheduling your posts goes well for you! <3
hehe I’ve been scheduling posts since I first started blogging, honestly it’s saved me many times over too. I’m still getting used to giving myself that luxury of moving things, and not having “everything” set in stone, but we’ll get there. Well at least you had your content all scheduled out for Oct hehe. Thanks, good luck with yours and Happy Holidays
It is nice to finally see this post because I legit heard about this in October lolol. I definitely agree with you on all of this, since I am a super crazy planner. More planning, all the planning!
all the planning is needed! yep you did hear about it in October hehe, had to wait a while before you could finally see it though 🙂
I admire ALL the planning so, so, SO much. I’m a planning kind of person and I really like to feel ahead, but with work and everything else, I can only plan as far ahead as the next week, I would need a week long holiday and tons of inspiration and only blogging time all day to plan a couple weeks ahead already haha. It’s so amazing that you can do that and I agree that it relieves some of the stress for sure 🙂
Aaah thanks Marie! Hey planning till next week is still good though hehe, thank you and yes relieving the stress is so helpful for me. Stop me melting into a puddle xD
I generally have my blog planned three months in advance, though I’m behind now and stressing! It’s really great, though, because it means life can get busy or I can get sick or whatever and the blog goes on! I don’t know how people post on the same day they write something. I wouldn’t survive the panic!
Yassss having things planned so far in advance truly helps, totally agree though. I don’t know how people can post on the same day they write the post, like nope. I’ve done it a few times but it’s with goals posts or wrap ups nothing…too heavy in terms of content xD
So much yes to all of these things! I find myself hoarding stationary, pens, etc. because I feel like if I have them I will be more organized. When I decided to do a re-brand and a new website, I promised myself to have at least one month of blog posts scheduled and a minimum of another month’s worth of blog post drafts that just need to be tweaked to be publishable. It has made things so much easier! Hooray for a good start to 2019!
Yayyy for stationary hoarding! Ooooo well at least that’s worked out for you, means you’re not rushing around panicking to get posts sorted out.
Through all of the years that I have blogged, getting posts ready has always been my biggest stress point. I would always wait until last minute then try to panic write one and it really pushed me away from enjoying writing. Now, with so many planned, I feel so stress free!
Ahh Clo!! I loved reading this! I am super unorganised myself but I really want to be more prepared and less stressed! Also who DOESN’T love new stationery?? I have a literal cupboard full of stuff I still need to use!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the post Kerys! I mean I’m still getting myself organised, it’s a WIP for sure and stationary is my love. Oooooo cupboard full of stationary, that sounds heavenly 🙂