productivity Archives | Ian M Rountree

5 Ways to Make Every Blog Post Count

April 25, 2011 by Ian 2 Comments

Bloggers toss out a lot of content.

We’re the serial monogamists of the writing world – forever working on a new article, loving it until we publish the next one, and moving on in an endless succession of text production. Our job, as Merlin Mann so eloquently puts it, is to “make the clacketty noise on our keyboards until the right words fall out.” The trouble with this is that eventually, even the best words don’t feel right, and we lose ourselves in the production.

“Oh,” we say, “I don’t really have to put the time into this post, because the next one will be published tomorrow.”

Bullpucky.

In Cranking, an essay on failing to prioritize a book on setting priorities, Merlin talks about the manner in which he’s developing his work for the book he’s under contract to deliver. He’s struggling, in part because he’s not an author. He’s a writer, sure, but as we’ve discussed before, authorship and writing are different things. Merlin’s having the issue many transitioning tradespeople have – he’s trying to apply the method that works in one medium to another, and failing (as he says, not me). Does this mean his book will suck? Quite the opposite – should it ever be released, I think it’ll end up being a canonical example of what productivity books are for; helping people get their work done better, quicker, sooner.

Why is this a big deal for bloggers?

Because I’m in the same boat, and I think a lot of you are too. While some people are diving back into the things that work for them, there’s a feeling that not everything we do actually counts. One of the thing that I read from Merlin’s essay, and some of the reactions to it, is that while prioritization is key, making the work you actually do more meaningful is a great way to avoid burnout, while being more productive.

So let’s talk about some of the things you can do – for yourself – which might just help keep you in the zone, and make sure the posts you publish are worth your time.

1. Limit the number of categories on your blog.

When you force yourself to write only about stated subjects, you automatically increase the likelihood that your articles will be more impressive over time. By keeping yourself to a strict regime of topics, and retaining an open approach to themes that address those topics, you’re going to do better work. If even a cinnamon toast can come back to creative work, for example, you’re on the right track.

2. Research is your friend.

Do your discovery! While not ever post requires fact-checking, looking into your subject matter can almost always provide some additional resources. Maybe someone’s already related food to sales pages, for example, and you’re writing the same theme from an entirely different voice. Referencing existing material can be as helpful for fact checking as it can be for making sure you don’t sound too old hat.

3. Make sure you’re filling in all the fields.

Search engine optimization aside, it’s generally a good idea to go for completeness. Have you referenced everything you need to? If you’re in an SEO-ready blogging environment, are you entering your own titles and meta descriptions? Have you tagged and categorized the blog post properly – or are you relying on your defaults to cover these things for you? Just like you can’t steal third base from first, you can’t expect a blog post to do well in search without some tender care. And, as much as we love social media, it really does contribute to the per-post feeling of ephemera.

4. Make every possible connection.

Cross-linking posts, and linking out to other bloggers, is important; links are part of how the web works, not to mention being important for SEO. At their core, however, links are a great way to expose new readers to your existing material – which will help you feel like the things you’ve done in the past actually mean something. More than just increasing the value of the work you do today, cross-linking your blog posts can also increase the value of the work you did last month, last year, or even further in the past.

5. Ask questions.

Unless you’re writing a research paper, don’t be afraid to leave things open to interpretation, and encouraging discussion. Even if you end up with an in situ comment count of zero, you might be causing ripples – giving people something to respond to can help then find their way as well, and may end up in some ancillary social sharing, a trackback, or other forms of off-site engagement.

Back to you – what have we missed?

There are a lot of ways to make your blog posts more effective – what works for you? How do you maintain interest, without feeling overwhelmed by the inner editor, or worse, by the inner apathetic? How do you make your work count for more than you once thought it might?

Oh, for the Love of Obscure Services!

April 18, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

We love to complicate things – we use services like Flickr’s Creative Commons search to fill our sites with awesome pictures, like laughing mantises or rock platforms.

Sometimes, it’s awesome to find the simple things; like Placekitten. Drop by and check them out – it’s handy to have tricks like this up your sleeve when you’re working on things like blog posts, and need something simple and fast. Like a kitten. Or, in the case of placehold.it, the service which PlaceKitten was inspired by, empty boxes like the one below.

Is it subject-appropriate visual interest for a blog post? Not necessarily.Handy for tossing something together quickly, for example, when you need to preview a blog post or ebook for layout? You bet.

It’s little things like these that can help speed up your production time and reduce the hang-ups in mid-action that so often cause procrastination.

… And here’s another placekitten!

Stop procrastinating! Place a kitten, save a blog post!

[Hat tip to Chris Coyier at CSS Tricks for the unintentional new tool, via: “Faking ‘float: center’ with pseudo-elements.”]

On Deciding Our Own Lessons

January 15, 2011 by Ian 2 Comments

You know what? I’m tired of talking about failure.

I’ve spent most of this month thinking about how to move on, to learn, to grow from setbacks – and that attitude hasn’t been helpful at all. Sure, I’m learning and growing, but I’d be really worried if I weren’t.

What we learn from our experiences is largely tied to how we treat them, both in the moment, and in hindsight.

We have this awful tendency to vilify the things that enact our setbacks, or to make golden the things that appear to have helped us succeed. Is this productive? Probably not, unless we live by way of avoidance – and that’s not productive. No matter how attached we are to praise, or unconcerned with whether people think we’re snobs online or not – retroactive adjustment is usually a bad idea.

Productivity – rather than just activity – is far more interesting, and far less tied to dedicated learn-by-failure kinds of work than one might expect.

I’ve been thinking about theory a lot lately. Applying theory to practice, adjusting our theories to match our work… These are all good things. But one of the things theory allows us to do – if we have a strong grasp of it anyway – is to conduct some analysis on our failures, and the failures of others…

But there we go again!

We need to shift our verbiage – instead of talking about our liabilities, let’s talk about our deliverables. Same thing, far different meaning. Instead of crossing things off your to-do list, highlight them – same action, entirely different mental trigger (and thank Susan Hurrell for that one).

It isn’t just how we react to our opportunities for improvement that impacts how we improve; it’s also how we react to our opportunities to show our strength, and opportunities to analyse whether it’s strength or improvement we’ve got.

Stop mitigating your weaknesses, and start bolstering your strengths.

The Ubiquitous Office – Tools for Personal Brands

September 15, 2010 by Ian 4 Comments

I read a blog post a few days ago listing must-have approaches for personal branding has really gotten me thinking.

We do a lot of work to supplement and implement our personal brands – we change our avatars, we work on our websites, we blog, we tweet. We self-censor. It’s a lot of emotional labour. But what about the tools we use to do these things? How are we getting where we profess we want to go – especially with so much of the personal branding focus relying on being the job from anywhere we are?

So – I have a request.

I’d like your help developing a list of blogging tools, which will eventually become a resource page here on this site – and which any contributors (which will be listed with their proposed resources) can feel free to repost – assuming they include a link to the original page.

Now – I know a lot of bloggers out there put together resources, so I’d love those too – links to pages or blog posts with lists or groups of tools, tips and tricks… These things help too!

And of course, there is fine print. It’s thus;

These are not intended to be productivity or process-related tools, though those will not be excluded. If you want productivity, 43 Folders has some great productivity resources.
These are not intended to be problem-solving tools – see ThoughtWrestling’s myriad resources for creativity and problem solving (I’m a contributor there, when there’s time).
The tools list can be anything from writing resources, to programs, to physical gadgets, clothing – whatever you’ve found that helps you do the work. Favorite computer model? Really love Evernote? Preferred hosting solution? There’s a lot of possibility here.

The list I’m looking to collate, ideally, should be everything a blogger needs to make sure they can be effective from post 1 to post 10,000.

I’ve already got what I think is a fairly good list – but if I get a suggestion for something that’s already on the list, I’ll be happy to give some more credit.

So. Whatcha got? What do you need to keep your Ubiquitous Office running smoothly from dawn to dusk?