How To Focus Your Blogging Goals

Wow! those last 11 days went by fast and let me tell you I was a complete failure…not only in my Thirty Day Goal, but also in my Eleven Day Goal.  If you want to see my goals take a look at last months two posts:

Goals For 2010
Article Creation Goal Update #1

Should I even recount my results over the past month?  Why not…The goal was to output 72 total articles between my blogs (way, way too lofty a goal).  After the first twenty days we revised the goal to only output 15 articles in the last 11 days.  Here were my results:

First 20 days: 10 articles
Last 11 days:  5 articles

Eeeek!!! Not even close.

image by Anders V

Focus Your Blogging Goals

Last months exercise helped me realize that I need to focus my blogging goals.  In particular only concentrate on one thing at a time (one blog in this case).  I gave myself such a lofty task that the mere thought of starting was enough to make me procrastinate.  Another possible solution could be to break down these large items into smaller chunks.  Maybe 72 total articles is achievable for me, but I need to think of it more as writing 2.5 articles a day (that’s a high expectation considering I have a full time job to worry about).  Finally, I didn’t create any due dates, besides the final date.  It kind of reminds of the procrastination in college…do nothing all semester then write a 20 page paper from 5pm till 8am the next day…not the smartest way to accomplish a goal.  What I need are intermediate goals, not just the big final…more like high school where most teachers break your work out into homework assignments, pop quizzes, regular exams, midterms, and finals.

Here are a few things I noticed.  The day I set my goals I was very productive probably outputting two or three articles in one sitting.  As time moved forward my productivity declined.  I was having motivation or procrastination problems.

This months goal is to just focus on one blog.  Concentrate all my efforts to get everything done on that one blog.

Focusing on PuppyInTraining.com

This months goal is to focus all of my efforts on the PuppyInTraining.com blog.  The Puppy In Training blog is basically about my journey as a Guide Dog puppy raiser.  I like to give out tips and hints on dog training (stuff I learn during my puppy training classes), information about upcoming dog events, dog product reviews, and a bunch of other dog and puppy related rants and writings.

I guess the million dollar question is what do I want to do to the Puppy In Training website?  So lets get started…

1. Write a minimum of two posts a week released once on Tuesday and once on Thursday.
2. Read through and update all the pages.
3. Write a My Story post that covers my entire life with dogs.
4. Update the design on the Puppy In Training site.
5. Create a newsletter sequence to run once a month for 6 months.

That’s the list I want to accomplish in the month of February 2010.  Lets break it down even further into smaller more bite sized chunks.

Write a minimum of two posts a week released once on Tuesday and once on Thursday (due date February 14th)
I released my first article of the month Tuesday, Feb 2nd called Top 5 Reasons Why A Dog Sticks His Head Out The Car Window.  That’s one down only 7 more to go.  In order to accomplish this goal I’m going to work on writing my Tuesday and Thursday posts the weekend before.  In fact I might try writing six articles on Saturday that I can schedule for the rest of the month.  On a side note, I would really like to get 3-5 total articles out in any given week and will work towards that goal if time permits.

Read through and update all pages (due date February 7th)
This shouldn’t be to difficult a task and can probably be done in one or two sittings.  As I look at the current Puppy In Training site I need to update the information on the About Page, make the Contact Page a little neater, add information to the Advertise Page (this could lead to another source of revenue), and maybe do some brainstorming on what I could add to the Resources Page.  One final thought…should I add another page to include a store front?

Write a My Story post that covers my entire life with dogs (due date February 7th)
This should be an easy one.  Sit down and write my life with dogs.  Break the article up into 4 separate 500+ page articles.  Release in a series and link to from my about page.  This micro-goal dovetails with the first two micro-goals.

Update the design on the Puppy In Training site (due date February 28th)
This is probably the biggest micro-goal.  I probably won’t opt for a custom designed template for my website, but may choose a premium template.  I’ll probably outline a post here at the Thirty Day Goal website and do my best to identify exactly what I’m looking for in a template and see what I can find.

Create a newsletter sequence to run once a month for 6 months (due date February 28th)
This is another daunting task.  I have approximately 2000 subscribers to my Puppy In Training newsletter and don’t have a proper sequence of newsletters in place.  My first step in this process is to send a quick newsletter to all my subscribers and update them on my upcoming goals, any puppy news etc.   Then create the newsletter sequence and try to follow the format Darren Rowse is using at Digital Photography School.  Check out his newsletter sequence article.

In order to document this months journey here’s a look at the current state (as of 2/1/2010) of the PuppyInTraining.com website:

Puppy In Training Home Page

Puppy In Training Post Page

Okay, so I think I got it for this month.  I focused my goals.  I broke them down into smaller chunks.  I assigned due dates.  Now lets get rocking!

Do you have a Thirty Day Goal this month?  Do you have trouble focusing or accomplishing goals?  Please tell us your story in the comment section below.