When preparation and opportunity meet [Create a blog timeline]

Success is when preparation and opportunity meet. ~ Bobby Unser

Have you seen success lately? If not, why not? I know I haven't seen much—a sale or two on Amazon—but that's about it.

I can tell you why, though. It's because I haven't been doing much with my blogs. In fact, the last time I wrote a post for any of my sites was over a month ago. It isn't that I don't have ideas—I have hundreds, maybe thousands of scraps of paper and notebooks and notes on my computer and notes on my phone filled with ideas.

No, the problem is I have so many ideas I don't know how to manage them all!

How to manage your ideas

This is just one way to help you manage all of your blog ideas. There are complicated ways or you can use the "KISS it" method. KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid!

I have tried complicating things and all that accomplished for me was frustration and no blogs being written.

Even though the stuff in the image looks simple, it is still too much! At least it is for me.

What I finally did was narrow down the piles and scraps of paper to one notebook/folder and one daily calendar.

The notebook/folder holds all of my ideas for each specific blog I write. The calendar—for simplicity sake—holds a list of which blog is being written on which day. It also contains a topic for the blog.

I am old school so I do most of my work on paper, but a person could certainly have these lists and folders and calendar on their computer or other device. For me, it just happens to be simpler—following the KISS it method—to have the ideas in a central folder on my desk along with my "blog calendar."

I am keeping the blog calendar separate from the other calendars in my life because I am doing my best to operate my websites as a business and I want that all separate. Plus, if I put too many things in my "catch-all" calendar, the blogs may get lost in the shuffle!

I have found many places that offer free blog scheduling ideas. You can search for them using a variety of search phrases. For example:

• Free blog calendar
• Free blog schedule
• Free blog ideas

The search can be whatever you like, but just remember to KISS it!

Once you begin to complicate matters, things get messy quickly.

I also recommend that you have a clean, uncluttered work space when you are writing. If you need reference materials, that's fine, but keeping your work space free of other distractions is a big key to productivity.

If you want to find success, you need to prepare for it! The opportunities are there, but you have to be ready to meet them!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Best wishes for your success and mine!

Karin