249: Deadlines – Are they Good or Bad for Your Blogging?

Do Schedules and Deadlines Help or Hurt Your Blogging? Have you ever missed a deadline? Do you have a content schedule or editorial calendar for your blog? Yes, today’s episode is all about schedules and deadlines. Whether you follow a daily, weekly or monthly schedule, does it allow you to produce the best content? What if you can’t come up with something good enough to publish? I don’t have a schedule at all because it seems to be too limiting. I won’t publish anything unless I have something that's worthwhile. Am I doing the right thing? Or am I overthinking and over-worrying? Will my readers even care? Do they pay that much attention to what I do? No rules exist, but here are some lessons I've learned from blogging: Quality beats quantity: If the quality of your blog content is suffering, it won't lead to long-term, sustained growth. Quantity is still important: Don’t slow down so much that you hardly post anything; if you feel everything you write is second rate, that perfectionism will stop you from producing quality content. Deadlines can help or hinder. They can be incredibly motivating for some bloggers, who do their best work under pressure. But for others, schedules and deadlines are crippling. Panic sets in, and stifles creativity. Then there are those who would never have completed high school or kept a job if there weren't any deadlines. So deadlines can be your friend or your enemy. Deadlines aren't the be all and end all. Missing one can be a good thing: If your content isn’t great, you don’t have to publish it. If your planned schedule is causing anxiety, you don’t have to stick to it. It''s okay to change your schedule. It's okay to stop publishing new content for a while to focus on other parts of your blog (or just to have a break). Whether you love them or hate them, deadlines and schedules are a part of most people’s lives. Strive for timely goals that produce quality content for your blog. Quote of the Day: “Working hard is not a waste of time, but a state of mind. Keep pushing your limits until you reach the edge. Then be kind and rewind.” ― Ana Claudia Antunes Links and Resources for Deadlines - Are They Good or Bad for Your Blogging: AdSense Further Listening How to Use Embedded Content On Your Blog Courses Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to episode 249 of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind ProBlogger, a blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses designed to help you to grow a profitable blog. You can learn more about what we do at ProBlogger at problogger.com. In today’s episode, I want to talk about schedules and deadlines. I want to talk about keeping your content coming out on a regular basis, and if having a schedule or a deadline or an editorial calendar is actually a good thing or not, because this week I had a question coming from someone who is really struggling with having a deadline. They’re actually finding the deadline, maybe, actually holding them back in some way. I want to give some advice around that. Particularly for those of you who do struggle with deadlines. I know some of you love a deadline, others of you struggle with deadlines. We’re going to explore that a little bit today. You can learn more about today’s show and get a full transcript of it and comment on today’s show in our show notes at problogger.com/podcast/249. This week I had a question that came in from Betty. It actually really coincides with another thread that I saw on Reddit this week as well, and I left a comment for it. Hearing the same question twice made me think there’s probably other people who struggle with thi...