Do You Need to Hit The Publish Button RIGHT NOW?
February 18, 2011
Do you need to publish your blog post right when you finished writing it? Right at that precise moment?
Or could it wait to be published for an hour? or a day? or even a week?
Could there be a better time to publish this particular post? Or a better day of the week?
When you finish writing a blog post, it is tempting to just hit the "Publish" button right at that moment because, well...
you're done!
Or at least... you think you are.
You want to just get the post out.
Move on to the next post coming out of your brain.
But when you are about to hit that button...
STOP!
For just a moment... and ask yourself...
Does this post NEED to go out right now?
Maybe it does... maybe you are breaking some news or chasing a topic that is breaking on a site like Techmeme.... maybe time is critical. Maybe you've set a personal goal and need to hit it (been there, done that).
But maybe it doesn't. Maybe if you let it sit overnight or for a day or two you'll have some additional insight to add. Maybe you'll see a better way to word the post if you look at it again later. Maybe you'll spot that typo that you just didn't see in the heat of writing the post.
Maybe you can instead schedule the post to come out at some future time. Instead of having a spiky publishing schedule where posts come out at whatever random moments you write them, you could have a more consistent schedule where posts come out every day or every couple of days.
Most blogging platforms have a scheduling feature, and there are even some great tools like the Editorial Calendar plugin for WordPress (see also another review I wrote about it) that give you a view of what you have coming out when. (I use it and definitely like it.)
Admittedly, I struggle with this concept myself... it is soooo tempting just to press "Publish" and get your content out there... but if you pause for just that moment, it may in fact wind up working out better for you!
What do you think? Do you schedule posts? Or do you just hit Publish? (Or will you now try to schedule some posts?)
P.S. This post was in fact scheduled for a future time... even though I was sorely tempted to just hit that dang "Publish" button!
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