Being more efficient at Blogging

If you had a piece of software to visualize your thoughts, organize them, and put them in context, you will write better. Visualizing the organization of your content is called mindmapping. I use MindManager to create a map of the posts I’m writing. To you reading this blog, it’s all linear by date. But here is what it looks like to me:

As you can see, there is a heirarchy. While I’m traveling the internet, I run across ideas, other posts, and over time, I add them to the map, and the blog posts practically write themselves. This saves you from the feeling of having to face the wall of a blank page. So, what else can do with all this stuff? Well, do you need to plan projects, Brainstorm new ideas for products, develop presentations, manage meetings, create a resume…

So far, I don’t think [iFreelance] is the best use of Bidders or Buyers time. - Jeff Knooren

IMO, one of the best things about this type of sofware, is it allows you too look at the map in different ways. Craft an outline of your thoughts and develop a logical progression of your points. If the flow doesn’t work, rearrange the order of your points. Switch back between linear outline and non-linear map view. Then, you can export/import it to MS Office.

A Bit Of History

I remember just 15yrs ago, if you wanted to make a spreadsheet, like excel, or have a document scanned in, you needed an expert to do it. A person was paid quite a bit of money to write the formulas to calculate a column of numbers. Or, making a newsletter required someone with years of experience in PageMaker. That level of expertise took so much time to acquire; they were considered highly skilled experts.

Computers are still a mystery to most people. In fact, even though I’ve built sites for IFAW and National Geographic, I still take jobs for the most basic tasks, like formatting PowerPoint presentations. I’m not too proud I’ll have you know. But I’ve also noticed that the world of computing has change quite dramatically, and not many people have noticed.

Todays World

Flash forward to today, and creating spreadsheets and HTML newsletters can be done by junior high school students. Creating a ready made site was impossible just five years ago. Look around at how many sites there are, built on blogs. It is obvious that blog software has become the next “killer app” because blogging is so easy, anyone can do it. Blogging changed the world, because in 5 years it created an army of Instant Experts. Now the problem has gone from “How do I create a newsletter” to “What do I fill by blog with”

… they had different file names and attributes, yet they were essentially the same icon. Frustrating. - Jeff Knooren

Creating basic websites is automated, and the fastest I’ve ever done it, was 3 minutes. That’s registering the domain name, to having a dynamic site all configured that the internet could enjoy; 3 minutes. The caveat is: Just because it’s automated, doesn’t make it automatic. It’s there, but totally useless unless you put something in it. Once you start a blog, you better keep it running.

Still, it is quite a challenge to publish something that stands out from the noise of a total of the estimated 3.5 million blogs that are out there. But have you ever stared at a blank page, not knowing what the blogosphere wants to read? The internet rewards interesting blogs with attention. But help is on the way, all it takes is a little planning before you start.