I love themed Works for me Wednesday weeks, it just makes it easier for me to come up with something to write about! This week the theme has to do with blogs and any tips we have for blogging!

A few months ago I wrote a post on how I try to keep up with the bloggers by using a planner to write down any ideas for blog post and scheduling what I would write each week! I still use this and a few other things to help me keep on track!

The biggest thing for me in January was committing to post a blog post every single day. Now that is somewhat hard for me on days where I am out running errands or working around the house. I don't always give myself enough time to sit down and write one, or I cant get my mind to want to post. I found two solutions for both of these problems and am happy to say in January I hit my highest amount of visitors since moving to squarespace and I posted all by one day the entire month! Some days I was even able to post a couple of entries a day, which in the past I would have never dreamed of!

My first solution to the problem was to keep track of everything that I need or want to post about! The way for me to do this is my planner (tracking my ideas so I don't forget them while out and about) and sticky notes on my computer! Sticky notes was one of the main reasons I begged my husband to buy me a mac, unfortunately he didn't but Windows 7 added them and several programs are available to download for windows now! Sticky notes have now become my information resource center. I keep my menu plan on them, my to-do list, grocery list, target list, anything that I need to keep on hand is right on my computer screen. Anytime I make a new recipe but haven't posted about it yet, I put it down in my things to blog about list, if I have an idea for WFMW, down on the list it goes! This has really helped with my major blogging problem in the past, figuring out what to write!

The second way I am able to keep up with posting on a daily basis is scheduling my blog post! I know this one is fairly simple to do and I should have been using it years ago, I am glad I finally figured it out now. I am able to take advantage of my daughter sleeping time or hanging out with nana to write up as many post as I can. Once I am finished writing up the post I can schedule it for a certain date to publish or keep it in my drafts for a day to come! This has worked out great for me and if I know a certain day will be busy and I will not have time to publish a post on my own, I can schedule ahead and know I am keeping up with my goal for blogging once a day!Currently I have seven post already written in draft format for days to come, 5 scheduled for this week and a good list of post ready to be written!

My last tip for blogging is just do what makes you happy. I went through periods where I wanted tons of readers and did giveaways all the time but it wasn't the reason I was blogging. I became exhausted with keeping up with everything and most of the giveaways were my own out of pocket expenses so that was taking a toll on me also. I didn't want to have to bribe people into reading my blog so I have been taking a break from that at the moment and really blogging about what I love: family and food! I think having giveaways is perfectly fine if that is what you are looking to doing but if it stresses you out, dont worry about doing them. Find your niche and stick with it, network with other bloggers who you love and eventually you will be happy with the readership you have and maybe even love blogging everyday like I do!

So if you have some extra time today, check out this weeks Works For Me Wednesday Post! It really is great to get your started on blogging, building a network or understanding the host you use! I know I have sure learned a lot today and appreciate all the tips!