Where does a blog fit in?

[Cpu_Modern]

Hi there!

Would you count a professional blog as a 20k area of focus or a 10k project?

Thanks in advance for any advanced thought an other help!

 

[sidsavara]

Hi,

I think it really depends on where the blog fits in your priorities, and the level at which you want to track it. I would classify it as a 20K area personally, and put 10K sub project underneath that (such as a series you want to do, a really in depth blog post, etc)

I look at 10K projects as things that I can bite off and eventually complete or move towards completion, and areas as things that I know will never really be done. If you are just starting a blog, I would definitely put setting up the blog as a project, and then perhaps promote the whole thing to a 20K area later.

Sid

 

[Borisoff]

I would treat it as 10K project if I'd like to post till the end of life

 

[jknecht]

I agree this is probably an area of focus.

For me, the key distinction between "area of focus" and "project" is whether you can define what "done" looks like. Projects have a definite, predefined stopping point. With an "area of focus", you are never really "done" until you just decide that you are going to stop.

 

[Brent]

I agree that it's at about the 10K-20K level.

In terms of integrating it into a system, here's how I did it. I used a weekly tickler to establish the following habit: On Sunday, I lay out blog posts topics for the upcoming week. Every day, I work on upcoming blog posts, and publish the current day's post. I try to flesh out each post the day before it's published.

"Post to blog every day" is a Project on my list, and "Work on XYZ post" is a Next Action on my NA list.

 

[Andre Kibbe]

Areas of focus are the values that completed projects fulfill. In the context of a professional blog, a project can range from writing a post to installing a plugin.

Areas of focus can be viewed on two levels. The "org chart" perspective deals with what roles need to be filled to produce a successful blog, like creative development (topic research and brainstorming), content production (the actual writing), marketing, SEO, design, monetization, and so on. What boxes need to be ticked to feel like your blog has a healthy momentum.

Then there's the area of focus that the blog itself fulfills in your life. For instance, if by "professional blog" you mean a blog that's meant to raise your industry profile and consulting fees, then "career development" might be your area of focus. If you mean being a "problogger," someone who earns a living through blogging, then the need to extricate yourself from the job market might make "financial independence" the area of focus, as opposed to creative expression, or some other nonprofessional slant.

For project planning -- at least on the content front -- I have a calendar category that only contains the title of the post planned for each day of the week (like Brent, I brainstorm my topics on Sunday). I like to see them laid out sequentially. Once I have the title topics, I drop these into MindManager (until recently, I was using CmapTools to do this), then start collecting details on each topic until it's matured enough to draft a post from. When it comes time to write the post, I switch from Map View to Outline view in MM, and draft point by point from the outline.