How Using Sticky Notes Can Help You Improve Blogging Productivity

December 14, 2012 by Daniel Sharkov|

How do you improve blogging productivity?

That is the topic I will be covering today, but before we start…

Blogging is far from rocket science. And although everyone can set up a blog and start writing, not everyone can actually drive an audience and gain subscribers.

Most of the times the reason behind this doesn’t have to do anything with knowledge or writing skills…

The main factor is time! A problem that many bloggers face is lack of organization. They write useful information, yet their content isn’t seeing any exposure. The reason – they just don’t publish enough. The time spent promoting what they managed to publish on the other hand is also not ideal.
One or two articles a month and a couple of Facebook posts are just not enough to keep the flow going.

That is why you need to be more productive – so that you not only HAVE more time to promote and write content but so that you also UTILIZE that time properly!

One way to achieve this is through the use of Sticky Notes. I have been mentioning those a couple of times in my recent articles and for a good reason!
Keep reading to learn how using them helps you keep track of what has to be done!

What are Sticky Notes in the First Place?

Have you ever had that patch of notes that you can write something important on and stick on the fridge? Well those are the same, except they are “glued” to your desktop   Sticky Notes is a simple utility that can be found on any computer running on Windows 7 or 8 (they can also be loaded on Vista as a gadget via the Windows Sidebar). To reach them click on the Start Menu –> All Programs –> Accessories –> Sticky Notes.

How do You Format Your Sticky Notes? The great thing about this Windows tool is its simplicity. Basically the only thing you can “modify” is the color of the note. Nothing else. And although there are seemingly no formatting options available, you can do quite a lot with all the keyboard shortcuts available.

CTRL + N
- New Note
CTRL + D - Delete Note

CTRL + B
- Bold
CTRL + I - Italic
CTRL + U - Underline
CTRL + T - Strike Through

CTRL + L
- Left Alignment
CTRL + E - Center Alignment
CTRL + R - Right Alignment

CTRL + SHIFT + L
(1 Time) - Bullet List (●, ●, ●)
CTRL + SHIFT + L (2 Times) - Numbered List (1, 2, 3)
CTRL + SHIFT + L (3 Times) - Lettered List (a, b, c)
CTRL + SHIFT + L (4 Times) - Lettered List (A, B, C)
CTRL + SHIFT + L (5 Times) - Roman Numeral List (i, ii, iii)
CTRL + SHIFT + L (6 Times) - Roman Numeral List (I, II, III)

CTRL + SHIFT + >
- Increase Font Size
CTRL + SHIFT +< - Decrease Font Size

And the usual…

CTRL + A
- Select All
CTRL + X - Cut
CTRL + C - Copy
CTRL + V - Paste
CTRL + Z - Undo
CTRL + Y - Redo

Aside from those I couldn’t find a way to change the font from within the notes themselves. So to solve that simply open up any Word editor,
choose a font you’d want to use and copy/paste on to the note.

Having cleared that up, let’s move on…

What Kinds of Sticky Notes Should You Have?

So now we go to the practical part of this article and namely how to actually use Sticky Notes to improve blogging productivity!

Below are the top three types of Sticky Notes that you absolutely must have and of course why you need them:

1. List of Future Article Ideas You’ve certainly come across one of those posts, dedicated to help you get rid of the nasty writer’s block. And while some cover useful advice, others aren’t quite worth the read…

Sometimes you don’t need all that advice! Sometimes the simplest of solutions are the most effective ones!

There is one very easy way to solve the coming-up-with-ideas problem – by having a way to capture the ideas right when they occur. And one really convenient way to achieve this is via a sticky note. Since sticky notes are placed on the desktop, you can access your list-of-ideas instantaneously. No need figuring out where you’ve saved that Word document with great ideas or in which notebook you wrote down that interesting thought…

The good thing about Sticky Notes is that they don’t have to be saved.
It’s all done automatically. Plus they are always opened as long as Windows is running.

2. Your Daily Blogging Tasks We as bloggers, have lots of things to deal with on daily basis. And although keeping up with everything might not seem tough, you might happen to miss something important in the rush.

Once you put up one such list you will realize how much easier getting things done is.
Often those small details end up improving your blogging productivity!

So once again sticky notes come into action…

Create a new one, choose a different color from the ones you have, create a bullet points list with things like reply on Twitter, reply to emails, post on Facebook, schedule Twitter updates, etc. (the keyboard combination for bulleted lists was
CTRL + SHIFT + L ).

3. Checklist for Articles You Just Published Aside from the daily blogging routines, there are additional tasks that have to be performed in the minutes before and after publishing an article. One such task for instance is proofreading

Although you might have done that right after completing the article…

I strongly suggest proofreading to be done just before you click “Publish”. That way you won’t remember things such as why you used a specific phrase or what you meant with a word, as it happens when you just finish an article. You will instead be a little more objective as if you are not the actual writer and thus you will be able to spot and fix more mistakes.

Aside from proofreading my article “ 9 Step Blog Checklist to Make Sure Your Posts Get Maximum Exposure” covers other kinds of similar must-do procedures that you can include in that checklist!

And for the third time a sticky note is the best solution!

The reasons are all the same – it is right before your eyes all the time and you can simply follow the checklist with bullet points to see if you’ve missed anything.
Easy yet effective!

Conclusion Those are the three ways to use Sticky Notes to improve blogging productivity! Hope you do indeed give that approach a shot as it might just turn out to be the thing you need in order to maximize the results from your efforts!

Photo credit: © Chad McDermott/PhotoXpress.com

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