How Do I Organize My Blogging Workflow
15 Dec 2024 #writingA schedule and an easy-to-follow workflow.
That’s what you need if you want to keep blogging in the long run.
I started blogging back in 2018. I threw up some words in a file and put them online. No schedule or intentions. Only when I adopted a writing schedule, I started to improve my writing skills and notice more pageviews.
To preserve my keystrokes and expand on my comment to this dev.to question about blogging, here’s my writing workflow:
One platform first then cross-post everywhere
Recently, I started to follow the POSSE principle: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.
My blog is my main hub. Anything I write online, in some shape or form, ends up on my blog. Recently, I created a new tag misc to organize my posts about other subjects apart from coding or software engineering.
Based on the type of content: tutorial vs opinion piece, I republish a shorter version on dev.to or republish on Medium, linking back to the original post.
Since often some Medium publications only accept original content, I publish there first and then the next day, I publish on my blog. Win-win.
Raw post content in a single place
I’m a plain-tex fan. So, markdown everywhere.
I keep my raw posts on a note-taking app in Markdown. Since I use GitHub with Jekyll to host my blog, publishing a new post is a simple commit and a push. Or when I’m feeling lazier than usual, I paste the post content directly on GitHub.
For images, I host them on GitHub itself. I organize them inside a folder named “assets,” with subfolders named after my posts’ titles.
For my most recent posts, I’ve ditched images and banners and started to write shorter text-only posts. A decent headline and one main idea are good enough to publish.
- To republish on Medium: I use the import feature. It works fine, except for code listings. I copy and paste them and add some emojis to highlight important lines of code.
- To republish on dev.to: I use a template with disclaimers, intros, and CTAs. Then I copy and paste that template and only fill in the post body in the editor itself.
If you want to stay consistent and keep blogging, make it really easy. Reduce all the friction and automate as much as you can.