I often get questions from new bloggers asking, “how do I come up with blog post ideas” or “how do I write so many post during the week?” One method I have found that works well is to have some way to file away the ideas I get during the day and/or week. It is not unusual at all for anyone to be sitting at their desk or having a conversation with someone, like a client and come up with a post idea. We get questions everyday from clients that are common questions which we provide answers for. Why not take those questions and turn them into blog post? Just like this one.

However, since we have ideas come to us everyday, we need to file them away for future use. Problogger sometime back had a great post on how he does this called, “My Blog Posting Workflow”. His method of keeping track of his ideas was very similar to my own. I too keep a file folder on my desktop where I file away post ideas for the blogs I publish. And in those folders I keep TextEdit documents with at least the title and ideas as they come to me. I also put links to other blogs I want to include in my post so I don’t have to hunt for them later on.

In addition to this, I also take advantage of the third party blog editing tools I use. Each of them has a draft folder included in their features. When I get a new idea, I will start the blog post in the editor and continue to work on it as ideas come to me. I also may only start out with a title and a few ideas and links as I do with the TextEdit documents I save on my desktop. The main thing to remember is to just start to write and save your work along the way. This way when you have a complete block, you can go to both of these tools and have a blog post already started.

There will be those times when you don’t have your computer with you and you certainly still need some way to get those ideas down for later use. Don’t forget about pen & paper. I carry with me a Moleskine Notebook just for this purpose. A great example of a way to use this is a blog post on Blogging Tips a few days ago called, “an innovative way to plan your blog post”. While I may not go to the extreme as is describe in that post. I do make notes of ideas I have concerning blog post using a similar method while I am away from my computer. And you should too.

Posting to a blog takes work. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. But it is something you can manage if you use the two methods describe above. If you have other ways or methods you use to avoid writer’s block, please leave a comment here. If we get enough, don’t be surprise if I use them for a future blog post. After all, another way to avoid writer’s block is to take advantage of your blog’s comments and turn them into a blog post of their own.