Without a doubt the number one thing that helps me get a blog post up each weekday is a monthly editorial calendar.
For the past few years (since this really became my job) I have loosely planned out a month's worth of posts at a time. (You can read much more about where I get content ideas from here.) My plan always changes as the month goes on. (These pictures from last week are already totally outdated!) A project will fail, my photos from an event will be awful (or more likely - I won't take any photos), I'll come up with something that's great, a new idea will pop into my head, etc. But having a basic framework for what will be posted when helps keep me on track and focused. It guarantees when you check the blog at 5am PST there is something new to read. It also guarentees I'm not scrambling at 5pm PST the day before.
In the past, I have used a giant wall calendar and post-its to map out posts. In the new office, the big calendar didn't really fit into my plans so I scaled back a bit and built a "calendar" out of an old cork board and washi tape. Obviously, I didn't measure the grid exactly, but point of this is to see a month at a time and be able to move around and add post ideas. While my office was in limbo, I wrote post ideas directly onto a calendar and found that didn't work at all for me (even when I wrote in pencil!). I need the flexibility to move things around. The stick on post-its is not ideal against the cork, but that's what push pins are for. Once I'm out of post-it's I'll switch to cut down pieces of scratch paper.
I didn't bother with numbering the calendar - the actual dates are not as important as knowing what's going up next Tuesday - so it will be very easy to change this up from month to month. The best part about it is it's within arms reach of my computer and to-do list. And also the triangle washi tape, obviously.
