Improving My Blog #2

Improving My Blog Through Brainstorming

In step two of our year-long project on improving our blog, Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness  challenged us with improving the content of our blogs through brainstorming. Here are three techniques I like:

1. Set up a place to record my ideas. What’s working for me is to put paper/small notebooks in the areas where I habitually come up with ideas. One is by my laptop, one by my bed and the third in my purse. And, equally important, I put pencils in each of those areas.
2. Schedule time to “work” my blog. I set up time to write posts, answer comments, brainstorm and plan new posts, time to visit other blogs and add comments and time to do things on my blog improvement to-do list. It’s so easy for me to be distracted when reading other blogs. Pretty soon I find I haven’t taken the time to post to my own blog.
3. Use mind mapping to create ideas for new posts and to write. Following a great article here, I used mind mapping to come up with 19 new post ideas. The suggestion was to draw five circles across a piece of paper and write inside each one the title of my last five posts. From there I used mind mapping to come up with new ideas. It really wasn’t that hard! And then I decided to use mind mapping to write this post. Again, it wasn’t that hard. It was much easier than the normal outlining. I’m now a big fan of mind mapping.

In addition to the brainstorming techniques we were asked to think about creating a special feature that could be added to our blog. I already do a feature I call Favorite Places in which I show a picture of a place we have visited and talk briefly about it. I do it sporadically but I’m toying with the idea of doing it on a regular basis and seeing if there are other bloggers who would like to link in. I’m looking for some advice and opinions here. What do you think?

I found this assignment informative, fun and useful. If you’re interested in joining this project, head on over to to Sophisticated Dorkiness.