Productivity

Blog Planner Set Up in B6 Stalogy

This is actually my second time setting this up as a blog planner.

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I set up this B6 Stalogy when I originally bought it last year. I wanted to use it as a blog planner but the set up didn’t quite work. After a while I ended up going back to using my Hobonichi Cousin as a blog planner (along with everything I use it for).

I had been using my dailies for blog post and social media planning last year. However, this year I wanted to use the daily pages more for actual daily planning and journaling. So, I moved this all back into the B6.

I spent a bit more time setting it up, changing up the things that didn’t work as well last time. I also prettied up the cover itself a bit more.

I’m not normally a big rose gold fan, but it works on this planner

The holo sparkle of the vinyl decal works really nicely with the Oli Clip* I have on the front.

I even have a little rose gold bow on the back.

The Oli Clip takes me to the start of this new set up

I’ve recently started ‘tipping in’ vellum to my notebooks and I really like it. It creates a nice divider between sections which is exactly what I wanted here. Everything before the vellum (and included in the clip) is the old set up of this planner.

I haven’t done a title page or anything, and so behind the vellum is just a plain page

After that, I go straight into my post planning.

I have this split into three sections, corresponding with the three categories I blog in. These are colour coded, with Coco Fusen tabs* for easy access.

Each section is a list of blog post ideas in that category. I use thin washi at the top in the same colour as the tab, and use a Sugarloop banner sticker* for the title.

When I’ve written and scheduled the post, it then simply gets marked off.

This is a brain dump of sorts, and so not everything written here will necessarily get posted.

Next, I move into the monthly planning pages

For ease of getting to these pages, I use a Midori paperclip*. I’m not a big paperclip person, but I love these and have them in a couple of different designs.

On these pages I’m using the monthly calendar sticky notes*, from Stalogy. These are perfect for someone like me who hates drawing out calendars. They fit the B6 pages perfectly and although they’re called sticky notes, you can’t really move these once they go down. I’ve tried to pull one up before and the note just became a crumpled mess.

Here I highlight the month and write a list of the posts I want to write in the top box. These are taken from the ideas lists in the previous pages. I then plan out when to schedule these for in the main calendar box. This allows me to ensure I’ve got a good spread of posts across the month. While planning is my main focus, I like to put in at least a couple of posts a month about other things.

I don’t do any further planning of the posts in here

I’m more of a ‘sit down and just write’ type. However, I sometimes do plan out the framework of a post, using the weekly pages in my Cousin. As my post planning is just a list of short bullet points, I like using spare weekly pages for this.

These columns are perfect for creating little checklists of what needs to be done to get each blog post ready to publishing. This post has helped me pick out some things I should be doing, that I wasn’t previously.

If I want to plan any posts in any further depth, then I’ll use my B6 as I’ll need the extra page space.

After enough monthly pages for the rest of the year, I move onto social media planning

These pages have washi on the edges and another Midori clip, so I can easily get to them.

This is a really simple set up. I write a list of all the pictures I need to take, or ideas I get. Sometimes I jot the ideas down on my weekly or daily pages, and then merge them over into here every couple of days. Any image related to a blog post, so I can promote it on Instagram also gets listed here once the post is written. There are then two columns, one for taken and the other for posted. Every Sunday when I go to plan out my Instagram for the week I review this list and plot out the pictures I want to post, in line with any blog posts going live that week.

And there you have it, my blog planner set up

This is my first B6 and it works perfectly for this. It would be far too small a notebook for bullet journaling (for me, anyway) or regular planning. Something like this that gets used regularly but I don’t need bags of room on each page is an ideal use. I’ve debated putting a cover on it but it actually fits perfectly in a bamboo storage organiser I have on my desk, so I’m going to be keeping it without a cover for now.

In this notebook I’ve been using a Lamy Safari in a fine nib, with Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses ink and the pages have held up well. There is a decent amount of ghosting, but no bleeding at all. In terms of other supplies, I’ve kept this simple. I just use my Coleto* with pencil* and eraser refills* and my Muji 0.5 gel ink pen.