Tips&Tricks | How To Keep All Those Posts Organized with Evernote

Let's face it, you have a lot of blog posts. Or, if you're a new blogger, you are going to have a lot of blog posts. That means you have content of many forms: text, graphics, resources, links, its never ending. So much goes into one single blog post that it can be really hard to keep it all organized. 

So I thought today I would share with you my "secret weapon" (it's really not secret, it just sounds better if I say it is) to keeping all of my posts clean and organized, in order and ready to go or archived for later viewing/editing: Evernote.

Yes, I am well aware that you have seen bloggers talking about Evernote for days. We all love it. We all need it. But I'm betting my breakfast that just because you have all seen the need for Evernote, doesn't mean you have all jumped on board and started using it. And that is what this post is all about. 

Clickity clack, jack!

So, you already know that Evernote is a multi platform organizer for absolutely everything you could possibly imagine. People use it to keep recipes, faith related info & notes, homeschooling info, regular school info, you name it and it can be saved on EN. But today I want to break things down a bit and tell you how I run things. 

First I had to create a stack for each of my blogs. In case you don't know, a stack is multiple notebooks within one big parent file. Think of it like your filing cabinet. You probably have one drawer for finances, home related stuff, maybe medical. Then you likely have a second drawer for your work and/or business. Inside each of those drawers are file folders relating to various things that fit into those main categories. And if you're OCD like me, they are probably in alphabetical order :)

When you open up the stack I have titled "EAE Design Studio Blog Posts, you see that I have folders created for each of the main topics that I blog about. In each of those are the drafts I have created for every post under that topic I plan to share. This is handy for me because I have a schedule I follow every month where I try to stick to one main topic each week. By keeping them organized by main category I can work on my drafts from anywhere then choose which one I want to share on what day of the week I am posting that particular topic. 

Within each of those notebooks are notes that will become a blog post. I like to start with a fresh note and plug in just the title. As you'll notice, these are all blank notes because I haven't written any content yet. But once I have them all written up and ready to go I will move them to the notebook titled "Ready to Post | EAE Design Studio Blog". 

Evernote makes it super easy to draft posts whenever and wherever I feel like it. I've mentioned before that I like to draft when I am waiting on things like doctor visits or for one of the kids to do whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. I even drafted a weeks worth of posts once while on the four hour drive to go skydiving with my niece. 

Once I am finished with a post and it needs to be scheduled on this here blog, I move the note from it's category to the Ready to Post notebook and then make sure to sync my devices with my laptop so I can simply copy & paste it into an actual post draft here on Blogger. Then I choose which day I'm posting it and move on to the graphics creation part of the post. 

Sometimes a post requires some resources or research links to back up the information I am sharing. When that happens I use the handy Evernote WebClipper (I use the Chrome extension on my computer or I can "share" to Evernote on both my phone and Kindle). I send all my WebClips to one notebook and I don't touch it since it isn't my work. By doing this I can go right in and collect the data I wanted from a specific post and add it to my drafted post in Blogger. Then I can either refile that note to a more relevant notebook or delete it entirely. Because Evernote keeps any and all URLs intact, when I need to use the page I clipped I can click and go right to it on a webpage and copy whatever link I need to add. 

Overall I would have to say that this method to organizing my posts has saved me hours of work time. When I finally sit down every Sunday to draft out my posts I have everything right where I need it. And you can also take your post organization to a higher level by tagging your notes so that you can just click on your tags and pull up all the information you have saved with any specific tag. Handy, no?

I also like to keep all of my post details together offline so I have created a folder right on my computer for posts. It looks sort of like this: Desktop >> EAE >> EAE Design Studio >>  EAE Blog Posts >> 2015 >> Way too many folders ;) I have a folder created for each post that contains a text copy, a list of urls used in said post and every graphic I created for the post plus the graphics I created for social media that will link to the post. 

Start the Discussion:

How do you organize your blog posts?

Do you use Evernote for blogging?

Happy Monday Y'all!