Spring Forward and my late Bloggiesta entry

I first heard about the Bloggiesta challenge from a friend a couple of years ago and have occasionally perused the site since, admiring the concept but my visits never coinciding with the challenge schedule. My low energy and poor memory resulted in my forgetting and missing every challenge phase in the meantime. Although the cohort seems mainly book bloggers there’s quite a variation in blog styles and I’m led to understand that anyone can join in.

I’m late to the party, however the sign-up post encourages latecomers arriving anytime during the event, so here goes…

I admit I’ve been procrastinating this all week, wondering whether to join, doubting I’ll manage to achieve the aims of the challenge. Worrying that my blog here is a mess, in a ‘slump’ and with a lot of my posts over however long being quite full of rants. So lacking confidence has been a barrier to getting in on the action earlier in the week, along with hindrances and life challenges.

I visited some of the blogs taking part – read a fabulous review of the film ‘Victoria and Abdul’ at Joy’s blog – apols for no direct link, I’m writing from memory and rushing through a small window of time to complete this post, ready to sign up. (You can find a link to her blog on the Bloggiesta sign up post .)

The #Bloggiesta Twitter parties during the week so far have been during night hours in  my time zone so I didn’t join in. I read through them yesterday and noted the questions and pondered on my own answers while deciding, yes, I should just jump in late and give this a try.

Ok, I’m waffling.

All I really need To DO for this sign-up post is make my To-Do-List for my aims during the challenge. So, here’s my twelve-point action plan for this weekend – and extending into next week and onward – hopefully. (Updated with strike-through for completed elements and notes added along the way – I copied this post to retain the original version for a template in case I need it again too.)

*0~[-]…make my Bloggiesta To-Do list and my sign-up post, then hit the linky and sign-up!

1. …attention to my sidebar – (maybe I’ll conquer widgets with another try, but not holding my breath!) I’ve not fixed or changed anything there yet but have been paying it some attention!
2. …PLANNING toward an update of the dynamic content on my homepage view (very outdated sticky posts!) action no, planning yes, ongoing and still deciding
3. …re-organise pages & update my About page ugh! pages need longer while I work out if and how I want them, temp fix applied removing some irrelevant pages from view. temporary new about page for 2018 published.
4. …take part in at least one Twitter chat & hopefully two (so definitely today, Saturday 3pm [11amEST], and hopefully again tomorrow, Sunday [4pmEST] 11pm in UK).
5. …complete the tags&cats mini-challenge, if time re-read and consider the other mini-challenges. I’m already wondering, with my slow processing and easy cognitive exhaustion, and my late start, if my backlog of tidying tags might extend into the early part of next week. But maybe a focussed effort tomorrow will sort it (if I don’t waste too much time on trying to make widgets work – I know they’re simple but…!)
6. …write a post inspired by the #Bloggiesta Twitter chat questions from those I missed during this week
7. …start drafting a further action plan to move forward, noting other blogging tasks needing attention with a focus on making a content plan including a list of posts that need editing, any that could be refreshed or built upon or inspire a new post, maybe kill some posts to private view and so on. (I maybe should have tackled that last point first!) YES! At a third of the way through I consider that a good enough start to mark this item as ‘completed enough for now’ 🙂
8. …sign up for the AtoZchallenge, start getting organised, make an AtoZ theme reveal post (before 26th!) &  maybe join the BlogAhead event (starts today!) that I read about via Bloggiesta posts. (Nope to that second event, maybe another time, although I will be attempting to prep some posts for the A to Z.)
9. …fly-by blog-hopping, visiting other #Bloggiesta participants & commenting (this should be higher in the list if it were a prioritised list); I think I’ve not quite covered everyone on the sign-up list yet and some places having problems leaving comments – i’m marking it off as I’ve visited over half and might not finish within deadline but will get round to everyone before the next day or two.
10. …write an after party post ie. review my #Bloggiesta experience.
11. …replicate this model for refreshing my other blogs and make a ToDo list/action plan for each one. Realised that’s one I can’t cross off as it’s a following through thing… I have some time & motion data now for future task management…!
12. …review at least one of my recent Kindle reads & make a TBR list for my Kindle reading. (I lifted my boycott now that they fixed it being too bright in my computer app and returned my previously downloaded collection.) I completely forgot about this! I could reason that the item numbered zero in the list makes this item unlucky number 13 now relegated to comprising of two future post ideas 🙂

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Phew, that looks like quite a lot to get down to. Now I’ve just time to grab a cuppa and get my lippy on ready for this Twitter party and #Bloggiesta on 🙂