I personally use Outlook 2007 for my calendar application, so I’m going to write what I personally do here, but note that it will pretty much work with most calendar applications.

I’ve recently started using Outlook in order to better manage my posting schedule for this blog. It helps me get a grasp of what I should be posting when, and hopefully better manage the long list of post ideas I have that are in draft mode. This way I can make sure that I have enough time to write a post as I can see in a more visual way when I planned on making it go live.

What I do is going into weekly calendar mode, and on the bottom of there is a section for tasks due on that day:

You can see here on the bottom I have a full schedule of posts that will go live on each day of this week, including this one. Again, this is a nice way to visually see what you are planning on doing, and it’s very easy to move things around should you have to adjust the schedule.

In the mail section of Outlook you can see when the posts are due in the “To-Do Bar”:

I wrote this after 12am, so that’s why it says that the using calendar post is due today. Once I finish writing a post and adjusting the timestamp in Wordpress, I simply click the flag next to the task and it’s considered complete.

You’ll also notice the green box next to the post tasks. These are categories. I’ve made a category for the blog, this way I can filter them in or out as needed. Sometimes I have a ton of tasks for all sorts of things, and I may not need to see the posts in there.

Another benefit of doing this is because I use a Treo 700w as my cell phone, which of course syncs with Outlook. This way I have my posting schedule on me at all times, and can even take the time to write a post from my phone if I felt like it.

What do you use to help manage your posting schedule?