The Magic of the Auto-Scheduling Plugin
Hi, there. Welcome to Life Captured! I’m still pretty new to the blogging scene, and I’ll be sharing the useful things I figure out as I navigate this space. My past attempts at blogging weren’t exactly a success, but my goal this time around is to make it happen. I should mention that I blog solely for myself. I’m a huge social butterfly and love interacting with friendly people online and in person. Because of that, you won’t find any corporate or profit-making tips here; just real, personal updates and a place to connect!
I found an auto-scheduling post plugin. The platform for Life Captured is WordPress (self hosted). To publish a website using WordPress (.org), you will need three foundational elements: a domain name (your website’s address), web hosting (server space where your website files live), and the WordPress software. I chose Bluehost. There are several options for hosting your blog. Check out this list. I can only give you an opinion for Bluehost.
Let me start by explaining why I use auto-scheduling. Between managing housework, working, heading into town to check on my parents, and helping my friend with his grocery shopping and organizing their pillbox, I need a solid structure to keep my life on track.
My Publishing Schedule: Sundays and Mondays
My first step was deciding which days to publish, and I settled on Sundays and Mondays. This is where the auto-scheduling plugin becomes a lifesaver. Once a month, I host a Homepage LinkUp party. I can create several of these posts all at once and schedule them to go live on the first of each month. Knocking out three posts ahead of time completely relieves the stress of trying to post on schedule.
I use the same trick for my bi-weekly “My Sunday Snapshot” linkup party, batching about three posts at a time so they run smoothly in the background. On the alternating weeks in between, I publish a simple photo post. Since I can schedule those photo posts ahead of time as well, they automatically fill the gaps. This completely takes Sundays off my plate, leaving Mondays as the only day I really need to concentrate on!
Breaking the Rules: A 100-MPH Storm
Today is an exception to my usual schedule, but what happened last night into this afternoon is just too entertaining not to publish immediately! We got hit by a massive storm with winds reaching 100 miles an hour, which broke trees all over the place and knocked our power out at 1:00 AM. We strictly kept the house and garage freezer doors sealed shut the entire time. Ultimately, we were without power for 18 long hours, but we managed to make the best of it. Here are some fun pictures of how we spent those hours in the dark!
Summer is always busy because I spend most of the week at my daughter’s house helping with my granddaughters. Between wrestling practice and driver’s ed drop-offs, I’m basically a full-time chauffeur right now (more on that in a future post!). It keeps me there so the parents don’t have to take time off work, which means I was caught right in the middle of the storm with them.
The guest bedroom is downstairs, so when the power went out, it was absolutely pitch black. Granddaughter came down to check on the sump pump water levels. She came up with the fun idea for us to wear headlamps to see what we were doing!
Here’s the catch: the sump pump needs power to work. We had to stay on top of it. We checked the pump every hour until around noon. After that, we switched to every two hours. While we were in waiting-mode, my granddaughter convinced me to play games. We moved upstairs to her room to pass the time.
Did you notice the electronic device in the picture? Yep, it died. We definitely weren’t prepared when it came to keeping our electronics charged.
Quick Tips for Digital Storm Prep
- Portable Power Banks: Keeping a couple of small, fully charged power banks in a drawer is a lifesaver for keeping phones alive.
- Car Chargers: Remember that if the house loses power, you can always use a car charger to get your phone back up to a safe percentage.
- Flashlight Over Phone Screen: Avoid using your phone’s flashlight feature if you can help it, as it drains the battery incredibly fast.
We definitely weren’t prepared when it came to keeping our electronics charged. Lesson learned! Are you prepared for a long power outage?
Yesterday is today’s memory.
Be sure to capture your memory today!
All the best,.
Debra Ellen
Discover life through a different lens. All focus, no noise.
I try to keep at least a week ahead on my blog and have things set to autopublish (though occasionally I forgot to see what time is set in the schedule feature on Blogger!). It’s a lifesaver. Sorry to hear about the power outage but we lose our power so often that we try to always be prepared– though of course it is impossible to ALWAYS be prepared. But we are quite adept at working around it and do have a large generator handy for when it looks like it’s going to be hours and hours without.
Typically. ours maybe an hour without power. And that is not a common occurrence. This storm was reported having 115 mph winds. Thankfully the 18 hours of no power did not damage the meat in the freezer! My daughter was so worried about replacing it all. They just replaced their AC unit and then this. It wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. Inconvenienced, yes.
It’s good to ‘see’ you, Joanne.
Have a blessed week.
All the best.
That seems to be a good way to handle your blog. I don´t know if Blogger has such features. Because I run two blogs I get into a bit of stress sometimes, when I don´t really find time to write a new post.
That was an awful storm it seems. Hope everything is alright now.
Have a good time and all the best
Violetta
Hi, Violetta. Good to ‘see’ you! Surely Blogger has something similar. It’s really taken the stress off of blogging. It makes my Monday posts even more fun to compose. I use the Monday post days to reflect on things I’ve seen, felt or did. Whenever I see something interesting, I snap a picture. Then when I sit down to work on a Monday post, I look thru my camera roll 😉 Works for me!
Have a wonderful week.
All the best.
Your batch scheduling makes so much sense, but I seem to do different things for each post so it wouldn’t work as well for me. But, I do love that scheduling feature. I used to stay up until after midnight (though I’m usually still awake anyway) just to publish!
Wow!! 100 mile winds would scare me silly! At least you had a basement. We moved a few years ago and don’t have one anymore. It’s one of the things I miss most. I hope your daughter’s house is ok. You definitely picked some fun ways to while away the time. I try to keep my electronics fully charged all the time, but I know there’s much more I should do.
All ended well. House good. Food survived! She was so worried about the freezer. They had it full with meat (half of steer). The temperature at the time the power came back on was 26 degrees F. The doors were kept shut the whole time. However the freezer is normally kept at 0. We were just inconvenienced 🙂
Thanks to dropping in and participating!
All the best.