I know, it’s tough. You’ve just punched out your latest and greatest blog post. It’s just sitting there, staring back at you. You can hardly wait to send your new baby out into the world and see what kind of reactions it garners. That publish button looms large. But wait, take a deep breath, and use your content management system’s scheduling option instead.

There are several benefits to scheduling your posts instead of publishing them right away, not the least of which is that you can choose exactly when the post hits your social feeds. I like to schedule my posts for noon eastern US time, because most of the USA is on or nearing lunch break, or at least wrapping up the early morning workday emergencies. At that same time, Europe and the UK are starting to wrap up their workdays and may be ready for some wind-down time reading their favorite leisure time posts. Also, for whatever reason, Thursdays seem to be my most popular viewing day of the week, so I will sometimes save a post for that day instead of pushing it out on a Sunday or Monday night when most gamers are either in-game or gearing up for work.

Another benefit I find for scheduling a post is that, in four hours when I inevitably think of something really smart and witty to add, I can do so without editing a live post. That way, those early readers haven’t missed out on something I decided to add four hours into a published post’s life.

Lastly, it helps avoid an accidental early publish. In some versions of wordpress, that save button is just a little too close to the publish button. If you’re not paying attention, it would be fairly easy to push a half-finished post out to the masses. I think they’ve altered this in the new and improved but significantly less feature rich version of the wordpress.com editor, but I still prefer the wp-admin version with all of the bells and whistles. If I’m working on a very long post that will take me several days or weeks, I’ve even gone as far as to schedule the post six months out. Then, instead of saving drafts, I just hit the big blue schedule button.

As with all tips, your blogging style comes down to your personal preference, so take it or leave it. Incorporate the tips that make sense to your workflow and toss out the others. Happy blogging!