Planning for Maximum Impact

I have learned that planning is an important part of blogging.  It is not as simple as posting at random - not if you want to have a successful blog that others want to return to often.  Their is even a variety of aspects to planning your blog.  You have to plan what you will be posting, when you you will be posting, how often you will be posting, what will you include in your posts, will you have any giveaways?, will you involve anyone else?, what material will you need? - in my case of blogging about books, what will I read?, when?, what genres?, will I take review requests?  how often?, etc.  I had no idea when I started just how complex things can get.  It can really bog you down if you let it.  You just have to know what you want, and stick with your plan.

I have searched around and found various blog planners.  I have not found one that exactly meets my needs yet, so I am working on establishing what I want in a planner.  I definitely have to have a calendar so I know what is going on when.  I do take part in book tours and take review requests, so I keep a schedule of when I need to have certain reviews or posts made.  I don't want to have conflicting events or to miss a scheduled post.  I want to stick to what I say I will do.  

It is a good idea to pre-plan and pre-write posts when you know your schedule is going to be busy.  I unfortunately forgot to do that this week.  I have had surgery and attended a funeral.  I had planned and posted for the surgery, but the day of the funeral I did not.  So - this post - for the A to Z Blogging challenge should have been posted at midnight, but is late!  Things do happen.  I'm just glad it was a personal challenge and not something for a tour.  So, I am working on a few things the rest of the week to get many things done in advance.  Fortunately, I had taken part in Bloggiesta earlier, so I had many things cleaned up, scheduled and pre-planned.  I am pretty much caught up, and ahead in many ways.  

How do you plan for your blog?