The Six P’s

I would always leave assignments to the very last minute and inevitably every imaginable thing would go wrong.

On one such occasion my teacher told me that I should have applied The Six P’s. He then went on to tell me that The Six P’s were: Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Whilst this didn’t change my assignment writing habits, the concept of the six P’s has always stuck with me and been applied to many other aspects of my life.

Why am I telling you about an alliteration I learnt at school?

Recently there have been a lot of unplanned things happening in my life. I’ve had some relationship issues, my grandmother passed away and SiteMost has received more SEO inquiries than any other month. I’ve been juggling personal issues whilst still trying to provide my new and existing clients with the high level of service they’ve come to expect.

Something had to give, and in this instance it was my blogging-related tasks.

My Google Reader was busting at the seams with unread items and the usual two or three posts I try and write each week simply haven’t happened.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, and looking back over the last few weeks, I wish I had of planned ahead.

How can you plan for the unexpected?

Whilst the recent events have been unfortunate, it’s certainly not the last time I’ll ever be faced with unexpected circumstances. The same applies to everyone - I’d love to think that everything will always run smoothly, but the reality is that it won’t and you need to have some planning in place to help you get through such times.

A few months ago Problogger.net did a post about 8 Things to do on your Blog when you’re Sick and a lot of the suggestions can be applied to any blog to help keep things going when times get tough. A few of my favorite’s include:

• Asking your readers for questions or run a poll - This technique has worked well for bloggers like Shoemoney, Aaron Wall and Rand Fishkin (to name but a few). If your readership is still fairly limited, running a poll can be just as good.
• Update/re-post an old post or point back to something in your archives - you have to remember that some of your newer readers may not have gone back through your archives and read all your posts, so it can be quite helpful to re-post or link to older items that have been popular in the past.
• Guest posts - having a friend or fellow blogger write a guest post for you can help add some flavor to your blog. Chances are you may even attract some new subscribers from the guest-blogger’s loyal readers.
• Always have some ‘reserve posts’ saved and ready to go - it is always a good idea to have a handful of posts ‘on the go’ at any one time. If you can’t think of something to write or if unexpected issues occur, it’s a lot easier to quickly tidy-up a post you started writing a month or two ago than to come-up with something from scratch (especially when you’re pressed for time or ideas).

So now you have no excuse to be caught by unexpected events - let’s just hope I can follow my own advice.

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