2023 Blog Plans & Changes

As we enter into 2023 I will be entering into my third year of running this little blog and I have been really thinking about what is working, what isn’t, and where I want this to go and if I want this to go anywhere at all!

Outside of work and my cat, this blog is my biggest commitment. Sometimes I think it is the only real routine that I have. I also find it a bit inspiring and a good reminder that I am able to make and keep a commitment to myself. I have missed maybe five unscheduled days of posting five or six days a week in the past two years. And for most of those two years it was a consistent six days a week. I don’t know if I’ve ever stuck to anything like that except school or work in my entire life. It makes me think that I can maybe be more consistent in some of my other goals as well, but that’s for another post.

Plans//

I don’t have too much concretely planned except for the fact that I am determined that this will be the year that I move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. I don’t have much advice for new bloggers except to START blogging with WordPress.org. I so desperately wish I had started there rather than now having to figure out how to start there and move everything over. You just have so much more creative control with the .org version and so many more gorgeous templates. And you can actually run ads and make a bit of money.

Which leads me into my other plan. I’ve never loved the look of my site, but I’ve never felt that any of the .com templates fit what I have been looking for or imagined and so I want to really put some effort into finding a template and learning how to code with .org and really making my site look the way I’ve imagined. OR put some money into a designer, but I don’t think that is in the cards for this year. I think this would need to start getting some serious clicks for me to do that.

I also really want to up my images game, I think my collages are decent, but I think that my photography could be immensely improved. I’m considering buying a proper camera; but at the very least I would like to start to re-focus on the images that I use on here. My images in the beginning were actually much better because I spent more time on them, whereas now they are a bit of an afterthought.

And related, I would like to improve my social media presence and connection with this blog. I don’t want to run a separate Instagram for this blog, and I’m not yet ready to start posting about this on my current Instagram. However, I would like to improve my Pinterest and TikTok. Vlogging really intrigues me and I think I am capable of it, although walking around with a camera in public seems terrifying.

Changes//

There are some pretty big content changes coming this year. Some posts are being left behind in 2022, some are being condensed into one post.

I have decided to stop Project Pan. I have one more big wrap-up coming, but after that I think I have come to a good balance of zero/low waste, products that work, and only having products that I actually use on a regular basis. With that will come a change to what I call in my head the “Month End” Content, my “What I Read in [Month]”, Monthly Empties, etc. posts. For now I think I will be keeping the separate “Financial Fitness Check-In” and the “What I’m Buying in [Month]” because those really align with my financial goals and keeping myself on track. However, with the end of Project Pan I will no longer be holding on to empty containers each month and I am planning on integrating my “What I Read” posts into the “[Month] State of the Union” posts. As the pandemic has wound down it’s impacts on society, I find it much harder to read on such a regular basis and when I only read one or two books in a month it doesn’t feel like enough content to justify a full post. I also often found myself feeling that the Month End content was taking up too much of the month, sometimes it would be like the 14th and I would just be getting to my “What I’m Buying in…” post which was the last of the series each month. So this gives me more room to be flexible with my content, to be more creative, which I am looking forward to.

Any really stand out products will get included in my State of the Union Post, or maybe a monthly favourites post. But I’m not planning on trying as many products this year (although I’m sure I will get influenced more than once in 2023).

The next post getting cut is Friday Favorites/Favourites depending on how Canadian I was feeling that week. This is a bit of a knife as these are traditionally my best performing post by analytics. However, I have been finding lately that I don’t have the content to populate them. I have had multiple weeks this year where I didn’t watch any TV shows or movies, listen to any podcasts, nor have a favourite on social media. So I’ve decided that I’m going to keep track of what I watch, listen to, eat, read, etc. over the month and they will either be included in the State of the Union post or in a monthly favorites post.

And lastly, it is time to say goodbye to the Saturday Scroll. You may have already noticed that there have been many weeks this year where we did a Mid-Week Procrastination rather than a Saturday Scroll and that was just because I don’t always want to spend my Friday evenings putting together a blog post for Saturday morning. I have other things I can be doing on a Friday night. And the pressure of six posts a week, with a social life, a full time job, and the need to exercise, eat, clean, and get enough sleep is just too much. I’m not sure if it will stay Mid-Week Procrastination or if we may move it to Friday and have it be weekend reads or something along those lines, but it is time to lay the Saturday posts to rest.

So now that you’ve heard me refer to my State of the Union posts a couple times, I’ll link the first couple here (December 2022, November 2022). They are going to include the following: In/Out lists (so much fun, so lighthearted), Monthly to-do list and bucket list, media review (including books, movies, shows, podcasts, and music), a monthly playlist, and product favorites. Although we will be doing a test run in Q1 and seeing if that makes the post absolutely too long in which case it will get broken down into the State of the Union and Monthly Favorites.

And I think that this is entirely enough from me today. With all of this said, I know I am wordy. I have a lot to say, and don’t always feel like having the conversations we have here in real life, so thank you for supporting long-form content. It is so appreciated. And I can’t believe that there are as many of you as there are.

Have a wonderful day!

Laura