How is office organization and blogging strategy tied together?

image from Striatic on Flickr

So I am definitely not a psychologist…in fact, I am sure a psychologist would tell me that I probably need a little help. But, what I do know is blogging – and there is some serious psychology to the way people blog. What I have learned from my experience is that they way you keep your office organized says a lot about the way that you blog. There are three different types of organizers (and bloggers). The hyper-organized ones, the outwardly-messy ones, and the hidden-messy ones. Each type has a different way they manage their office…and a distinctly different way they manage their blog:

Think about some of the people that you know that are hyper organized (everything has it’s place, there is always a stapler when you need it, never a stray paper on the desk, and never a hunt for what you need). If you are not one of those people, you probably think that they waste a lot of time trying to keep it all so put together. But the reality is, it would take them more time to do things if they didn’t keep everything in its place. They love the feeling of clean spaces and open areas. In blogging, this means that they plan…a lot! They work out which posts go where, based on content, making sure that all the holes are filled. But they rarely have drafts…they always make them perfect before placing them in wordpress so that it is clean and organized with only top content. They also like their blogs to look pretty (lots of white space, and everything very easy to find). Their ideas tend to be a bit calmer, not really stirring the pot too much with crazy ideas or controversial posts. You may even feel like they leave some stuff out in order not to offend anyone. They will be the first to update plugins but will wait to update wordpress until the new version is out for awhile.

Okay, now think about the people whose desks are always a mess (papers everywhere, files stacked on files, no rhyme or reason to their system). If you’re not one of those people, you probably think they are slobs, that they waste time by searching for things that should be easy to find. These people are outwardly messy – they have no problem with their piles, in fact, they love their piles and would be more than happy to never have to move them. These people have a million drafts going at the same time, and are constantly making changes in wordpress. They have tons of great content, but it is sometimes all over the board. They will talk about controversial issues, but will do so by sharing all sides and really leaving it open for discussion, keeping their thoughts out as much as possible. These people are also more likely to have busy sidebars and a a lot going on in the blog. These people will always make solid points, but it will take some time to get around to it. Expect really content filled posts, but also a lot of fluff on top of the serious content.

Finally, we have the group that is a mix between the two. This group always has an organized desk, but what you don’t see is that their desk is normally super messy…they just cleaned it up by shoving everything into drawers before you arrived. They like to pretend they have everything under control with their organization, but the reality is, they can barely find anything in their mess because they are not one with it like the second group. They want to be clean and organized like the first, so they are stressed when they can’t be, and yet can’t figure out how to make messy work for them either. These are the fun bloggers. The ones whose posts make you laugh hysterically, or get you really angry. They talk controversy and drama…no matter the topic. They are very popular with their readers but also have a lot of trolls. These bloggers tend to write their posts on whatever they have at the moment and then attempt to put it all together in their blog. The topics will vary every day, and will be whatever came to them that moment. But, they will write often and will write longer posts…unless they are having one of those days, then it will just be a picture and a line of text. Their blog will have a ton of content on it…just a lot of it will be hard to find.

Of course, these opinions are only based on what I have experienced…

So, what do you think about organization and blogging?

Can you guess which one I am?

Related posts:

1. Why do you still need an SEO strategy if you have good content?
2. What is blogging really about?
3. Is it panic mode in your office today?