What to do when the month falls apart in week two
It started well. First week, three posts. Week two arrived with a big order, and since then eleven days without publishing. From here, almost everyone does the same wrong thing.
The mistake is trying to catch up
The natural reaction is publishing four posts in two days to make up for it. That recovers nothing: the posts come out rushed, nobody sees all four, and you end up feeling you did a lot and gained nothing.
Nobody on the other side was counting your posts. What gets noticed is the absence, and absence is not erased by posting double.
What to do, in order
Four steps that take twenty minutes and save the following month.
- Delete the posts that expired. An out-of-date notice is rubbish.
- Halve the frequency for the rest of the month.
- Come back with a normal post, without apologising for the absence.
- Note what caused the break, so next month accounts for it.
Do not write the apology post
"Sorry for disappearing, I am back!" draws attention to something most people had not noticed, and interests nobody. It is a post spent on you rather than on the work.
Come back with the same kind of content as before. Consistency restarts the day you publish, not the day you explain why you did not.
If it broke twice in a row, the plan is what is wrong
One break is bad luck. Two in a row is a diagnosis: the frequency you chose does not fit your actual week. Drop to the number that would survive the busiest month of the year.
Two posts a week kept for twelve months are worth more than five a week across three failed starts. It is counterintuitive and always true.
A month already written is what makes an unusual week cost one day instead of the whole month.