Work on blog post ideas with Wridea

I seldom finish a blog post in one session in front of the computer. My typical blogging day starts with reading news feeds to check on updates on topics that interest me. Sometimes I get a blog post idea while reading RSS feed items and I’d write a note in my personal wiki about the topic.

I’d then work on the post in the office, right before the newsroom goes into overdrive chasing page deadlines and after I’ve finished my pages and while waiting for pages assigned to me for line-reading. I’d then publish the post at home, after my early morning meal–that’s dinner for all you morning people.

Most of the time, however, I’m working on several projects that can generate several blog posts. These projects are experiments on content management systems, blogging, wikis and anything that might be of use in a newsroom environment, particularly that of a small community newspaper.

I keep my technical notes on these experiments and my to-do lists in various personal wikis, including a txt file in my K750i. But for blog post ideas, I may have found the best notes repository, for me, in Wridea. (Click on photo to view larger image)

Organizing blog posts in WrideaWridea is a free web service that helps you organize your ideas. It’s a great system to use as a container for notes of pending blog posts you are working on. I’ve been using it since early this week and I find that it really helps me organize my thoughts on blog posts I’m working on.

Wridea is an extensible service that you can even use as a simple project or task manager. It’s not in any way revolutionary as there are a lot of comparable free services online. Basecamp and Backpackit
(referral link) may even be better. But there’s just something about Wridea that makes it a great system to keep notes for my pending blog posts.

I really like its user interface and find that it helps me keep my notes for blog articles organized. If you write for or maintain several blogs like I do, you’d love the ability to group “ideas” into pages. I created one page for my blog (the page that’s active in the screenshot above) and another for blogs at the Sun.Star website.

Adding an idea for a blog post is easy. Just go to the page you want to add the blog post idea to and then click on Ideas then Add New Idea. Don’t worry if you mistakenly add the blog post idea to the wrong page, you can reassign ideas to different pages.

When the note loads, just click on the A New Idea title in the left sidebar and replace it with your blog post idea. Add notes below the title by clicking on the dummy text placed there: “This is a new idea waiting to be editted,” it really is waiting to be edited.

You can use Textile for formatting your notes, just click on Help to read how you can render bold text or include photos or links.

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11 responses

  1. Nice post. I’ll be working as blogger soon and I think this is worth checking out.

    I see you got a Tiddlyspot vs. Ziiddlywiki post coming. I’ll be waiting for that one as well.

  2. You can also create a page for one post, then you can move the ideas around. This is a feature I have yet to see in Tiddlywiki. For example: “Post on Tiddlyspot.com/taorist” Then under that would be “ideas” like “Introduction”, “User-friendliness”, “Uses”, “vs. Ziddlywiki”, etc. Then under each idea would be a paragraph draft. Then it’ll be up to you on how each would come out. Is it better to put the “Uses” before the “User-friendliness”? So on and so forth…

    Great find!

  3. Taorist,
    I also like the way you can color-code ideas using categories.

  4. Wow! A great tool indeed. Thanks for sharing.

  5. taorist Avatar

    Whoa. Is dat Darren Rowse?

  6. Hi max,

    Its great to see your blog really taking off. I somehow lost touch when you changed the URL, and I was able to trace it, believe it or not, through problogger.net which I just started to be active then.

    I experimented a lot of content management, and also task software and thought aggregation too. I’m looking at wridea, but I now really am trying to work it out on my ipaq, something I have with me even when I am sleeping or talking to anybody. It seems ideas come at all times. The reason i could blog again is finally I set up my ipaq to automatically just email my blog anytime.

    best of luck in your endeavors!

  7. Tom Murphy Avatar
    Tom Murphy

    Hi Max, great blog and I intend to keep it on my list of often read blogs.

    Question: when do you use your Wiki and when do you use your Wridea? Seems like you may use both, but don’t you then get confused. I would think ONE to-do list, or tickler or whatever you want to call it would be all that anyone would want to keep. Wrong??

    Tom

  8. Tom,
    After using Wridea for a couple of weeks, I find myself using it 98% of the time for my notes and tasks lists. When I signed up for it, I only intended to use it for blog-related ideas and tasks. Now, however, I’m using it for all my tasks: newsroom tasks, domestic chores and blog-related to-do lists.

    Now, I only use wikis for group tasks and projects. There are ways to share ideas in Wridea but I still have to try it.

    I would think ONE to-do list, or tickler or whatever you want to call it would be all that anyone would want to keep.
    Yes. But I love to experiment with new to-do systems. I used to joke that I’m too caught up trying out ways to get things done to actually get things done 🙂

  9. Tom Murphy Avatar
    Tom Murphy

    [quote]But I love to experiment with new to-do systems. I used to joke that I’m too caught up trying out ways to get things done to actually get things done[/quote]

    I know exactly what you mean… I have tried every “to-do” list that ever existed… online, offline, paper, blackboard, sand, sky, whatever. Some day I will find one that I stick with… but then what fun will I have??

    Tom

  10. taorist Avatar

    98%? Whoa! I’d like to see how you do it.
    I’ve taken a look at wridea and it does have potential, but for you to leave Tiddlywikis? It must be THAT good. I’ll give it a second look.

  11. Taorist,
    The only reason why I’m using it 98% of the time is that I do currently do not have a writing assignment that needs extensive notes taking. I use TiddlyWiki, particularly ZiddlyWiki, when I need to take a lot of notes for a certain assignment.
    My tasks, now, can be organized using bullet lists, that’s why I’m using Wridea a lot. For blog posts, I use it to organize links, points to take up and even drafts. I color code items with it and drag things around to re-organize priorities. After I publish the blog post or complete the task (like port a template) I then send the “idea” to the “done” page.

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