How to Use Google Docs & Spreadsheets to Manage Your Blog

Overview

• Google Docs & Spreadsheets Basics
• Creating a Blog Management Spreadsheet
• Using Your Blog Management Spreadsheet
• More than just a Task List
• Portability & Flexibility

Google Docs & Spreadsheets Basics

To use Google Docs & Spreadsheets, you’ll need a Google account, which any blogger should have, anyway, because of all the other important Google services you need, like AdSense and AdWords (and if your blog is on Blogger). When you first arrive at the Google Docs & Spreadsheets main page, you have links at the upper left for creating a new document, a new spreadsheet, or for uploading an existing word processor document or spreadsheet (Microsoft Office or OpenOffice file formats will work, among others). I’m not going to mention the “Docs” part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets for running a blog because I don’t use it for that. You can only publish to one blog, and I have several, so that’s not an option. I’m only focusing on the spreadsheets.

When you create a new spreadsheet, it only has one sheet tab in it, called Sheet1. You’ll want to name the spreadsheet itself and the sheet tab. Create sheet tabs for each task list or idea list you want to manage. Google Docs & Spreadsheets will autosave the spreadsheet, but not until you name it. To name it, click on the words Unsaved Spreadsheet at the upper left. A prompt dialog appears; type in the name you want to give your entire spreadsheet and click OK. Now Google will autosave the spreadsheet every few minutes. Click on the sheet tab and choose Rename and give it whatever name you want. You’ll find the controls a bit basic, but they cover the basics very well, and are overkill for how I use the spreadsheet. If you want to share the spreadsheet with someone else, click the Share tab on the upper right and invite people to participate. At the upper left, the Revisions tab allows you to roll back your spreadsheet to a previous autosave state.

Creating a Blog Management Spreadsheet

The problem with simple task lists is that they’re too simple and you’re locked into doing things in the manner the software allows, or, conversely, they’re too complex. This method I’m about to show you is drop-dead simple! For me, it works. Will it work for you? I don’t know, but I’m sure that some people might really like it.

Here’s how it works. In cell A1, type the word Tasks (or something more specific, if necessary). Below that cell, list all your tasks, one in each cell going vertically down the column. If you want the count of tasks to match the spreadsheet row count, don’t bother with a header row for row 1. Then, you make up a color coding system. Here’s mine:

• High-priority tasks are pink (red is too much—I still need to be able to read it).
• Medium-priority tasks are yellow
• Completed tasks are gray
• In-progress tasks are green
• Abandoned tasks are dark gray

All I do is change the background color of the cells. It works quite well! When a task’s status changes from in-progress to complete, I simply change the background color from green to gray.

Using Your Blog Management Spreadsheet

Unfortunately, you cannot sort by cell background color, but reordering rows in the spreadsheet is very easy! You can click on the row selector box to select and then click and drag to reorder the task. Obviously, you can’t have anything else in any of the spreadsheet’s other columns. This means one task list per sheet tab in your spreadsheet.

In addition to reordering rows, there are several other tips that make this an easy platform for task management:

• Right-click any row number box to insert new rows (tasks) into your list
• Right-click to add a comment to a cell, allowing you to add afterthoughts to tasks
• You can add information in other columns if desired, like a priority rating, percent complete, or anything else you like

More than just a Task List

One of the most difficult tasks for me, in terms of blogging productivity, has always been finding the right tools that suit my way of working. Maybe I’m just different, I don’t know (this where people who know me are now rolling their eyes), but the tools that seem fine for everyone else don’t work well for me. One task/idea manager that came close was Wridea, but the ease with which I can get into Google Docs & Spreadsheets from the other Google services I use is hard to beat. I use Google’s personal home page service, called iGoogle, and from there I can easily get into any other Google service I use (and I use a lot of them!).

I use Google spreadsheets for more than just crossing off tasks on my project lists. I also use it to jot down ideas for future posts and articles. If you are tracking keywords, most keyword gathering services can present information in a .xls (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet) file or a .csv (Comma Separated Values) file, which can be uploaded to Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Charts can be created in Google spreadsheets. If you monetize your blog with AdSense, you can get data in a spreadsheet form as .xls or .csv. You can upload these to Google Docs & Spreadsheets and create charts to help you get the big picture on AdSense performance.

Portability & Flexibility

I greatly prefer online blogging tools to desktop tools, so I can manage my blogs from anywhere with an internet connection, regardless of the computer. Portability is one of the reasons why I rely heavily on Google services. Desktop applications chain me to only one location and one single machine. This lack of redundancy makes me nervous if anything were to happen!

If you couple that with the flexibility to create any kind of list any way you want, you have something that can’t be beat by an overly specific application. Now, this is not to say that I don’t appreciate other tools or that I don’t think they’re any good. I’m just sharing with you what I’ve found so far that works well for me. In the future, I’m going to review some other time management tools with an eye for how they help boggers.

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