I have decided to create a schedule of a themed post a day as my way to help sort out my compulsion to blog about everything at one time and ending up not blogging at all. My post schedule from now on will go like this:

• Monday: No post on Mondays. I don’t do Mondays.
• Tuesday: Multimedia day. This is when I’ll post some funky videos or audios that fancy me and which I hope others will fancy too, such as Matt Harding’s crazy dance around the world.
• Wednesday: WordPress and blogging improvement matters. I’ll be posting about WordPress widgets and modding matters, or some blogging ideas such as this post (coincidentally, today’s a Wednesday).
• Thursday: Gem of A Blog. It’s my glam word for bloghopping. I usually start hopping by visiting sites in my social networks and Top Commentators list. I’ll then be doing some brief reviews of blogs — and only blogs — that catch my eye or mind.
• Friday: Life-Changing Matters, One Little Step At A Time, similar to matters like my phantom power post. Maybe some intermittent posts called Matters that Matter on more serious issues such as my post on the Malaysian bloggers under threat.
• Saturday: I don’t want to-…. zzzzzz.
• Sunday: Fun, Funky and/or Freaky stuff online. In my previous online life, I used to call this my Doodads section. I have a lot of these on my blog, like my awesome astrological pair reading with Wentworth Miller and the Japanese slapping game.

On top of this, I figure that if I have a topic I want to blog about right now but doesn’t match the theme of the day, I’d simply schedule it for the appropriate day using the Future Post option in WordPress (i.e. changing the Post Timestamp to a future date). Also, if I have more than one post to blog about for a particular theme, I would still be blogging just one post a day, and set my other posts into the future. Not only will I not be at loss for words, I’ll also be free to do my sponsored posts and other matters that I’d like to be doing. I may even have extra free days for me to catch up on my sleep!

I’m sure this technique will be useful to solve one particular dilemma that I consider my major blogging pet peeve. When bloghopping, I do stumble upon blogs with posts that say “I don’t know what to blog about”, and suddenly went on to rant about something. My first reaction to that is to wring that person’s neck, but I usually give up on that feeling by screaming DUH!, and quickly leaving that blog, never to return again.

Heads up to One Penny Project for the inspiration.

If you don’t watch Oprah, then you should. A lot of times, you’ll get practical and practicable gems of advice on living your life better, just by watching the show. One particular show on going green caught my attention, and in it Sheryl Crow and her friend Laurie David mentioned about

… eliminating “phantom power” on the (tour) bus. If any charger or appliance is left in an outlet, it continues to use power-even if it’s turned off. “Not only are you using energy you don’t need to be using, but it goes on your energy bill,” Sheryl says.

Once I heard that, I thought yeah, I kinda know or not know about that fact already, but I doubt I’ll save much just by unplugging. Then Simran Sethi went on and stated that doing so will actually lower your energy bill by up to 40%! I scrunched my nose and went REALLY?! Still, I decided to do just that. Right after the show, I roamed around my little apartment and started unplugging all the appliances that weren’t used, and I’d do the same and switched off all lights and whathavenots — save for the fridge and the computer plugs in my brother-in-laws’ room — every time before I leave the house.

Yesterday, after around two weeks down the road, I received my electricity bill. Guess what? They’re right! I saved 25% on just unplugging my appliances! That is a very big deal for me, because I spend approximately RM200.00 a month on electricity, and now it’s down to RM145.00 — I could buy two months’ worth of my prepaid mobile phone credits with the RM55 leftover; I could have saved more than RM600 a year and buy me a round-trip ticket to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore for my annual shopping spree! I was only around two weeks of practicing this energy-saving method, so I think this is just an amazing result.

Another Oprah show featuring David Bach was also an eye-opener for me, but that’s a story for another day.