Hello. Let me introduce myself.
I am an Idiot.
The other day, as some of you noticed, I posted my Monday night February 13th Blog post “Lesson 27” in the normal time-frame.
Nothing new. I try to be punctual.
This time, though, I tried to jump the gun and get it out before dinner. (I’d prepared it the day before)
As I pressed the magic “publish” button, my computer hiccupped, I lost internet, and I also lost my post. “Oh no! That took me hours!” It was gone. Just gone. It wasn’t even in my drafts anymore. “Ugh!”
I grumbled, and sat down to dinner. After doing the dishes, I opened up my Blog, praying it would be there. Nope. Still gone. My dog sat there sadly, knowing it was her grooming time. “Sorry Chloe, Mommy needs to figure this out.”
I opened my dashboard trying to find the draft. It had to be there, right? Nope. Gone. Chloe whined. I patted her on the head.
When I glance back at the screen, I saw that two people had commented on the missing post. “Commented on what?” Could they see it? I couldn’t see it.
After meddling with the system for a while, I finally found my post…. Back on January 28th.
Did I pull a Michael J. Fox? Did I time travel?
No, but my computer did somehow. Now I have no Blog post for Monday, and an extra one in the past, and a two-day-old post on my home page. How the HECK-OLA does something like that happen?
Chloe barked, and I let her out. Sorry, Chloe.
So, what the heck do I do? Rather than having people jump to my Home page and not find a post, I copied Lesson Seven from its odd place in the “past”, and re-posted the same article in the “present”. Now, I didn’t delete the time-travel post, because there were already comments on it, so there are two strings of comments on two different dates about exactly the same topic.
Whew! Anyway… sorry about that double post. And Sorry Chloe, for not getting to brush you.
I finished that post last weekend. Added the art, made it pretty. And then I left it in my “drafts” folder. I’ve done this countless times before without any problems. (When you have three kids, you need to write whenever you get a chance… and life doesn’t always agree with your blog schedule).
Anyway… while I was fiddling— copying the content of the time-travel post to re-publish it— I clicked on a button by mistake. A date popped up… and my magic “publish” button changed to “Schedule”.
I am such an idiot.
I never knew that was there. I could schedule my posts weeks in advance if I wanted to, and not have to stress about getting them done on time! How many times had my posts popped up on Tuesday because I didn’t get a chance to hit that magic publish button until 11:00 PM, which is already the next day in WordPress time. (Making my incredibly anal brain feel late.)
Let me repeat
Schedule your stinking posts, Jen.
Just in case I am not the only IDIOT in the world… there is a little schedule button over on the right when you compose your post. Duh.
From now on, if my posts hit your email at 1:00 in the morning, it’s not because I have insomnia. I’m just giving you a whole day of “reading joy” rather than waiting for me to get home from work, make dinner, clean up dinner, brush the dog, and tuck the kids in before I get a change to press that stupid publish button.
A schedule button
.
.
.
Related articles
- Why the ‘Publish’ button scares me (papaschoice.wordpress.com)
- Blogger now schedules future-dated posts (buzz.blogger.com)
Jennifer M Eaton 
I didnt know about the schedule button either, I mean I have seen it, but I didnt want to press my luck and see what it was. :=)
Ha! Press the button Hutch! Live life dangerously!
I don’t use Schedule because I rarely get things done ahead of time. I am always editing to the last minute OR losing interest after something has sat for awhile and discarding (the waste!) Thanks for sharing your humanity!
Jennifer, you’re no idiot. I admire your wit and learn something new every time you post. 🙂
Janet
You are so not an idiot! When I first read about the ability to schedule posts, I thought FAB! Off I went. I wrote a post. Put in my date. Hit ok. Saved the draft. To the camp I went.
When I got home on Sunday, I was stunned to see that Friday’s post hadn’t gone as “scheduled”! I was pissed. I posted it late.
The next week, I decided to do a few tests with posts. Again. All failed.
What in god’s name was wrong?!?!?! WordPress scheduling was a myth! So annoyed.
Until I realized that I had to hit the SCHEDULE button. I had been setting the date, hitting ok and saving the draft thinking that was it. I didn’t “clue” in to hit the schedule button.
So there you have it. I was like 4 posts before mastering it.
You are soooo not an idiot! It’s all one massive learning curve so hang in there. It’ll be fun to figure out what little magic thing we’ve yet to learn. LOL!
Learn a new skill every day and barnacles won’t grow on your bum 🙂 Great feature to learn. Funny stuff to read.
No Jennifer, you are not really an idiot, just a work in progresss.
That’s it! I’m a work in progress! Geez… I’ve been in progress for a long time!
i don’t know about WordPress, but blogger actually lets you change the date on an already-published post.
It actually looks like you can do this on WordPress too, but things were going so dern wacky that night, I didn’t want to press my luck.
You’re not an idiot, at least not the only one. I think a lot of us have made similar blogging post errors. And thanks for the scheduling posts tip. I’ve never used that before but it’s handy.
So far, it’s working pretty good. It saves some stress
🙂
I’m a guests blogger for two WordPress blogs and love the Schedule feature. Sometimes I complete a post a week ahead (Yay!) and have it scheduled and ready to go. Schedule and forget about it. Glad you found the button.
This was really funny, more so because I’m the poster child for tech challenged. Have a great day Jennifer and no you’re not an idiot.
Hi, Jennifer!
Ok you are so funny only because I can so relate to this. Not the schedule button (mostly because I don’t post enough to use it…sigh). It’s because there are a number of times I will sit in front of the computer griping and grumbling because something is not working right until I actually really look at the screen and realize “Duh, stupid….if you will just click that little box….” Anyway, I’m sure your post is probably making several people now smack themselves in the forehead for missing that button too. They are also out there shouting, “Thank you Jennifer!”
Yeah, that’s why I did it. I’m sure I’m not the only idiot in the world. Maybe we can all join Idiot’s Anonomous. 🙂
I just saw that a few days ago and used it for my post last Tuesday. Only thing is I forgot to click the SM buttons and send it to Twitter, FB, and LinkedIn until the next day. I know you can do those automatically, but I find it better to actually publish them myself. Such a control freak I am!
I also lost a post on my iPad when Apple updated to Cloud technology and my BlogPress app wouldn’t open anymore. A couple of months later the tech was in sync again and I found my post, sadly outdated and useless. Love that technology. Except when I don’t!
Wow, I keep hearing about this elusive schedule button, lol. Thanks for telling me more:) JUst FYI, I did link you to my site for the first page critique contest. Hope you can still participate but please, go brush Chloe first;)
~Cheers
Thanks, Jamie. I just posted my first page on my top navigation bar.
Hi Jennifer,
Have you ever seen the movie Die Hard? Bruce Willis is up on the umpteenth floor of the Nakatomi Tower and needs to get the attention of the Twinkie eating cop who is about to drive away from the scene, unaware of the the dire deeds taking place within. He throws a body out of the window to land on the hood of the cop car and shouts, “Welcome to the Party, Pal!”.
Well, Jen, welcome to the party. I didn’t know about that button and i don’t know about all of the other things I don’t know about my WordPress blog. Thanks for turning it on.
So you are not an idiot after all.
Aloha,
Doug
I figured out the schedule button tonight, too! Unfortunately, I AM still up at 12:30 a.m. and will probably be for another hour or so. I write when I can.