WordPress is a phenomenal blogging system that I love deeply, but it really does a poor job of organizing all my draft posts. They’re all just lined up one after the other with the most recent draft listed first.

I checked for a plugin to help address this randomness, but the search turned up pretty empty. Back when my draft list was a lot longer than what’s in the screenshot above, my best solution was to use my browser’s Find feature by hitting CTRL+F and typing in some words that might be in the draft’s title. However, thanks to Google Docs and the ability to upload a document via email, I now have a new solution.

Google Docs gives me a unique e-mail address where I can send either e-mail messages or e-mail attachments (Word, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice attachments supported) that are converted to online Google documents.

This allows me to write my blog drafts in an e-mail, fill in an identifiable subject and send it to my private [tag]Google Docs[/tag] address. Once in Google Docs, I can do several things:

• Edit drafts in HTML mode with WordPress markup intact.
• Categorize documents with tags.
• Search documents for key words and phrases.
• Share it with others for their input.
• Revert to past revisions of the draft.
• List drafts in my Google Personalized Homepage for easy editing access.
• List documents by tags, recent activity, or title.
• Export documents as HTML, Word, RTF, PDF or [tag]OpenOffice[/tag].
• And a whole lot more.

When a draft is complete, I copy and paste the document’s HTML (to retain markup) to my blog, archive it in Google Docs, add any touch-ups and click Publish. And since Google Docs are online, I have access to my drafts regardless of where I am or what computer I’m using, just like my blog.

Of course, this organization method does not apply solely to WordPress. It can be used with any blogging system out there.

Sign in to Google and get your unique Google Docs e-mail address..

[tags]Wordpress[/tags]

Posted on November 29, 2006