How to Use (and Stop Using) Scheduled Posts in Google Blogger

How Does Scheduling Work?

Google Blogger recently launched the ability to schedule posts for automatic publishing in the future:

"Publishing a post in the future is pretty simple: in the post editor, reveal the Date and Time fields using the “Post Options” toggle and enter a post date and time that is in the future. When you then click the “Publish” button, your post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post arrive, your post will be automatically published to your blog.

Your scheduled posts appear in your Edit Posts list alongside your drafts and published posts. To un-schedule a post, simply save it as a draft any time before it gets published."

What If You Don't Want to Use Scheduling?

I use Google Blogger to publish not only blogs (with posts in reverse chronological order) but also "regular" websites in which the article at the top of the page is not always the newest one. To do this, I often choose a date in the future (for example, 2010) which makes the desired post to stay on top. The "scheduled post" Blogger update eliminated this option but fortunately, there is a workaround:

"We know that some bloggers currently use future post dates in order to keep one post at the top of their blog for a while. Though we recommend that you use a Text page element for this, you can still get this old behavior with just one additional step. First, publish your post with the current date and time. This will publish it to your blog. Then, once it’s published, edit the post to change the date to the future and publish it again. We don’t re-schedule posts that are already published, so the post will stay on your blog but sort to the very top."

References:
New feature: Scheduled Posts. Blogger in draft, 02/2008.
Blogger now schedules future-dated posts. Blogger Buzz, 05/2008.
Image source: Blogger in draft, Google.