we have about 10 things that need to be optional for each post and will be the same for the posts. They just need to be easily implemented on each post. Checkboxes would be ideal so the user can just select which items are displayed for that post.
WordPress checkbox for specific item (image or text) to be displayed on a post instead of custom field
Have I understood your question?
If I’ve got it right, you say that custom fields would be fine for storing some extra data relating to each post, but the WordPress editor makes custom fields rather clunky to use.
If this is what you’re asking then there’s a simple solution:
There are two different plugins (one more mature, the other higher rated but still in beta) which add a nice layer of user interface over the WP editor for custom fields. The one I know best is ‘More Fields’ by Henrik Melin. There is also ‘Simple Fields’ (sorry, I can’t remember the author offhand). I’ve used ‘More Fields’ in numerous client web sites and apart from a couple of minor glitches with images in WYSIWYG custom fields, it’s truly great.
I found this article https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/28785/how-set-featured-posts-using-checkbox-in-post-edit-screen which demonstrates how to do it without a plugin. Worked for me.