Maybe the abundance of snow played a little roll, perhaps it was that busy days of the holiday season caught up with me on the health front (which they did – big time!), or it might have been the million and one other things - those various elements that make up life and are often points of worry for many of us - but last week was a bit of "one of those weeks" for me.
Nothing epically bad, thank the universe, but certainly enough to pull my mood down and result in rather little productivity, compared to how I'd (admittedly, very optimistically) imagined the first few days of the year kicking off. There was a strong juxtaposition between the energy and excitement that raced through mind regarding this year and how my body actually felt, and it for each minor step I took forward, I rolled - proverbially, of course - down a mountain.
I have not come even remotely close yet to winning the battle - not just in theory, but in actual practise - of owning my own time, and I know that fact also contributed in part to my mood and mindset as 2015 came barreling through the door.
For years now I've noticed that both the start of the week and the start of each new month bring with their arrival, a higher than usual level of emails for me (which make senses, as folks are back at their desks and/or feeling like they want to start things off on a very productive note). The beginning of this year seemed to magnify that exponentially and in the first few days of 2015 alone, I replied to over 300 emails (the actual number I received and will eventually reply to was/is far higher still), as well as a host of Facebook and Instagram private messages.
Running, humbly, a successful and popular vintage blog, I've been getting scores of emails for years now, most of which are questions from readers or the general public who find my blog (a good many of which are folks seeking information on vintage items they’ve acquired), offers or inquires from companies who want to work together, back and forths between blog sponsors, folks wanting to interview me, and of course those from friends, acquaintances, and family members.
This latter group however makes ups the smallest percentage of my email pie (yet are usually my very favourite). I am not alone in the high volume of emails I receive by any means and I know that there are people out there in countless fields, who receive a hundred times more email than I get in a given week. Still, when one is already blogging and running an Etsy shop full-time, there are only so many hours in the day and it can quickly feel like you've buried under and avalanche of emails.
{Emails, the 21st century version of the telephone call in many ways, arriving by the boatload to inboxes everywhere each day - mine very much included! Image source.}
In centuries past it was common to call men (and women, though the term was traditionally applied more to chaps) who were known for being smart folks that were prolific letter writers, diarists, scholars, and/or authors "men of letters". I've always adored this title which derives from the French term "belletrist" and was historically first used to differentiate between someone who was literate or illiterate, though quickly came to be associated simply more with those who were seen as being quite intellectual.
In the midst of writing some of those many email replies last week, it struck me that no shortage of us have become men and women of letters in our own right as bloggers and, yes, even microbloggers. Our worlds are filled with words of the digital type, but still they are words all the same that spring from our minds and fingertips and fill our waking hours. Thus we have become the men and women of emails and blogs. Twenty-first century intellectuals who love our work, but do readily admit that it can swallow us whole sometimes - if we let it.
I want to clarify that I am not bemoaning my bustling inbox. I am grateful for the opportunities and connections that my blog affords me, but I am also acutely aware of the finite amount of time we all have and how short the days can seem if you need, or opt, to devote several hours a day to replying to emails, be they professional, personal or both (naturally, personal ones are usually lovely and rarely feel like "work" in the slightest).
There I sat, typing and hopping like a bee swirling around from bloom to bloom in a spring garden, and knowing that for each message I sent, at least two more would arrive to take its place. Inbox zero is an impossibility for many of us these days and while steps can be taken to help manage your email workflow and assist to some degree when it comes to the feeling that you never get ahead on that front, for me personally the realization came that the best approach would probably be to devote one or two days (or chunks of days) solely to replying to emails each week.
I will continue to check my inbox multiple times a day as I typically do and address any message that are truly pressing, important or of a highly time sensitive nature right away. However, I can no longer sit down to do just that and unintentionally end up there for, say, seven hours, when I had indented to use that time to write blog posts, take photos for my shop, pen Etsy listings, or any of the myriad other things that fill my work days.
In fact, though it is an approach I've taken to a degree for quite some time now, I've firmly decided that I need to really, really devote whole days to specific tasks (like those just mentioned) and not flit from activity to activity. I find that doing so is a perfect recipe for not actually being anywhere near as productive as I'd ideally like on those fabulous days when my health allows me to even be productive at all.
I have decided - and of course this will always be an area with a great deal of flexibility - that I will break down my week, in an ideal world (aka, this assumes that my health is cooperating and that life isn't throwing more curveballs my way than there are minutes in an hour), as follows:
-1 to 2 days a week, write blog posts (at least one, but ideally two, posts on each of these days). This will also include editing photos for outfit posts, gathering images for posts, doing post related research, etc - basically anything related to posting here on my blog.
-1 to 2 days a week, take photos for my Etsy shop, then sort (select) and do any minor editing needed to those photos.
-1 to 2 days a week, list new items in my Etsy shop.
-1 day a week where I focus primarily on replying to emails, FB private messages and the like. If the amount of time needed for this is less than a full day, it can be combined with one of the activates mentioned above.
-Devote at least one day a week to not working at all. Even lifelong workaholics like me need time off. It's incredibly important to our health (including one's mental health), stress levels, productivity, and happiness that we distance ourselves from our jobs. Working from home, as I do, this can be all the more tricky, but it something I truly must accomplish this year and hopefully for all those that follow, too.
{Being a full-time blogger and Etsy shop owner, just like any job, takes work, stamina, perseverance, and (ideally!) a love of what you're doing. It involves super long hours, no shortage of elbow grease, the ability to change your course of action when needed, and a massive amount of drive. I cherish the career that I have and count it amongst my blessings every day, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a massive amount of work that can wear me down something fierce at times. My hope is that the schedule above will help me be more productive and less tired/stressed/worried/etc when comes to completing all the jobs I want to get done in a given week. 1940s female war worker image source.}
Of course, amongst these things I will do others like reply to blog comments, visit other people's blogs/stay at least quasi on top of the new posts in my feed reader, do outfit shoots with Tony, brainstorm ideas for future posts, be present on social media, source items for my shop, ship out Etsy orders, and plenty of other activities that fall under the header of work for me, but as those things do not generally call for whole days unto themselves, they're easier to fit in around other larger jobs.
Again, and I can't possibly stress this enough, this workflow schedule assumes that the circumstances of my life accommodate such and that everything is running like clockwork. Frequently, it will not, and I fully understand and accept this. However, just having this ideal sort of workweek in place helps me to feel less anxiety, worry and stress about how I spend each day and thus leads to greater productivity levels.
You may have noticed that I haven't assigned specific days of the week (say for example, Wednesdays for replying to emails) to each of these jobs. That is 100% intentional, because I know that they'll vary from week-to-week, what my medical situation is like on a given day (some days for example, I may feel well enough to write posts in bed, but not to stand up and take listing photos), the weather (say for outfit photos), and scores of other circumstance. It matters far less what day of the week such things happen on and more that they do indeed transpire.
Another reason why I didn't partner jobs with dates is that most weeks, I spend several hours on Tuesday and Wednesday doing work that absolutely must be done, no questions about it, for some of the other websites (such as Any New Books) that Tony and I run. Due to the nature of when the new content for such sites is posted, it has to be done on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I only get fragments of those days to work on things pertaining to world of Chronically Vintage.
I share these inner workings of my mind (and schedule) with you all here today in the hopes that taking such an approach, if you're not already doing so, may be of substantial assistance to you and your own productivity as well.
Life and work are a perpetual balance and no one can get it right all the time, but we can certainly take a moment to step back and intentionally see if what we're currently doing is right for us in the here and now and try to adjust things if they're not.
That's my plan and goal. With dedicated task days in place, I feel a renewed since of love for both my blog and shop (not that I didn't adore them both before, I did so dearly, of course!), less anxiety/stress, and like I'm better able to tackle the world - or at least my inbox, blog and Etsy shop one exciting day at time.
