The Blog of Lisa Morosky

I’ve decided to start a video series entitled “Becoming an Organized and Productive Blogger”.

The thought came to me this week as I was spinning my wheels one day trying to get everything done. I took a step back and analyzed why I was feeling stressed and unproductive. I found that I felt that way because at that moment, I wasn’t approaching various areas of my business in an organized way. I’m an extremely organized person by nature, but we all unravel sometimes. It happened to me because I was out of town for a few weeks and wasn’t successfully adhering to my normal schedule.

So I decided to create a few videos describing ways that we, as bloggers, can get organized in order to increase our productivity.

This is the first video in the series. It’s all about email tools you can use to get organized and save time, as well as strategies you should implement in the way that you deal with email. I’ll tell you right now that it’s very Gmail-centric. That’s where my knowledge lies, and it’s what I think you should be using anyways.

The next video will be focused on Google Calendar, and that’ll be out next week.

*Note: If you have trouble seeing the smaller print, hit the button in the bottom right corner to make the video fullscreen.*

As web workers, we often tout how flexible we are, how we’re in charge of our own lives and businesses, and how no one has a hold on us. We work on what we want, when we want, and with whom we want. We are our own bosses and motivators. Nobody can hold us down.

I don’t know about you, but when I traded in my corporate chains, I shackled on a bunch of new ones. While I’ll say that I am free in a lot of new ways, I’m also a slave to a lot of new things. I’ve realized this recently, and I’m actively trying to combat these issues. I chose this lifestyle so I could live on my own terms, not on a new set of terms that are defined for me by circumstance.

I’m a slave to my email.

Anyone who’s web working can relate when I say that I get a ton of email everyday. I get email from clients, potential clients, blog readers, my peers, friends, family, influential people that I follow, you name it. By the end of the week, I feel just so bogged down by email, and my inbox is a nightmare.

Not only that, but I check my email way too much. I’m afraid I’m going to miss something.

This is an issue I needed to solve immediately. So I spent some time going through my Gmail inboxes, organizing labels and filters, getting rid of things I don’t need, finishing up tasks that were sitting there, etc. I created an email system that will keep me on track.

Also, I’ve committed to checking my email only four times during the day: when I wake up, around noon, in the late afternoon/early evening time, and once in the evening hours. That may still seem like a lot, but it’s actually just a fraction of the time I spent on email previously. When I check my email, I immediately categorize, respond and complete a task, delete, or flag for follow-up each email. Nothing sits in my inbox anymore.

I’m a slave to social media.

I could spend hours upon hours on social media fostering relationships. But, sometimes it can be a real time-suck and it can keep me distracted from all the other things I need to accomplish.

So I’ve committed to being active for an hour a day on social media. This hour includes the time I spend carrying out blog promotion strategies, time spent on following and responding, and time spent on initiating new contacts. I’m also making better use of automation tools like Tweetlater (to schedule tweets in the future, not to send pesky auto-DMs).

I still randomly use social media throughout the day when I have something to say or contribute. But forcing myself to really make good use of that one hour a day has helped me not feel so overwhelmed and like it’s just one more thing on my to-do list.

Speaking of to-do lists…

I’m a slave to my to-do list.

I create the most ridiculously long to-do lists. There’s no way I could possibly do everything I have set out to do each day. I set myself up for failure in this way, and then I spend more hours working until I can cross off every last thing on my list.

So I’ve been diligent about making my to-do lists realistic. And I’m finding that at the end of the day I’m able to unwind more easily and feel accomplished and confident.

So that’s me. Every web worker has their unique struggles and things that are slaves to.

What about you? What aspect of your web working lifestyle might you be a slave to? And what do you do to keep it in check?