Hi! I started a podcast with my longtime BFF, Kim. It’s called Hey, Bestie! and we chat about pop culture, things we love (or hate) feminism, and modern life.
And there are already four episodes up! So far we’ve talked about bullet journaling, The Rock running for president, shows you should never binge watch, romance novels, and more.
Go to HeyBestie.com for more info and ways to listen or hop right over to iTunes.
As I’ve settled into my work at Automattic as a Happiness Engineer for WordPress.com, which is remote and requires self-discipline and managing my own time well, I’ve tried several different methods of scheduling my tasks and keeping track of my time. I used this method of calendar blocks for several months very successfully. (The past few months I’ve been trying a more digital bullet journal-type method, which I’ll share the details of soon, in case you’re not a calendar person.)
Mapping out your day with calendar blocks isn’t anything fancy, but it can definitely get the job done if you’re needing to assign tasks to the hours of your day to stay on top of things.
This quote basically explains why it works:
“When it comes to task completion the major difference between a calendar and a to-do-list is that the calendar accounts for time. You’re forced to work within the constraints of the 24 hours that you have. Not only that, given that there are only 24 hours it also reduces the paradox of choice. This tends to be great for scheduling time for high-level creative output.”
Read more here: Why Calendars are More Effective Than To-do Lists.
Here’s a screenshot of a week of my calendar:
click to see larger.
I tried to add a bit more detail in the tiny spaces than I normally would for myself, so hopefully it makes pretty good sense to someone who didn’t set it up. Note: Slack is our internal chat communication tool and p2s are our internal blogs where we document a lot of our work. We use these instead of email for most things.
I aim to fill it out a week or two ahead of time (at least in large part), but my official self-imposed rule is that it’s done by Sunday before I kick off the next work week on Monday morning. (I tend to add myself to the live chat schedule for a few weeks at a time, so those hours are usually ready to go quite a bit in advance.)
First I add any recurring blocks, like the team hangout on Wednesday mornings. If I had other groups to meet with, like the Training Guild, this is when I’d add those blocks.
I also add my live chat hours early. Live chat makes up a signifiant portion of my work, so it’s important to get it on there early. I tend to chat during similar blocks each week, so I have them set to repeat weekly and usually only have to do minor edits. If you have something that consistently repeats, consider making the blocks recurring so you don’t have to keep adding the same things week after week and Google handles it for you instead.
Next I block off any commitments I’ve made that are time-specific, like a trial buddy chat, a hangout or learnup I want to attend, or personal appointments (like when I go to the doctor). I add these as I agree to them, but this is when I’d check to make sure they made it on here, because it’s starting to be pretty full and soon there won’t be room.
I add a lunch hour at this point. It’s usually at noon, but shifts around based on the week. My afternoons go way better when I take the break, so whenever it is, I make sure it’s there as many days as I can. I close my computer and watch an episode of a show, read a book, play a game, or go out for lunch somewhere, or exercise, and then come back in an hour refreshed and ready to work.
Then I add Helpshift, which is a small portion of my work and very flexible, so I can squish it in where ever I’ve got the time. Next I fill in the empty spots with project and dedicated ticket/forum time. I also work on tickets (or forums, if tickets are handled) when I’m in live chat and it’s slow enough to allow that, so these ticket blocks are extra time to really focus there, beyond what I get done while chatting. For project blocks, I add a note about what I’m going to be working on during that time, since I have a few different things I do outside of my usual support work. (See: the Instagram block on Thursday. I used that hour to look for sites to feature on the WordPress.com Instagram account, the create and schedule posts for the week.)
And that’s it. (Ha!)
If you’ve struggled with managing your time or always seem to miss a task, give this method a try. It goes beyond the standard to do list, by making the space in your day to actually complete the task, which can be really helpful.
I work at Automattic as a Happiness Engineer for WordPress.com. I’ve shared some details on what that’s like before (see here), but never a whole day play-by-play… until now! My day, as it happened on Wednesday, February 22, follows.
This post is part of a series describing what Happiness Engineers at Automattic do each day. Read more like it by checking #a8cday on WordPress.com and Twitter.
7:30am – This is when my husband says goodbye and heads to work, so I start thinking I should probably get up too. I rest a while longer, then grab my phone and check Slack to catch up on my team’s channel plus a few others, and see what happened on Twitter overnight. I’m still not quite ready to get up, so I read a few chapters of a historical romance novel I’m in the middle of in the Kindle app. (Book: A Duchess in Name, The Grantham Girls #1 by by Amanda Weaver.)
8:50am – I jump out of bed and get dressed in real-ish clothes so I’m video-worthy, then I finger comb my hair, brush my teeth, grab a big ol’ cup of homemade cold brew iced coffee and a piece of toast, then wedge myself into the corner of the couch in my living room with my laptop propped on a cushion.
9:00am – It’s time for my team’s weekly video hangout. The ice breaker this week is about songs or playlists we use while working on tickets. My answer is very un-musical (except that one episode), because I tend to keep Buffy the Vampire Slayer on a loop while I work. I’ve seen it so many times that I can tune it out when needed, but I never tire of it so it’s nice to look up and see my old favorites anytime I want. When I do listen to music while I work it tends to be movie scores so words don’t distract me, although sometimes I can manage some catchy pop tunes while I live chat.
We use Zoom for our hangout, so we can see each other (in a Brady Bunch-style grid) and chat about a bunch of things, like helping another team cover their workload while they’re away for their upcoming meetup, a new feature recently added to WordPress.com we’ll need to check out so we’re able to support it well, and so on. We also had a special guest this week (our lead’s lead) so we grilled him asked him a bunch of very nice questions.
10:00am – A roofer swings by my house to give me an estimate on some work I need done. When he remembers I work from home, he asks what I do and when I mention WordPress, he lights up and tells me how much he loves it. He shares how he’d never imagined he could handle making his own website, and previously had to pay someone every time he wanted them to update the content, then a friend told him to use WordPress and the rest is history. I basically feel like a hero once he’s done talking about how great it is and how he’s glad I help people with their sites.
10:15am – I open my logbook (a personal p2 I keep in my bookmarks bar) and see what I’ve got planned for the day. P2 theme lets you post from the frontend of your site, rather than in the dash, so it’s nice for this type of work. (You can use the theme for your own logbook if you want!)
In my logbook, I make one post per day and it always includes a checklist that I refer to throughout the day. I also publish a monthly post that I keep pinned to the top with an overview of my month that includes any travel I have planned, time-specific appointments, project goals/deadlines, expense report reminders, and so on. It’s basically a very simple digital bullet journal.
Here’s February’s to do list:
And here’s February 22’s post (screenshot taken the following day):
If I can’t get to everything one day, I make sure to carry things over into the next day’s post so it’s on my list again. I also reply to the post and leave comments throughout the day if I need to save reminders for myself, store URLs to tickets I want to check in on later, notes for bug reports, and so on.
I started this logbook back in October and it’s worked out really well. It helps me keep things all in one place more, rather than having notes in different apps and a mysterious in-my-head to do list. Plus checking boxes is fun.
10:20am – I usually live chat in the mornings for a few hours, but it was well-staffed when I went to schedule myself last week, so I’m on tickets (emails) this morning instead. First I check my replies and I’ve got one that gives me another boost:
“This is EXACTLY the help I needed to get going! THANK YOU for your assistance!”
The day before I’d walked through setting up a theme in detail and answered several questions about configuring this person’s site. When I look at it now, I see he’s done it all and his site is looking great. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me happy to do this work.
I work on tickets in batches for almost two hours from my couch corner. I tend to claim a handful, work through them, then pop over to Slack to see what’s going on and say hi to my team, before grabbing more and going again.
12:oopm – I post a photo to the WordPress.com Instagram account. I started running the account a little over a year ago when I noticed we had one but it had no photos on it and wrote up a proposal about how I thought we should use it. I got the green light and have been handling it ever since. I share content from WordPress.com sites, and really enjoy searching the Reader to find new-to-me bloggers and websites to feature. I try to share a mix of food, quotes, DIY projects, travel photos, art, journal pages, style bloggers, books, and anything else that catches my eye.
Posting this photo right now is really simple, since everything is ready to go. I plan posts on Trello, which has a nice iPhone app, so I open it up, copy the caption and hashtags, save the image, and head over to Instagram to share. While I’m there, I also check for spam to delete, comments that need replies, and mentions to like.
12:15pm – Lunch time! Today I have salad and chicken tenders waiting, plus yesterday’s episode of The Mindy Project. I eat and laugh a bunch, which makes for a really nice break. I run and unload the dishwasher so my husband will load it as he cooks dinner tonight. This is pretty much the only chore I can manage during the day. When I try to do laundry, I end up starting one load in the morning and forgetting about it until around 5:30. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1:00pm – I write captions for a few videos I recently helped record for a video series I’ve been a part of making for over a year now. We record short videos with coworkers about what it’s like working at Automattic, what their application process was like, their favorite things and the most surprising things about the work, and more. The playlist for the series is on YouTube here. If you’re curious about applying for a job with us, I recommend checking out the videos. You’ll see how great the people are, and they’ll give you the nudge you need to apply. 😉
1:15pm – I do a 15-minute stretch/yoga routine in my living room to loosen up a bit and help with some lingering shoulder pain I’ve had lately.
1:30pm – I read p2s (our internal blogs) to keep up with everything going on around Automattic. My work email is used almost exclusively for post notifications, since we tend to communicate over p2s and in Slack instead. I especially pay attention to any updates around a project I’m working on right now (but it’s a secret so I can’t share any details about what it is yet). Shhhhh!
2:00-4:30pm – Chat time! I’ve scheduled myself for live chat during this block of time, so I settle in at my desk and hop into chat. I do 15 chats during this time, which means it wasn’t very busy/had plenty of staff on. I tend to stick to up to three chats at a time as my maximum. I can do more, but I feel like quality starts to decline and it drains me quicker, so I’d rather get through three really well then accept some more. When I have some slow times, I grab tickets to work on while I wait for a new chat.
4:30pm – After chat, I troubleshoot an issue I couldn’t figure out while chatting and email the user an update, as promised. I check and clear my ticket replies again one last time before I sign off for the day. I chat in Slack for a few minutes, skim my notifications for anything I need to know right now, then say bye to my team. I publish tomorrow’s logbook post with my checklist for things to do the next day.
5:15pm – I close my laptop. My husband is home, so that’s my cue to stop. We’ve got to head out to look at appliances for our upcoming kitchen renovation.
My days vary in length and work, and I’m starting a rotation in mobile app support soon, so I’ll do another post like this to better show the variety a bit. Beyond how my days vary, every Happiness Engineer works differently, on various projects, and in their own way, so these #a8cday posts are a great chance to get a look at that.
Interested in working with us and finding your way through the chaos too? We’re hiring!
As one-half of a two person household, I’m always looking for ways to not make giant amounts of food that will either go bad or result in us feeling like we have to eat way too much. Cupcakes are delicious, but two people do not need 24 of them!
Since I’ve mastered making two chocolate chip cookies from scratch in the toaster oven, why not try cupcakes? I used cake mix, instead of baking them from scratch, to avoid turning six cupcakes into a big measuring, multi-bowl mess. I figured if I’m only going to end up with six instead of 24 at the end, the process should be about one-fourth of the usual difficulty, right? 😉
I forgot to take photos of them when they come out of the oven, so here’s the best I can do for the look of the actual cake until I bake them again:
Yum!
Now go make your own…
This recipe makes six cupcakes using part of a box of cake mix and homemade buttercream. They can be baked in a toaster oven for maximum simplicity.
For the cakes:
For the frosting:
While your cupcakes cool, make your buttercream icing.
Optional: If you want your batch to be iced with half vanilla and half chocolate, frost the first three cupcakes, then toss a few tablespoons of cocoa powder in with a splash of milk and mix. Frost the last three cupcakes.
For my cupcakes, I used this (light-colored) Wilton 6 Cup Regular Muffin Pan and baked them in my toaster oven (the Breville BOV800XL Smart Oven) for 14 minutes (the lowest time listed on my cake mix for cupcakes in a light baking tin).
Enjoy!
If you work remotely or have considered it, you’ve most likely seen lots of advice about how to do it successfully, including how you should dress like you’re going into an office or have a whole room dedicated for your office space. And you know what? I don’t agree.
I’ve worked remotely successfully for over two years now (currently: at Automattic for WordPress.com), and the secret is: Do what works best for you. Try lots of variations until you get the right combination, and then be willing to change it up once those things aren’t working as well for you anymore.
Basically, do what works! Don’t feel obligated to follow all the advice you see out there (including in this post!) unless it truly works best for you. Mix it up and find your favorites!
I’m a big reader. I got off track logging my books as I read them in Goodreads this year to prove I met my goal of over 100, but I’m confident I did. No doubt about it, even without the proof, I know I’m well over it. So if you’ve been wishing you’d find a way to read more books, I’ve got the tips for you! (And no, I’m not going to tell you to stop watching television. I love TV too.)
Last year I shared ideas for How to Read More Books in 2016, and I’m back today with five more top tips to help you along the way. I recommend reading the first post for the entry-level ideas to get started, and adding in these next five to level-up your reading habits.
No excuses. Start reading.
I’m up for chatting about your recent read anytime. 😉
I’m kicking off 2017 sharing a few things I’m going to do this year. The list will most certainly grow and become much longer over the next twelve months, but these are the things I’m starting it with:
Happy 2017!
