{"id":3289,"date":"2011-07-31T17:17:10","date_gmt":"2011-07-31T21:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/?p=3289"},"modified":"2013-08-02T19:55:22","modified_gmt":"2013-08-02T23:55:22","slug":"changing-the-workflow-to-get-more-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/31\/changing-the-workflow-to-get-more-done\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing the Workflow to Get More Done"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/abbybatchelder\/3755926905\/\" title=\"IMG_6433 by abbybatchelder, on Flickr\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3535\/3755926905_2540bd2960_m.jpg?resize=160%2C240\" alt=\"IMG_6433\" width=\"160\" height=\"240\" class=\"alignright\"><\/a>If you show up somewhere with your shirt on backwards, someone usually lets you know. People realize right away that the picture is on the back, the buttons aren&rsquo;t where they belong, and the shirt just isn&rsquo;t right. A friend or kind-hearted passer-by whispers in your ear, or perhaps you catch a look at yourself in a mirror. You excuse yourself to the bathroom and turn things around.<\/p>\n<p>If only everything worked that way. Earlier this week, I was behind on my work. For months now, I&rsquo;ve been behind on my work. Every day, I do the same thing: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Find and post articles to <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/newsfromtengrrl\" title=\"@newsfromtengrrl on Twitter\" target=\"_blank\">@newsfromtengrrl<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Answer any pending email messages.<\/li>\n<li>Write the blog posts that are due.<\/li>\n<li>Set up outgoing social networking posts for <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/RWTnow\" title=\"@RWTnow on Twitter\" target=\"_blank\">@RWTnow<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/BedfordBits\" title=\"@BedfordBits on Twitter\" target=\"_blank\">@BedfordBits<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Intersperse spot checking email, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, and you have a pretty good picture of my day. <\/p>\n<p>The problem was that by the time I got through finding the articles I post to <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/newsfromtengrrl\" title=\"@newsfromtengrrl on Twitter\" target=\"_blank\">@newsfromtengrrl<\/a>, I usually have to stop and go take care of family duties. When I got back to my work later in the evening,  I felt anxious and stressed. The &ldquo;real&rdquo; work that I needed to do, the blog posts and social networking updates, only got done when I was in panic mode (and often tired). Many times, I found myself in the wee hours of morning sleepily wondering if I could just push a few things off till the next day.<\/p>\n<p>One afternoon  this week, I found my stress levels rising. I hadn&rsquo;t finished finding posts for <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/newsfromtengrrl\" title=\"@newsfromtengrrl on Twitter\" target=\"_blank\">@newsfromtengrrl<\/a>, yet I only had about 30 minutes left before I had to clean the kitchen and cook dinner. The inner dialogue started:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Why can&rsquo;t I ever get enough done? The afternoon is gone, and I still haven&rsquo;t gotten to the <em>real<\/em> work. Damn it. I never get to what I need to because of the stupid news posts.  But I <em>have<\/em> to finish the news posts before 6:45 so that the blog post goes up by midnight. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Out of some corner of my mind, a quieter, calmer voice  said, &ldquo;You could change the settings for the blog post, you know. You made this problem when you decided the post needed to go up at midnight.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&rsquo;t just a lightbulb moment. <\/p>\n<p>There were rainbows. And unicorns. And glitter.<\/p>\n<p>For nearly a year, I have been doing my work backwards, but no one had kindly leaned over and whispered in my ear until now! So a couple of days ago, I flipped my work flow. The news articles are the last thing I look for. Writing blog posts and status updates come first. I reset the WordPress plug-in so that my blog posts go up at noon instead of midnight. <\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s made all the difference. Look, here I am actually writing a blog post and the dinner fixings aren&rsquo;t even out of the refrigerator!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[Photo: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/abbybatchelder\/3755926905\/\" title=\"IMG_6433 by abbybatchelder, on Flickr\" target=\"_blank\">IMG_6433 by abbybatchelder, on Flickr<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you show up somewhere with your shirt on backwards, someone usually lets you know. People realize right away that the picture is on the back, the buttons aren&rsquo;t where they belong, and the shirt just isn&rsquo;t right. A friend or kind-hearted passer-by whispers in your ear, or perhaps you catch a look at yourself [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[317,318,136],"class_list":["post-3289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-work","tag-workflow","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqzI8-R3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3289"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17146,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289\/revisions\/17146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tengrrl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}