Before Christmas, I seemed to have time after work to check blogs, tweet, and write every night, while still acting like I lived in a family. Now, I barely get home from work and it's time to get the children ready for bed. I stay up late to edit, blog, or write and I turn into Mrs. Cranky-Pants. I have little to no patience with anything (or anyone) and, as my guilt begins to grow exponentially, my husband gently reminds me (and I quote) that "You are not the kind of person who can burn the candle at both ends." Put into Google Man Translator it means, "You need to get some sleep before I can't live with you anymore."
I am bewildered. Where did all the time go?
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| Photo courtesy of Simon Howden/Free Digital Photos.net |
On the other hand, does it matter where it went? It is obvious that this lack of time is where my life is now, and if I want to meet the goals I set for myself in January, I need to adapt.
Just this week, I came across two tidbits of advice that I am hoping will get me some time to edit every day, while still remaining a happy human instead of an exhausted, frustrated, uber-cranky writer. Since I haven't been able to get any writing done this week (including any productive brainstorming for blogging ideas) I thought I would share these tidbits with you.
The Magic of Google Reader
For the longest time I kept hearing about Google Reader, but I didn't understand the time saving applications until this week. One of my biggest frustrations with blogging has been the inability to keep all the blogs I follow in one place. I signed up for WordPress blogs by e-mail, but it takes forever for each blog to load that way. I also had to go into several different applications just to read and support my favorite bloggers.
Then, lo and behold, I learned on Rachael Harrie's blog how to use Google Reader to categorize the blogs I follow into folders such as "Campaigners", "Favorites", and "Life List Club". This saves time because I can easily identify the blogs I want to read at any given time. But, the best was yet to come.
Last night I finally figured out, through Google Reader, how to subscribe to the RSS feed of WordPress blogs. I have everyone in one place! WordPress and Blogger are nestled together in Google Reader, living in peace and harmony. So, Life List Clubbers and Nina Badzin, if you noticed that I unsubscribed the e-mail function of your blogs today, it's because I have your RSS feed coming directly to Google Reader.
The Magic of Buffer
Also last night, I read a fabulous blog post by Michael Hyatt, "How to Become a Twitter Ninja in Less than 30 Minutes a Day". In the post, he related that he uses Buffer in Google Chrome to schedule tweets and/or share blog posts that he thinks his twitter followers would enjoy. Since I use Google Chrome, I checked it out. Sure enough, using the Buffer icon, I can share web content without having to log in to Twitter, Triberr, or Hootsuite.
Are you ready for this. I can log in to Google Reader, scan or read all the blog posts I subscribe to, share them through Buffer, and support my blogging friends, all from one application that has already downloaded the blog posts so I don't have to wait for them to load individually. Doesn't that sound like heaven? It does to me.
I have been organizing today, so I can't tell you for sure that Google Reader and Buffer will deliver on what it appears to be promising, but I'm hopeful. I'll give it a week or so, and then let you know what I think. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
Do you have any technology or applications that save you a ton of time? Please, please, do share!
