Writing Job Update

I have officially been doing my new writing job for just over a month now, and it's finally starting to come under control. (For blogging purposes, I've created the tag "WFHW" to stand for Work From Home Writing and to use when referencing this job in the future.)

The first couple weeks were really rough. The style of writing is extremely different than what I did when grant writing, and I honestly didn't find the on-boarding materials I was given all that helpful. They were professionally done, but obviously by people who didn't realize just how much information they had in their heads that they were taking for granted that wouldn't be obvious to other people who were trained/experienced in different standard practices. As such, in addition to needing to work out a new schedule to balance both my jobs and everything else that has to get done as just part of daily life, I also found myself redoing pieces I'd written when they sent them back with new information about formatting or other requirements. (Which was crazy annoying, given that I really wanted to do things well and efficiently, and would have the first time around if I'd had all the info I needed! I may or may not have spit out half my lexicon of sci-fi swear words in consistent torrents for a couple weeks straight.) As a result, it took me three weeks to get to the point where everything was both done and done right by the deadline provided. (Just a little bit of stress, there....)

I have finally (*fingers crossed*) reached the point where I'm hitting my stride. I'm down to four days a week at my other job (off on Mondays), which gives me enough time to get all of my writing done and sleep more than three hours a night, which is amazing. (And healthy.) I've made checklists for myself that incorporate all the initial instructions and additional feedback I've gotten, which is going a vastly long way toward making sure everything is right the first time, now. I've also dialed in my back-of-house systems in terms of tracking where I am on assignments during the week, keeping my digital files organized, and logging my work turned in for accounting purposes. Now that I'm not eternally frustrated with my writing supervisor for sending things back to me to be redone over things I never had reason to know were outside their specs, I find him a pleasant human being and am happy to see his emails in my inbox. It's a little discouraging to have to dump so much of my monthly writing paychecks in a "taxes" account (because we're going to get raked over the coals again next year, too), but all things considered I'm delighted and relieved to be where I am on this front right now.

I love putting fewer miles on my truck every week. I love being home with my babies (and sometimes My Prince) one extra day a week. I love the peace of mind that comes with knowing I'm no longer losing my writing credentials by not using them. I love the relief of knowing that I can afford to take days off later in the year to travel because I'll still have enough income, and the confidence that if opportunities knock it won't be my job situation keeping us from jumping on them.

Serendipitously, I received a fantastic standing desk as part one of the review programs I participate in, so I've got my own little writing command-and-control center happening where everything is organized. As a bonus, it's near a window, so I get sunlight (when there's any to be had, of course) and when it's nice out I'll get fresh air! My Prince has been amazing - adaptive, supportive, and forgiving when the learning curve ate me alive and I wasn't much company. There are still details to be worked through and I'm sure more bumps in the road as seasons change and other aspects of our schedules with them, but for now I'm pleased to report that I've found a good place with the WFHW and the whole thing is finally doing really good things for my mental, emotional and physical health!

100 Days of Productivity Update & Reboot

One of my 100 DoP bullet journal pages.

One of my priorities for this weekend was to get a handle on my 100 Days of Productivity Project and make some decisions. Until the middle of January or so, I'd been doing a really good job of being consistent with it and not too badly with tracking it (as you can see from one of the admittedly sloppy pages out of my bullet journal at right).

But here's the thing: it worked. 

As in, way-surpassed-my-expectations kind of worked. I got my new nutrition blog live and landed the writing job I so desperately wanted, both before I'd reached the halfway mark of the project!

Then said writing job took over my life.

Progress tracking got muddy and haphazard at that point. Did I give myself credit for writing for my writing job because, technically, making it through the learning curve was part of keeping the job and therefore fell under the auspices of the project? Did I give myself permission to give up on tracking for a while because surviving the learning curve was an all-consuming goal? Should I end the project, because technically the original goals had been met? Should I replace it with a different one (because I've totally got some other areas of life I'd like to see the same progress in!!!)?

After due consideration, I've decided the best way to go is a "reboot". I effectively stopped tracking my progress at Day 44 because I'd reached the point where the only thing I was accomplishing was writing more for work. The Palimpsest blog essentially hasn't been touched since I launched it, and I've been stressing over it because there have been a bunch of times lately people have asked me for things and all I could think about was that (happy as I am to share knowledge and resources) it was a huge waste of time, energy and effort to be getting things pulled together and handed out individually instead of taking extra time to just do it right and get it up on the blog so that every time people ask me in the future for that same information I can just point them to the post and not be redoing the same work. I've also been very aware that, in theory, now that I've finally reached a bit of a stabilizing point with the writing (more on that in another post), if I can get caught up on the blog then I should be able to pretty feasbibly keep up going forward.

Ergo, a reboot. Starting today, I'm finishing out the remaining 56 days in my original 100 DoP project with the focus solely on the Palimpsest blog. New goals:

• Write, format and post back-dated blogs (one per week) from the starter post that's up there until I'm up to date.
• Copy out any content I want from the Nutritional Mischief blog and formally shut it down. 
• Refine all of the behind-the-scenes spreadsheets I'm using to organize the blog to set myself up for success going forward. 
• Figure out which kind of blogging calendar set up works best for me, and get it implemented.
• Get a handful of posts rough drafted to front-load myself to stay on track as I continue to refine my new schedule/time management.

If I follow through, I should start April in a really good place!

I've also decided that I really love this project format, which is something I definitely didn't expect. (I'm already planning my next 100 DoP project!) I strongly recommend giving it a try if you have any giant, overwhelming or lingering projects hanging over your head.

Finally, in light of my new goals, I am extra interested in suggestions of things that people want to see show up on the blog, what food-related frustrations you're grappling with, etc. It might take me a while to feature them, but I've got a nice, organized master list going and I'd love to have them for reference!

Progress!

Just a quick note to say I'm celebrating tonight (mentally, mostly... it's a 'school night' and much too late to be drinking for real) because I wrote 10,848 words for work in the last 6 days. And, more importantly, for the first time since I started this job, I didn't sneak everything in under the deadline... it's all turned in the day before it was due and I haven't had any of it sent back to me for revisions yet!

That probably doesn't sound like much, but the learning curve has been steep and it's a lot to celebrate from where I'm sitting.

Hopefully it means I've turned a corner and will actually be in a position to do a better job of navigating and balancing time in the next couple weeks. I'd really like to get some posts written and up here bragging on how amazing My Prince has been while I've been slogging through word counts. The amount of things he's gotten done (and how amazing it all looks!) is jaw-dropping. So, hopefully soon... in the meantime, celebrating! 

That Word... I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Buckets of Apples. A form of fruit... which contains carbs.

At some point, you are going to see a post (or a series of posts) on the Palimpsest blog about carbs. This (entirely true, non-embellished) story of an encounter I had at work yesterday exemplifies the reason why. Just so you know.

Background: we had had a crazy morning at work, full of drama. It was just shy of lunch time and I'd about maxed out my 'peopling' quota for the day. This lady came in with her son. She was wearing giant, dark sunglasses, which she made no attempt to remove, even though she clearly couldn't see anything with them on inside because she kept angling her head in weird directions to look over and around them. I took the son's order, and then politely asked what I can get for the lady. The conversation followed like this:

Customer: Do you have those yogurt parfaits?

[Editorial note: parfaits contain greek yogurt, honey, granola, strawberries and blueberries.] 

Me: Just the one right here. [In the ice bin on the counter, which she'd have been able to see if she took off her glasses.]

Customer: Oh, I can wait while you make more.

Me: I'm sorry, that's not something we can do right now. We have none of the product prepped and no one available to do it. Can I get you something else?

Customer: Oh, you're sure you can't make any?

Me: No, I'm sorry, we really can't. We have this one, but we just can't get any others made right now.

[Editoral note: I wasn't lying. We had no prep people available, both managers were up to their eyeballs in other things, I was the only one in bakery, and there really wasn't anything even slightly prepped.]

Customer: Well, do you have anything else with fruit in it?

Me: Sure, we have these fruit cups [right in the ice bin next to the parfait, which, as mentioned above, she apparently couldn't see], or steel cut oatmeal with fruit in it.

[We talk about the oatmeal options and she decides to go with the one containing strawberries. I ring her out, she walks away. Two minutes later, as they're finishing up her order and I'm trying to stock, she reappears.]

Me: Did we forget something?

Customer: Is it too late to cancel that oatmeal? I'd rather have the fruit cup instead.

Me: Sure. No problem. Here's the fruit cup, let me grab you some silverware. [Tells the line to nix the already-made oatmeal and gets the customer squared away.]

Customer: Thanks. I just really wanted something with no carbs, you know?

Me: Nods. Smiles. Valiantly avoids screaming, weeping, and shaking anyone.

NO CARBS...!!!

Because clearly the granola-and-honey-containing parfait had no carbs (47g, plus 33g of sugar!). Nor did the fruit cup (17g plus 12g of sugar).

And fruit, the one component she focused on all along, as a rule contains almost no protein or fat... which means by default is has to be almost entirely carbs/sugar and water!!

I seriously spent the rest of the shift scratching my head, trying to figure out where she could have gotten the idea that she needed to not eat carbs... but also somehow managed to come away with absolutely no comprehension at all what carbs are, or what kinds of foods they're in. 

Some days, I don't even know, you guys...

100 Days of Productivity Update and Blog Launch!!

Way back in November I mentioned the idea of doing a 100 Days of Productivity experiment. Although it took longer than I'd hoped to settle on my plan for the project, I did eventually get started – I'm now 41 days in! Since I've had a couple people ask, here's what it has ended up looking like so far:

1. A Two Pronged Goal
   
   As denoted in a recent post, the first half of the goal was to get a part-time telecommute writing job. The second half was to launch a sustainably structured nutrition/healthy lifestyle blog to replace the long-lapsed Nutritional Mischief site. Together, I determined, these should:
   (a) Establish a flexible, scalable, and portable income stream to improve financial opportunities now and allow for a smooth transition later;
   (b) Resolve the problem of not having content that is legally mine to share with potential employers;
   (c) Document ongoing engagement/competency in the writing and nutrition sectors, demonstrating that my skills/credentials remain current, and keeping the line on future employment opportunities in both areas open; and
   (d) In the case of the nutrition blog, establish a constructive outlet for my nutrition geekery, which is good for my soul.
   
   
2. Simple Structure
   
   Given that there were at lot of variables and some erratic scheduling over the chosen 100 Days, I decided to make things as simple as possible. Anything that got me functionally closer to achieving my stated goals counted, regardless of the time commitment or complexity. Thus, on days when time/energy were at a premium, my 'one thing' was sometimes stupidly simple: searching for/downloading a checklist, reviewing and deleting or properly filling a previously-bookmarked resource I'd thought might help, or searching the job sites and bookmarking anything new that seemed fit to apply for. When I had more time/energy, I tackled bigger things: completing job applications, slogging my way through website formatting challenges, or writing (another) legally acceptable disclaimer. Admittedly, some days it didn't feel like I'd achieved much, but it was amazing at the end of every week to see just how much progress I'd actually made!
   
   (Confession in case anyone else tries this: I also gave myself some grace. If there was a day where I simply couldn't get anything done, I just made it up later and still gave myself credit rather than consider the whole thing blown. So far it's worked out great and kept things positive and effective!)
   
   
3. Learning From Previous Mistakes (aka Start At The Beginning, But Scale Back)
   
   I did a lot of reflecting through this process and realized that one of the reasons Nutritional Mischief failed was that I tried to do too much (often with too fuzzy an idea of the proper scope of things) and got overwhelmed. I also didn't front-load myself with the right systems, so the more content I made the more I felt like I was digging myself into a hole, which only made the anxiety worse and just created a big, nasty feedback loop. I learned from my mistakes: this time, I chose to establish my nutrition blog as only a blog, without any other business components. I also (thanks to this project) gave myself ample time at the get-go to deal with boring, stressful legal crap like proper disclaimers, figuring out the actual Official Rules for things like using images and linking to other people's material, and constructing behind-the-scenes spreadsheets to manage my content and prevent those scattered and digging-a-hole feelings.
   
4. Progress!
   After posting about how I'd gotten a writing job, I heard back from two more places I'd applied. I'm still working through the on-boarding process with the first job, and examining the next steps in the application process for the other two, but I'm hopeful that by the start of February (once they've all gotten back to me again, etc.) I'll have that end of things sorted out and functionally up and running!
   
   The other half of the project, I am delighted to announce, is also finally coming to fruition! 
   
   
   My new site Palimpsest Living is now live!! 
   
   
    Current plan is to post once a week. It's not a lot but, given the new priorities, quality and consistency are FAR more important than quantity. It's also an extremely sustainable posting plan, which is a big deal right now, too.
   
   
5. Going Forward
   
   Crazy as it seems, I'm not quite halfway through this experiment so there's plenty still to come! I expect a bunch of my remaining days will be eaten up by sorting out the new job stuff, but I'm also planning to dedicate time to getting a bunch of drafts written for PL, to prime the pump for the weekly posting schedule. Establishing new habits, tracking systems, etc. to manage the new workload and the chances it makes to how other things run will also play in there somewhere. In the meantime, I'm delighted to have more than I'd expected to show for my experiment at this point and so excited to have PL finally launched!!
   
   As a final note, I am taking 'requests' and suggestions for PL! If there's anything you'd like to see show up on there topic-wise, weird questions or comments you've heard from friends/coworkers, or common misconceptions that drive you nuts, please feel free to send them to me! I'll add them to my 'maybe write about this' list! (I've already got some doozies from work to get me started!!)

Celebrate With Me?

It's not a secret that our long term goal is to leave New York State. (Isn't everyone's, honestly?) Nor have we been anything less than bubbly about our Errant Venturing.

One of the first things that always, always comes to mind when we talk about long term plans and opportunities is how not portable my job is. Although I can usually get days off without too much trouble, I don't have sick time, vacation time, or anything else - all days off are unpaid. Moreover, while I could technically put in for a transfer to a different cafe when we're someday ready to move, there is no guarantee wherever we go next will even have one, let alone have a good one that needs someone in the hours I'd be available to work.

I have plenty of credentials and experience to do other - far more flexible and portable - things. But, as I've been increasingly aware the last few months, the longer I go without some kind of current employent in those fields, the less up-to-date and reliable my skills look to potential employers. To make matters worse, about 95% of what I did in the grant writing field was proprietary, which means I barely have any work that I'm allowed to show potential employers to prove what I can do! 

Anyway, to make a long story short, I set myself up with a two-pronged plan to correct that situation - the sooner the better. (More on the first prong in another post to come soon!) To make good on the second part of the plan, I've been doing the stressful and unpleasant work of job hunting for a while now, trying to find a (very) part-time, fully remote/telecommute writing-related position I can do (in addition to my full-time job) between now and when we eventually leave NY to serve as a bridge between where I am and wherever we go/whatever we do next.

AND I FINALLY GOT HIRED!

Only time will tell if it works out or if I end up going back to the drawing board but, for the moment, I am enormously relieved. It feels SO good to know that I'm not just wishing and dreaming but actually doing something to set us up for success in the areas and plans we hold near to our hearts.