Sunny Saturday & Figuring it out as I go!

I still have a ways to go in figuring out stuff. Yesterday I learned that I actually have one subscriber to my blog on my website. (I saw this accidentally and not sure how to ever get back to that part of my website to see that again lol). Today I learned that EVERY time I write a blog post on my site, my website automatically emails it out to my blog subscribers! I had no idea and learned this from getting a notification on my phone this morning that it was mailed out. I cringed because yesterday I just quickly wrote a useless post just because I was trying to figure out how my blog worked. I’d had a first post I’d made that was pretty good (in my opinion, as bad as I am at blogging) and that was written late December. So, yesterday I was trying to figure out why on my blog homepage it was only showing that one post when I’d written a second one. I was testing it out to find out why that blog section of my website is so weird and not user friendly at all. So as a test I quickly wrote a post about when to use “whom” and when to use “who”.

I struggled for a while to figure out why it wasn’t showing up on the blog home page and then finally sorted it out and switched the category of the post from “writing tips” to “Behind The Scenes” and lo and behold, there it was. Now I’m wondering if there are actually TWO separate blogs on my website. There is a sidebar showing categories but when I’d added the other category and post, it didn’t show up. I’ll figure it out.

Over the years I’ve normally just slapped together simple drag-and-drop websites like Weebly and last year through Google. This is the very first website I’ve made that is so robust and complicated. It does everything include collect sign up emails and apparently automatically sends my blogs to them. I’m not sure if it is just sending the blog posts to those that specifically signed up for the blog, or if it goes to anyone who signs up. I’m going to have to do more experiments and sign up with my email to see what I get and when.

Meanwhile, it’s a bright sunny morning here with -9 degrees Celsius. I am so happy I get to work from a home office and I don’t have to go out in the cold. When I’m ready to hire, I will only hire remote workers who will have the freedom to work from home and manage their own work schedule. This way employees will be giving their best work during their most productive time of day. The last thing I want is to have a half-awake employee showing up before they’re awake and only giving a minimal effort at work. If an editor sleeps in until 10 a.m. and is ready to do their best work at noon, that’s great. The key thing is that the work gets done. I don’t care if they do it in the middle of the night, afternoon, or evening, as long as it gets done.

Having worked from home myself for the past 27 years for two different companies before being self-employed, I completely understand the work from home lifestyle. In the first job I had, doing news monitoring, I had strict deadlines so had to be up early in the morning. I rarely missed a deadline and never without good reason (like a power outage, etc). I did that job for 13 years and towards the end instead of saying “I have to do the news now”, it became “I have to do the stupid news now.” I was always grateful that I got to work from home but the news was often disturbing and with my overactive imagination I could see and feel what the horrible news stories were.

After a brief stint at a call center (3 months–NOT for me!) and then an 8-month break of only writing novels, I got a job at a publishing company. I got to work remotely and work my own hours. I was able to not get fired if I overslept. I would work from 8 a.m until noon, take a two or three hour lunch break and go for a walk, go out for lunch with my husband, etc, and then work from 4 pm until 8 pm. I loved this workday because I was highly productive in the morning, the nice long lunch break was like a daily vacation (which I called a Daycation) and then I would finish the day with a sizeable evening ahead of me.

So, I know from first-hand experience how much easier it is for an employee to give a full day’s work when they have the freedom to actually live their life at the same time.

I’m excited about my work for Monday. It’s amazing how when I’m working for myself, and building this company, I’m excited for Mondays. When I’ve worked at other jobs, I spent Sunday dreading Monday.

I love my life! Carpe Diem!