The Bullet List {Rachel From One Pretty Thing}

I have always believed that people become successful not only because of the hard work they put into something, but also from the way they treat people along the way.  I love it when I come across someone who confirms that thought.  Enter Rachel, she’s super nice, have you met?  Maybe One Pretty Thing, the place to see and be seen?  It is a daily for me, but as I sat to do my bullet list research I found I still had a lot to learn about it.

I always like to visit a blogs first post, have you ever done that?  It is a great way to get to know someone.  The post they wrote before they knew how far their little spot on the web would take them.  The thing I find most interesting with One Pretty Thing is that Rachel must have had a very certain vision of how she would like things to be.  Enthusiastically she introduces herself and her love of crafts, invites people to share their Diy goodness and become a part of her community.  She has never strayed from that vision.

A few things I learned in my research: Have you visited her Crafty Business Resources page?  Um….to say I got lost in all those links for a wee bit too long would be a huge understatement.  And I always knew she had a Handmade Gift Guide, but had never visited – which is crazy because it is awesome!  All sorts of good stuff in one place, neatly organized.

The must read post?  Well you already know I have a hard time picking just one, so I picked this page, it is like a blog/business conference with so much to learn for free!

Now onto her list, I LOVE it!  It is so fun to see the behind the scenes of a successful blogger.  It makes you appreciate all the time and hard work someone puts in to them.

Rachel Klein

Last Thursday night I was reviewing my to-do list when I came across the task, “Choose topic for Bullet List guest post.” “Twenty bullet points to do with as you wish,” Destri had said. AS I WISHED! So many possibilities… What to write about? My crafts? My cat?  Twenty Ways to Eat Asparagus, the World’s Most Perfect Food? I was contemplating the possibilities when my husband walked in and reported that he’d spent 1.5 hours, or 10.66 percent of his Thursday preparing meals. Yup, my husband is a time tracker. All of his time, and all of his activities are tracked and organized into neat little graphs and tables to be analyzed later. If there is one bit of wisdom I can offer the next generation, it is to think long and hard before marrying a programmer. Unless you like knowing exactly how much quality time your significant other has spent with you or how many pounds of cat litter you used in 2009. If that’s the case, marry on. I rolled my eyes and went back to brainstorming when I realized it might be fun to share some of the numbers behind One Pretty Thing. Maybe not in the super anal (love you sweetie!) 21% of my time was spent on email way, but in a behind the scenes sort of way. So I give you:

One Pretty Thing: Friday May 28th, A Story in Numbers

• 6:45 I wake up to the boys from U2 singing Elevation on my iPhone. I lay in bed with my cat Lil B’ and we rock out until I remember that we’re having potato and asparagus scramble for breakfast. I can’t get out of bed fast enough.

• Even though I have my outfit set out from the night before I change my sweater once and my shoes twice. I glare at Lil B’ and tell her not to judge me. After all she spends up to an hour a day grooming herself.

• I sit down at my computer and dive into a marathon One Pretty Thing work session. I end up putting twelve hours into the site over the course of Friday. In twelve hours I publish two Roundups, schedule four more, answer 38 emails, go through over 1,000 blog posts and get five more questions answered for my upcoming faq. Phew.

• When I work on the site I set my Apimac Timer for 50 minutes. I work for 50 minutes, then spend ten minutes of every hour doing anything that gets me moving.

• Those ten minute time increments add up to four loads of laundry, ten loads of dishes and 3.5 hours of house cleaning every week. Those ten minute blocks also help me cross tons of small items off my to-do list every day.

• During Friday’s ten minute blocks I wrote out a birthday card, brought in the mail, RSVP’ed for a BBQ, cleaned the catbox and called a friend to schedule breakfast on Saturday. The ten minute system? Totally awesome.

• Around 1pm I spent 28 minutes walking down the street to the bakery where I forked over $4.78 for a 20 oz. cup of black coffee and a 893,784 calorie blueberry scone. Totally worth it. I had every intention of saving half for my husband but ended up giving a good portion of his half to the dog. Who was the very best doggie at the coffee shop? Was it you? Good girl!

• Over the course of the day and night I drink two more cups of coffee, refill my french press with green tea twice, swallow 745 floating cat hairs and leech 474 mL of calcium from my bones. Again, totally worth it. Medium roast black coffee makes my world go ’round.

• Around 3pm my husband decides to make us a late lunch and asks me what I would like. I choose eight different types of vegetables over cous-cous. We had onion, garlic, broccoli, red cabbage, bok choy, spinach, celery and carrots. YUM!

• While I eat lunch I spend 20 minutes researching a zero-tension mouse. My wrists and arms have been bothering me lately and buying a new mouse and keyboard are at the top of my list. I spend a few more minutes mourning the upcoming loss of my beautiful Apple keyboard and mouse. The peripherals I will be replacing them with won’t be winning any atheistic awards that’s for sure.

• At 4pm I double check that the Daily DIY went up on schedule. I marvel at the creativity in those sixteen projects and get super excited to put in some craft time in the coming week. Total number of projects I added to my personal crafty to-do list today? Three.

• I knit for approximately fifteen minutes while I brainstormed ways to integrate the About page, Contact page and faq. I ended up adding two rows to my hat with size 10 needles.

• At 7pm we meet my inlaws for dinner. They are fifteen minutes late, during which time I use my phone to answer three emails under the table.

• After dinner I spend two more hours working on the site. At the end of the night I check my stats and find out 13,533 people visited. Not too bad going into a holiday weekend.

• I glance at the document I used to track my day and realized I checked Twitter nine times. Whoops. I vow to check it less in the coming week.

• We turn in at 2am after realizing our over-scheduled three day weekend would be starting in seven short hours. Yikes! I relax a bit when I remember that part of Saturday’s plans involve a nap.

• Two people, two cats, and one dog pile into bed. That is four legs, twelve paws and three tails fighting for space over the course of seven chaotic hours. Just as we get settled, my phone vibrates. Incoming One Pretty Thing email. I switch off the wireless and make an attempt to switch off my brain.

Phew! What a Friday!

Yay!!  I am not the only one who uses a timer…more about that tomorrow!  I also love Rachel’s idea of the 10 minutes every hour to work on something throughout her work day.  I love the challenge of seeing how much I can get done in a short time frame.  What about you, do you have a system you use?