Penelope Loves Lists: In Time Management from the Inside Out, you talk a lot about different calendaring system options. What is YOUR method? What tools do you use for calendaring yourself?

Julie Morgenstern: For my calendaring method, I use a Time Map, which is a tool that I have been teaching my clients for years. A Time Map eliminates your need to multi-task, and puts you back in control of your days. It helps you to become proactive amid the swirl of demands that come your way. Simply put, a Time Map is a budget of your day, week, or month that carves out distinct times for each of the key departments of your life. Instead of feeling that you have to act on every request the minute it crosses your path, your Time Map guides you, helping you determine whether you have time to handle an unexpected task, how much time you will devote to it and when you will do it. When you don’t have a Time Map, you have no idea what to do when. Every day is a total free-for-all. You just say yes to whatever screams loudest, with no perspective on how to prioritize incoming requests, and when you should be doing things. Of course, this is what leads to multi-tasking…just doing things as they come at you.

A Time Map provides structure to your day — carving out regular time for what is most essential to you. Rest assured that a Time Map can be adapted to your personal style, whether you thrive on routine or variety, whether you have complete or only partial control over your day. Built around your own custom set of priorities and personal style, your Time Map reflects who you are and what is important to you.

PLL: What are your “hot spots”? What are the physical places or work issues you struggle to keep organized? How do you handle them?

JM: I would say that like everyone, my systems become challenged when my company grows.  With each new service offering we develop, or for each division we add, my roles and responsibilities change, the information I need to track changes, and for a period of time, while in transition, my files, desk and even my schedule can become messy.  Until you know exactly what your new role is, and the information you need to manage a new aspect of your business, it’s hard to create a system.  So, with growth come periods where things are less buttoned down than I prefer to be.  But, those periods pass, and then a new system is born.

Julie doing some organizing

PLL: In what form (online, notebook, etc.) do you keep your daily To Do list?

JM: I view my to-do list as an extension of myself, so it is very important that I have chosen the right system. I prefer a paper planner. These work best for “visual/tactile” people (i.e. those who find physically writing things out pen to paper helps them think and remember more clearly).  Entering information into a paper planner is more instant than booting up an electronic device. Portability is essential for women on the go. Sometimes our work requires us to keep our schedules on the computer. If this is the case, combine these systems by printing out a planner sized version of your calendar each day, recording changes on the printout while out of the office.  Update your computer schedule first thing each morning.

Having a single, reliable to-do system puts me in command of my days by providing a complete picture of everything I need to do.  Prioritization is easier when I have full context.  And I am more confident staying focused on the moment, when everything is present and accounted for.

PLL: What’s your favorite organization tool?

JM: I use a tool that I designed called the “Julie Morgenstern Balanced Life Planner” to keep me on track and balance my time between writing, speaking, running a business, being a mom, spending time with friends, and still dedicating some time just for me.  This system gives helps me plan my days realistically so I feel excited, rather than overwhelmed, when I wake up. With this planner, I stay on track, create days that are meaningful, and connect my daily activities to my big picture goals.

Throughout my 20 years as a time management coach, I’ve found that there are certain key skills that make the difference between a day that feels in balance vs. out of balance.  And those are the skills I teach my clients in one on one sessions to create meaningful and fulfilling days.  In partnership with Franklin Covey, I wanted to design a planner that brought the coaching I do with my clients directly to you. The “Julie Morgenstern Balanced Life Planner” teaches you the 5 Gateway skills to staying in balance:

• Skill # 1-Time Estimating
• Skill # 2- The 4 D’s to streamline your to-do list
• Skill # 3-Group Similar Tasks
• Skill # 4- Creating a Time Map
• Skill # 5- Controlling the Nibblers

PLL: What does a typical Tuesday (or any weekday) schedule look like for you?

JM: On my Time Map, a typical day of the week is divided by distinct blocks of time. These blocks represent the key departments of work and my life. My schedule will generally look like this:

8:00 am – 9:00 am: Wake up, exercise, meditate, eat breakfast, feed my cats

9:00 am – 12:00 pm: Writing and creative time

12:00 pm – 2:00 pm: Touch base with staff and do media interviews

2:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Client Meetings

5:00 pm – 7:00 pm: Wrap-up and handle day’s requests

7:00 pm – 11:00 pm: Dinners out (business and leisure)

PLL: Are you working on something new? Can you give us a hint?

JM: I am working on some great new products that will help you stay organized. Stay tuned!

While we wait for Julie’s new products, let’s spend our time reading her latest book, SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life: A Four-Step Guide to Getting Unstuck. I loved this book. It walks you through practical ways to break through whatever is keeping you from meeting your goals, whether it’s organization challenges or mental barriers.

I’m excited that Julie’s given me a copy of SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life to GIVEAWAY to one of you. To qualify to be the randomly selected winner, tell me in the comments what it was that you liked about or learned from meeting Julie over the past week.

Deadline to enter is Friday, 9/10/10 at 9am PST.

Related posts:

1. An Interview with Organizing Guru Julie Morgenstern: Part 1 – Up Close and Personal
2. How This Blogger Stays Organized: Meet Benita from Chez Larsson
3. How This Blogger Stays Organized: meet Jules from Pancakes & French Fries

If you asked me the one person I’d most like to meet, you might expect me to say something like Oprah or President Obama. And, surely, meeting either of those people would be life-changingly awesome.

But, for my little Penelope self, my answer would be organizing guru and bestselling author Julie Morgenstern. I love her style and every one of her books. She inspires me to be my most effective both at work and at home. In fact, I’ve written about my favorite of her books here. It’s literally one of my “Books to Live By”.

So imagine my excitement when Julie said she’d be willing to answer some questions for us. She was so forthcoming that I decided to split her answers into 2 posts. We’ll be in Julie Heaven this week, Penelopes.

In today’s post, we got to know her a little more personally, which is a huge treat for a fan like me. The next post will give us some insight into how she keeps herself organized, including the tools she uses on a daily basis. Oh, and we’ll also be doing a GIVEAWAY of her new book. Look for that post next Monday.

Here’s what she shared:

Julie Morgenstern

Penelope Loves Lists: Were you neat and tidy as a kid or teenager? What did your room look like at 16?

Julie Morgenstern: I grew up as an exceedingly disorganized kid.  My room was so messy, one friend recently told me she used to be afraid to visit me, because every time she did, she’d end up losing something in the chaos.

As a theater person and dancer, I collected everything, from costumes, props and vintage cooking utensils to old class notes, souvenir restaurant menus, and playbills. These were my treasures. But I could never find anything.

There wasn’t a day that you could see even a square inch of the floor. It was a nice floor, too — Congoleum, a jazzy turquoise and blue design I had begged my parents for and which they bought me in the hope that it would inspire me to keep my room neat and navigable. No such luck. Within a day of being installed, the Congoleum was covered in rubble, rarely to be seen again.

Every six months or so, my parents would “hit the roof,” and banish me to my fourth floor “jungle” for the weekend with a direct order not to come out until it was cleaned up.

Truth is, I wanted to be organized because it was almost as frustrating to me to have my room in such turmoil as it was for them to see it that way. I’d begin by dumping out all the drawers and emptying all the closets in an effort to decide what “junk” I could get rid of. In the course of sorting through this stuff, I would rediscover lost treasures I hadn’t set eyes on since the last time I’d attempted to get my room in shape. “Wow, this reminds me of that trip I took” or “Gee, I could really use this someday,” became constant refrains, slowing the clean-up process to a crawl.

The clock was ticking. Sunday night was fast approaching. Soon there would be a knock on the door. My parents ready for the grand unveiling! I would look around my room and realize that it actually looked WORSE than when I started. In a panic, I’d quickly gather stuff from every direction and shove it into drawers, closets, and under the bed with no rhyme or reason.

The knock arrived; my parents came in, saw the Congoleum, and applauded me for my efforts. The room was perfect. But I knew better. Sure enough, by the next day, the Congoleum would start to disappear again as the piles returned. I’d have spent sixteen hours of determined activity with no visible payoff for my efforts whatsoever; another marathon organizing session down the tubes! In six months I would be at it again.

PLL: How do your naturally organized or “Penelope” tendencies inform your role as “Mom”?

JM: Being a mom and an organizational expert, I have always known that it is important to avoid insulting and judging your child when it comes to organization. I feel great that I never told my daughter Jessi that she was disorganized…no matter how messy her room got (and it got messy!).  I always focused on where she was organized.   Within the piles, there were systems…her dance things, friends phone numbers and stuffed animals were always well organized.  And I just told her that when the other things started to be as important to her, she would organize those as well.  And she did!  Starting in junior high school, she began to organize her homework and school papers, then it was her clothes, and today she has a system for just about everything.

Every teenager and child is organized someplace, somewhere, in some way. I feel that one of the most important motherly jobs is to help them change their “hopelessly disorganized” self-image.  Eliminate phrases like “You’re such a slob” and “Your room is a pigsty!” Instead, concentrate on the positive — maybe your kid’s room is mess, but they always turn in their homework on time.  Maybe they have papers piled everywhere, but their photo albums and scrapbooks are in enviable order.  Recognize the ways in which your child is organized, and let them know you are confident in their ability to apply those skills to other areas of their life as well.

Julie working with one of her clients

PLL: What’s your best advice for maintaining work/life balance?

JM: People often make the mistake of dividing their lives into just two parts—work and home. That’s misleading—there are multiple elements to your life outside work, and it’s important to balance your time between all of them.

“Balancing your balance” is the real secret to being in control. You need to balance three categories of your personal life to give yourself true energy:

Physical Activity

Taking care of our bodies through sleep, exercise, a healthy diet, and regular medical check-ups provides the physical well of energy we draw upon to accomplish everything we need to do. Yet, this is often the first thing to go, when we are stressed.

Escapes

Hobbies and activities that instantly transport us to a place of joy provide one of the most efficient ways to recharge our batteries.  Reading, dancing, gardening, golf, playing Frisbee with your dog, or sauntering through a museum can get you quickly out of your head and into another world— renewing your spirit, and giving you the opportunity to come back to work with a new perspective.

People

When overwhelmed with work and stress, it’s very easy to take our relationships for granted or get disconnected. Keeping our relationships strong feeds our spirits, grounds us, enforces our identities and brings out our best selves, which is all very important in a time of transition, in which we can feel lost.  Spending time with the people who know and love you can remind you who you are, and give you renewed confidence for tackling your greatest challenges.

Together, these three categories form the acronym PEP, which is exactly what they will give you.

PLL: What’s the best book you’ve read lately? Or, your favorite book of all time?

JM: When I was trying to write my first book, I had the worst writer’s block.  Here I had a book contract and a deadline, and spent three months writing and rewriting the first three chapters. At this pace I would not have finished the book in time. A dear friend recommended Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, which is the most influential book I’ve read for my business.  Her wisdom cut right through my paralysis, and unleashed my voice.  I got the next 12 chapters done in the following three months, and my book went on to become a New York Times bestseller.  Five books later, I still draw upon the lessons I learned in Bird by Bird.

Again, The next post will give us some insight into how Julie keeps herself organized, including the tools she uses on a daily basis. We’ll also be doing a GIVEAWAY of her new book. Click here for Part 2 of my interview with Julie Morgenstern.

Related posts:

1. An Interview with Julie Morgenstern: Part 2 – How Julie Stays Organized – plus a GIVEAWAY
2. Interview with a blogger: meet Jessica from Lavender & Lilies
3. When Eight is not Enough…

I happened upon the Post-It Flag Pen/Highlighters during one of my “shopping for the kids’ school supplies” trips to Office Depot.  (Any excuse to fawn over office supplies, right?)

I love these little guys! As the name so aptly suggests, they are a pen, that’s also a highlighter that also includes Post-It flags on the cap.

And the cheerful, slightly 80’s design makes me giggle.

Post-It Flag Pen/Highlighters

My favorite uses for these All-in-One Wonders:

1) My day job is in publishing, so when we’re in “proofing mode” these pens are life-savers. Being able to quickly jot a note, highlight a line of text and flag that page for our editor is such an efficient, time-saving way to work.

2) For Penelope Loves Lists, I’m often reading books that I want to review later for the blog. I can make sure not to miss any unmissable nuggets with this tool.

No question that we ALL can find uses for this kind of pen, right?

Three cheers for the 3M company! They’ve brought us so many useful things – Post-Its, Scotch Tape, I could go on. Don’t you just bet 90% of their workforce is full-fledged Penelope?

Related posts:

1. A Tool for the Penelope on the Go: Cascading File Tote
2. Penelope Product Review: two simply smart office products
3. Who is Penelope and Why Does She Love Lists?

Did anyone see this little goodie in the August issue of O Magazine?

Turns out, simply switching your default font will save you money in printer ink.

Using Century Gothic instead of Arial, for example, will save you up to 30% in ink cartridges over time. This makes good sense if you notice the thickness of the letters in Arial vs Century Gothic.

Given that I think that printer cartridges are one of the most annoying necessities of the modern world, I love this money-saving tip.

I was further heartened by the news that my signature font, Calibri, is also a money saver. Score!

By the way, it’s normal to have a signature font, right?

Related posts:

1. I Heart TextExpander: or, tools that allow me to hide my laziness
2. I love a tool that does it all
3. Interview with a blogger: meet Jessica from Lavender & Lilies

I hate doing simple things wrong. Even occasionally. And, given that 90% of my work life is spent in my email application, that’s a place where I really despise making dumb mistakes. Here’s how I minimize two of the most common (and embarrassing) errors I make in email.

“Doh!” Moment Tip #1: Stop forgetting to attach your attachments:

When I’m writing the body of the email, as soon as I type the word “attach” or mention the document at all, I stop typing and attach it right then. Mid-sentence.

Then, after attaching the document, I go back and finish writing the email. This has cut down my attachment forgetfulness by more than 50%. It’s simple yet effective.

“Doh!” Moment Tip #2: Stop hitting the dreaded “reply all” button:

I moved my “reply all” button to an inconvenient place on my toolbar by customizing my menu in my email application. I’ve kept the “reply” button easily accessible on the left side, but I place my “reply all” all the way to the right. Over in No Man’s Land. I really have to want to “reply all” now.

Not only does this keep me from looking like an idiot, it also keeps me from littering the inboxes of people who don’t really need to read my reply.

Here’s how to do this:

In Apple’s Mail application: click on the gray toolbar on the top of your screen and then right-click. Pull down to “Customize toolbar”. You’ll then get a screen showing lots of buttons you can add to your toolbar, but, you can also, in this mode just grab and move the items in your existing toolbar.

In Outlook: go to View-> Toolbars-> Customize…

Related posts:

1. The biggest time suck of my day or, why email haunts me
2. Blow Your Electrician Away: how to create a bid sheet for work done on your home
3. Learning to Be More Present in Each Moment: How I’m Saving My Sanity One Minute at a Time

Today in our “Focus On” series (wherein I get to put together fun collages with Polyvore and pretend that their useful), we’re taking a look at Bob’s Your Uncle, a “think outside the box” maker of smart office supplies. I’m a huge fan.

I think what I love most about Bob’s Your Uncle products is their mix of clever, tongue-in-cheek styling with rock solid performance. They aren’t just silly for silly’s sake and I appreciate that.

Here are four of my (many) favorite products:

1. I get asked all the time what notebook I use to keep my To Do Lists – this is it! The Off The Grid Notebook. (The perfect grid paper spiral notebook!)
2. Punctuation Page Markers. Add a little bit of zotch to your boring ol’ documents.
3. The Multi-Task Planner Journal: chock full of all kinds of useful items, including grid paper, check box pages for lists and a planner journal.
4. The 8 Days a Week Mousepad Notepad: keep your weekly schedule right on  your desk with this tear-off mousepad notepad. Eight days = Monday – Sunday + Someday. Perfect.

You can check out their online store or buy many of their items at See Jane Work or Amazon.

Related posts:

1. Organizing in a pretty pink place: girly office supplies
2. My To Do List Hates Me or, why your daily task list is defeating you
3. Big Ideas Notebook: a new favorite and our first GIVEAWAY

Recently, I installed the suggested upgrade for my Firefox internet browser and, in doing that, stumbled upon this very cool “add on”, called Fox Splitter.

Fox Splitter allows you to tile your tabs in one window. Very useful for working in two websites at one time.

For example, I like to have my live blog and my WordPress Dashboard open simultaneously as I write new posts or futz with sidebar content. The image below demonstrates one way you can do use this tool, but you have lots of options.

I’ve been using this add-on for a few weeks now and love it. It saves me time switching between tabs and having to reorient myself each time.

Tell me. Do you have any tools or add-ons that you use that make your browsing time more fun or efficient? If so, let us know!

By the way, please, please, please…if you still use Internet Explorer, switch to Firefox. I beg you. Read here why your web designer will love you forever for making the switch. But, even more, you’ll be amazed at how many fewer problems you’ll have as you travel the internet. Promise.

Related posts:

1. I love a tool that does it all
2. How To Stick It to the Ink Cartridge Companies
3. A Tool for the Penelope on the Go: Cascading File Tote

Here’s a product that had me wondering “why didn’t someone think of this sooner?” I love the Smead Tiered Stadium File for its simple genius. They took a page out of good sports venue design and created an expandable file that is tiered, rather than flat. It’s thinner than most like products, so it uses a smaller footprint on my desk. And i feel like I can see what’s in the file folders much more easily.

Even with its more streamlined size, there’s still plenty of organizing oomph here: 12 expandable pockets, large enough to hold up to 800-900 sheets of paper. It’s made of a tough Tyvek material, so it’s got staying power, and it’s navy blue color works with most color schemes.

While it can be used with or without folders, I like the ease and look of using their SuperTab folders with it so I can just grab the paperwork on a particular project and head out for a meeting. I used just 2 colors of the folders (Penelope’s khaki green and glass blue, of course!) for a more restful feel for my eyes.

Speaking of those SuperTab Folders, they’re pretty smart, too. They have extra large space for labels, which means I can either do labels in a nice, large font, or, more likely for me, include more info about what’s inside. {I like to do two lines of information: a header and then sub-title with details like the meeting date or the specifics of the topic.}

One last bonus here: I have to admit that I like Smead’s website, too:  It asks you a few questions about your needs and your work style (I love that part) and then recommends solutions. Would it be embarrassing to tell you that sometimes I just make up various “organizational needs” just to see what the Smead folks are going to suggest to me? Probably.

Important note regarding this review: as with all product reviews I do on Penelope Loves Lists, the product featured here was sent to me for testing but I did not receive any further compensation for the review (though, in this case, that was offered). Also as a matter of policy, what I say in my review is absolutely true. I will never recommend a product that I don’t honestly think is useful to you. That would just be dumb, wouldn’t it?

For more info on my overall review and advertising policy, click here.

Related posts:

1. A Tool for the Penelope on the Go: Cascading File Tote
2. Organizing in a pretty pink place: girly office supplies
3. Peeping Penelope: Home Office Before and After by Centsational Girl

Last week, we got our keyboards nice and clean. Now, we need to give a little love to our desks as a whole. This assignment applies to you whether you work at a formal office, a home office or at a nook in the kitchen.

Let’s take just 8-10 minutes and see what we can do. Move fast and don’t get distracted. This shouldn’t take a bunch of time or be a big struggle.

1. Take everything that’s not plugged in off your desk.
2. Get a damp cloth and wipe down the entire surface of the desk.
3. If you haven’t already cleaned your keyboard, take a minute to do that.
4. Gently use a dry cloth (or these handy anti-static monitor wipes) to dust your monitor.
5. Wipe down your phone and other items you’re constantly putting your hands on with a Glass Plus Wipes towelette. Look at the handset of your phone where your ear goes. Isn’t that gross?
6. Quickly glance through your pencil cup and make sure you’ve only got pens, etc. in there that you really use. Remove anything that shouldn’t be there. (For example, you probably don’t need that half of a red crayon in that cup, right?)
7. Now start to put things back on your desk, but use this opportunity to ditch anything that doesn’t have to be there. A less cluttered desk = a less cluttered mind.

I realize that there are many more things you could do to fully clean every item on your desk, but, for our purposes here, we’re just looking for a good, simple level of clean. I think if we feel that we have to get into the nittiest of the gritty in tasks like these, we’re less likely to actually tackle them. So, for now, this is good enough.

Now, step back and admire your handiwork. Feels good, doesn’t it?

Good job, Penelope. Now back to work.

ANNOUNCEMENT: If you’ve always wanted a Penelope button to put on your blog, well, today’s your lucky day! Now’s the time to tell everyone you’re a Penelope and you’re proud of it. You can grab the new buttony goodness here.

Related posts:

1. How to Clean Your White Mac Keyboard- because you know it’s driving you nuts
2. Assignment: Computer Desktop de-clutter, or, do this now, you’ll be glad later
3. Assignment: 10 minute cleanup of your front porch

Since I started blogging, I’ve loved Chez Larsson. It’s author, Benita, brings such a great mix of content and gives us some gorgeous photography. I especially love that she often writes about things related to organization.

Benita also interacts regularly with her readers, which makes her seem accessible and human, even though she’s a Rock Star Blogger. You don’t see this often, but it’s made me a huge fan. So, I was excited when she said she’d let me interview her for this series.

Benita’s got some great strategies for blogging and blog organization here. And, if you’re loving the photos of her workspace (you are, right?), you can read more about it in this post.

After you’ve read this, be sure to pop over to her site and dig into her archives if you’ve never been there before. I bet you’ll like Benita as much as I do.

When did you start your blog?

I started blogging in May 2008. Gosh, it’s almost two years ago, I didn’t realize!

Why did you start blogging?

I had no intention to start one, but Flickr friends and other bloggers who had been borrowing my photos kept telling me I should and in the end I decided to go for it.

Are you a “list” person? If so, what kinds of lists do you find yourself making most?

I love lists. If I look around me right now there are four lists within reach. There are two with post ideas, one with next week’s post and one to-do list. I write my lists on narrow pieces of paper with black pen, never blue… Aside from making the lists I also love when I can toss one that’s been checked off completely.

A peek at Benita's work space

What do you look for in a perfect notebook?

I’m not a notebook person. Actually I love them, there are so many nice ones available but since I don’t use them I’ve finally stopped buying them. I used to have all these notebooks with a couple of notes on the first page and then nothing. I prefer loose papers that I can recycle after I’m done with them.

Where/how do you store ideas you get for content?

Aside from the lists of posts on the notice board I also keep a list with post requests from my readers. It’s in my blog binder which also holds the rest of the paperwork such as ad info, hosting info etc. I keep a folder on my laptop with photos for future posts. As I go along, I take photos of my day and the projects I do around the house but I might not post about them immediately. I add them to folders within my blog folder. Some folders have photos in them from one occasion while others have photos from several months because they are for a project that took longer to accomplish. This way I can always find all the photos immediately when I do decide to post.

Mac or PC? PC

What application(s) do you use to organize/deal with your images?

I just use regular folders on my laptop. I usually open the images in Windows Photo Gallery where I choose which ones I want to use and immediately delete duplicates and blurred ones. I make a note (on paper) of which ones I want for a post and then open those in Photoshop to edit them. My plan is to start using Adobe Bridge to open the images in the future but I’ve just realised I have this and haven’t checked it out properly yet.

How many hours a week do you spend on your blog?

About 15 -20 hours, plus the time it takes for the projects I blog about themselves which varies depending on what they are.

There are a lot of tasks involved with successful blogging: writing content, guest blogging, commenting on other blogs. How do you organize your time?

I try to prepare at least a couple of posts over the weekend. During the dark months I also take as many photos I can on the weekend because after work it’s usually too dark. When I get home from work I usually go straight to my laptop and write or finish the post for the day after. That usually takes a couple of hours.

I always schedule my posts to be published at 7 am my time. I stick to that time because it allows me to quickly check that it published when I get to work in the morning. I also know that a lot of my readers like that they know at what time my blog is being updated.

As for reading and commenting other blogs, I do that in the morning. I’m lucky to be able to read blogs during work hours as of late because I’m involved with blogging and social media at work so it kind of falls into my tasks to keep myself updated on what’s going on and as I follow quite a few blogs for work they appear in my reader along with the ones I read for private reasons. I’m really happy about this because it saves me a lot of time at home.

Describe your work space currently.

It’s a self-built unit that sits in the hallway of our home. There was (is) no room for a proper home office so we built it in a corner. Had I known I would spend this much time there I might have reconsidered because there’s no door to close and not much elbow room but at the same time I like the location because it’s in the centre of the house and I can see Wille in his room, I can watch TV while uploading photos etc.

Describe your dream work space.

I would love a room which would have a really long desk with several seats and each seat and desk area would indicate a separate use. One seat with the laptop, one seat in front of a clean desk top for paper work, one seat in front of a sewing machine, one in front of a craft area etc. And loads of storage!

You gotta love a girl with such organized drawers

What about your blog work makes you most anxious and how do you deal with it?

The fact that I spend way too much time on it that I should probably spend on Wille. He’s sixteen now and doesn’t mind but sometimes I wish I could be cloned and one part of me could blog and the other part could watch Friends with her son. The way I deal with it is to do take time away from the laptop and play a board game or do watch Friends. I feel I don’t do it often enough though.

What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to a new blogger?

Find a niche for your blog. Write about something that you’re passionate about and stick to it as your core content. It doesn’t mean you can’t stray away sometimes (I know, I do) but your readers will want to feel comfortable about where they are at when they visit. Also try to update consistently. That can mean every day or once a week but if you start out updating often in the beginning your readers will expect frequent updates later on too.

What’s your favorite book (or books) of all time?

I don’t have one specific favorite, but I love crime novels.

Do you own any pets? If so, what kind?

Yes we do, two cats, Mini and Bonus.

Mimi and Bonus

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Candy and everything else that’s sweet and unhealthy for you.

What’s your favorite way to wind down after a hard day?

On a week night a cup of tea in front of the TV and on the weekend I trade the tea for some wine.

Related posts:

1. How This Blogger Stays Organized: meet Jules from Pancakes & French Fries
2. Interview with a blogger: meet Jessica from Lavender & Lilies
3. An Interview with Julie Morgenstern: Part 2 – How Julie Stays Organized – plus a GIVEAWAY