Welcome to my work space..?
Beez writes:
Dear Kfangurl –
After your in depth, thorough, review of Move to Heaven (you’ve always done thorough reviews, but I’m amazed that you still manage to squeeze in watching dramas, much less having the time to deep dive in your writing to break down every character and every characters’ interactions with other characters the way you still do) – so after reading that recent review, I became even more curious of how you manage your time?
I’d bet others here would also like to see a timeline post of “a week in Kfangurl’s life”. I imagine you writing, watching, and scribbling 24/7 (almost chained to the television and computer):
“Sunday, interacting with patreon members. ‘Oh, it’s Monday, time to finish my notes on NIF’ to post on Tuesday. Wednesday, watch episodes of the latest dramas while taking notes. Post new review on drama recently completed. Thursday, Watch a couple of 1-hour drama specials, prepare and post reviews. Friday, watch episodes for KMHM and prepare recap to post on Saturday. Sunday, hair pull out day.”
But seriously, I’d be so interested in seeing how you manage it all. I guess you don’t have to tell us when you have time to brush you’re teeth, unless you want to… 😊
I definitely brush my teeth 😇
Dear Beez,
Thanks for being interested in how I manage the blog! I feel so important, heh. 😅 I’m honestly not sure that my answer will be super compelling, but since you asked, I’m happy to share!
If you guys have any advice on how I could manage the blog better than I am doing right now, please feel free to share your tips in the comments below!
CLARIFICATION & SETTING THE STAGE
Mmm.. Putting food on the table. 😋
I think it’s important to mention, before I get into anything, that I’ve switched to blogging full time. Because, well, the pandemic happened, and what I used to do for work isn’t super viable anymore.
Also, I love this blog, and I figured this would be a good time to try turning the work that I do for this blog into a proper income, to, y’know, keep my lights on and put food on the table.
Meaning to say, I didn’t use to do this much for the blog. It’s only because I’m now blogging full-time, that I’ve taken on this kind of blogging load.
Just thought it’d be important to make that clear. There’s absolutely no way that I could do what I’m doing for the blog, AND hold onto any kind of other job right now. 😅
I literally wake up and work on the blog. And then have lunch, and then work on the blog. And then have dinner, and work on the blog.
Sometimes I squeeze in time for things like going out for groceries, or going to the bank. But otherwise, that’s what a typical day looks like. Kinda nuts, I know! 🤪
STUFF I DO FOR THE BLOG: A QUICK OVERVIEW
Let me see..
Before I talk about how I manage everything that I do for the blog, I guess it makes sense to at least give a quick overview of the various things that I do for the blog, and how much time each of those things tends to take.
1. Full Reviews
The number of full reviews that I write per month, depends on when the various shows that I’m covering on Patreon end their cycles, and also when I finish watching other shows that I’m not covering on Patreon. This means that I could post anything between 1 and 3 (or 4) full reviews a month.
You guys already know that I write my episode notes while I watch the show, so those notes get reorganized, while I write additional stuff and create the review in its final form. It typically takes me about 2 days or thereabouts to finish working on a full review, not counting the time that goes into writing the episode notes in the first place.
2. Quick reviews of short drama things
The number of quick reviews tends to go up, if the number of full reviews is on the low side in a month. Quick reviews are much faster to do. The quickest ones can be done within 1-2 hours each, not counting the time it takes to watch said short drama thing.
3. Patreon posts
I publish one Patreon post per day on average, unless I’m covering a bonus show on Patreon. In those cases, sometimes I publish 2 posts on Patreon in a single day.
It takes me the time to watch the episode (so anywhere between 35 minutes to 1.5 hours, depending on the length of the episode), plus about 1-2 hours on top of that, to write the notes for the episode.
4. Open Thread posts
I’m covering 2 group watches right now, and it takes about 1-2 days to write each Open Thread post.
5. Dear kfangurl posts
I try to do at least a couple of these a month, and it usually takes about 1-2 days to write one, depending on what the question is about.
6. Comments & other messages
I used to be able to reply to almost every comment or other message that I receive, sometimes dedicating several days just to responding to comments. With the additional blogging load that I’ve taken on, it’s become impossible to keep up with every comment.
I’m really sorry about that, you guys. 🙈 Please don’t stop leaving me comments, though? I love reading them! ❤️
Just as an overview, I receive comments on the blog itself, on Patreon, on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On top of this, I also receive emails from you guys, as well as messages on Patreon.
I do my best to keep up, but with everything else that I have going on, I can only apologize that I can’t reply to them all. I assure you that I read everything though! 😝
7. Technical issues
As the blog’s grown, the technical challenges have grown as well. When it comes to technical issues, I mainly spend my time either troubleshooting, or looking to make improvements.
Essentially, the more stuff that’s gone into the blog, the greater the possibility that some stuff’s not going to play nice together. Also, the more stuff that’s gone into the blog, the more the site speed’s likely to slow down as well. Neither of those is a good thing.
Lately, I find myself spending large chunks of time trying to get things to work properly, and also, trying to understand and implement things that will help improve site speed. On top of this, I’m still trying to figure out some stuff related to ads.
I just spent all (literally, ALL) of last Thursday trying to find a good Lazy Load solution for the blog (a thing where images don’t load on the page, until you scroll to them), so that the site loading speed would be improved, but ran into so many problems of stuff not working as it should, that it gave me a literal headache.
As I type this, I still haven’t solved it yet. I just had to put it aside, because I had content-related deadlines to meet, like Saturday’s Open Thread post for Kill Me, Heal Me.
I’ve come to understand in a very acute way, why online companies have people who specialize in creating content, and people who specialize in the technical side of things, to keep everything running as it should.
Y’all probably already know this, but I’m no technical whiz; I’m definitely more of a content creator. And I wish I could pay someone to do this technical stuff for me, but hey, I’ve got to be able to make a proper income first, before I can even think about paying anyone else, right?
Therefore, I’m just gonna keep on keeping on, for now, and hope that it will be enough. 😅
HOW IT WORKS
..Mostly I’m hanging on by the seat of my pants..! 😅
The quick answer to how I manage everything, boils down to a single, unexciting (some would say suffocating) word: SCHEDULING.
I do a heckuva lot of scheduling, to stay on top of things. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that I have a daily, monthly and yearly overview, in order to make sure everything’s running the way it should.
I update the schedules as I go, and mainly, the daily schedule (which is very much informed by the monthly schedule) dictates what I need to do on any particular day.
Since you mentioned my Move To Heaven review in your question, I’ll use that particular week as an example.
The deadlines
The week beginning 18 August, I could see from my monthly overview that the deadlines I had for the week were:
Wednesday: Nirvana In Fire Open Thread + Move To Heaven review
Friday: Quick review for drama special You Are Closer Than I Think
Saturday: Kill Me, Heal Me Open Thread
On top of this, there were the usual daily Patreon deadlines, ie, one set of episode notes per day.
The schedule
Therefore, I knew that I’d need to schedule my time accordingly. This is what that week looked like for me:
Saturday+Sunday: complete Nirvana In Fire Open Thread post
Monday+Tuesday: complete Move To Heaven review
Wednesday: complete quick review for drama special You Are Closer Than I Think
Thursday+Friday: complete Kill Me, Heal Me Open Thread post
The Patreon posts were chunked in-between, so that I’d have dedicated time to work on the various posts.
I watched some stuff that I’m covering on Patreon, and wrote the related notes, on Friday night, before starting on the NIF stuff on Saturday, and then watched and wrote more Patreon-related stuff on Sunday night, after finishing the NIF OT, and on Monday morning, before starting on my Move To Heaven review.
This ensured that my Patreon cycle could continue uninterrupted, while I focused on other content deadlines.
This particular week, I could only answer comments, or see to any technical issues, in the pockets of time in-between juggling everything else.
At other times, when I’ve managed to get a little bit ahead with content-related deadlines, I can afford to spend a larger chunk of time on technical issues – until I run out of content-related buffer, and need to go back to creating content.
IN CLOSING
I hope that made sense, and I hope that wasn’t too boring for y’all! At least now you know how I (try to) manage everything? 😅
Like I said earlier, if you have any ideas or suggestions to help me manage everything better, do let me know in the comments!
And if you value the work that I do here on the blog, please consider supporting me? 🥲 You can do so on Patreon, through a one-time donation, &/or whitelisting this site, if you’re using an Adblocker (an overview of all the ways you can support the blog can be found here).
Ah! You can also tell your friends about the blog, that would really help me out too!
Thanks, you guys. For all your love, your presence, and your encouragement. I couldn’t do this without you.
Smooches. ❤️
~kfangurl
POST-SCRIPT:
1. If you feel that I missed anything, or if you have your own insights that you’d like to share with the rest of us, do tell us about it in the comments!
2. Do you have a question of your own? Drop me a comment here or on the Dear kfangurl page, or send me an email!