My counting of weeks was dramatically thrown off track around the holidays. I know this isn’t really my 17th week since getting here, but I’m trying my best to get back on track here.
It’s the beginning of the second full week of January.
Of 2020.
Where in the world has the time gone?
While I’m over here having my third existential crisis for the day, please continue reading to discover the exciting things I did and learned this week at Hapday Group!
What I’ve been working on:
1. Editing the Hapday website.
One of the big pieces of this process has been adding a native blog page to our website. Up until this point, all of our blog content has been hosted on our Medium publication. However, for various reasons, we’ve decided to move our content to our own website.
Therefore, the past couple of weeks have been heavy on prepping old content to anchor the blog, editing the look of the page itself, and experimenting with different looks and layouts. Check out the current blog page as it is now, and let me know what you think (constructive criticism is always appreciated)!
2. Creating tons and tons of content.
The goal is to have basically the majority of our written content created in the month of January so that we can gradually roll it out over the course of the year. Granted, we’ll be supplementing this with time-sensitive content as it comes up, but there’s a fairly substantial base of things that we know needs to exist either way. So the goal is to complete as much of that as possible early on.
This looked like writing multiple articles every day. My coworker wrote 16 in one week, I think. It’s crazy. I’m learning that my creative process definitely works better in the afternoon/evening, so I’m doing my best to structure my work days in a way that uses the right kind of energy at the right time.
3. A consolidated content repository.
This is the part that really gets me excited inside.
We have these big goals of creating a year’s worth of content in one month, and then successfully rolling that out, but we were already running into organizational problems. Which articles had been edited? Which ones had already been posted? Who what owning what?
It was starting to be a mess.
So! I created a spreadsheet that will house all of our content moving forward. And this includes videos, seeing as how the articles aren’t even our main focus (yeah, there’s a reason we’re trying to get those finished up as quickly as possible).
It’s super satisfying to see everything housed in one central location. And because we’re working hard to make purpose-driven content (being that all of it is supporting either a workshop or a service we offer), it’s easy to organize according to what theme it comes in line with. (This is not to say that every piece of content is simply a sales-focused, “Buy our crap” article; rather, it’s all in line with the value that we want to be providing to our audience, regardless of whether or not they’re buying something from us.)
What I’m learning:
1. Creativity gets easier as the day gets longer.
We had a content creation competition one day this week, and I got totally whomped. My boss wrote two articles and a workshop overview, my coworker wrote two articles, and I finished one.
First of all, I hate losing. So that was dumb.
And secondly, how dumb? Why couldn’t I just crank out three articles like any sane person who values their job and their ability to perform well under pressure?
It was mildly discouraging. But then, later on that day, I sat down and finished an article and wrote another whole one is less time than it took me to write half of the first one earlier in the day.
Why?
I have no idea. One of my thoughts is that maybe I have too much energy earlier on in the day, which makes it harder to focus my thoughts on one task at hand. Or maybe I have more energy to be critical of what I’m writing and let perfectionism eat up time. I don’t really know, but I do think I’ve pretty firmly established that afternoon/evening is the best time for me, personally, to focus on content creation.
2. Read what’s interesting to you.
Our speaker for the Praxis Monday call this week spoke all about his approach to reading, and how to become better readers in our own lives. Robbie Deeks got a job working for Gary Vee at VaynerMedia and came to talk with us all about how he got to that point in his career.
Among other interesting tidbits, he shared his philosophy on reading. He doesn’t just read books that the establishment recommends, or are on the top 100 lists for the year, or book that are directly related to whatever he’s working on at the time. He reads books about whatever is interesting to him, and whatever sparks his true curiosity.
He suggested that he’s able to relate material that seems unrelated on the surface using mental models. That’s why he says it’s so important to read books that are in line with your natural curiosities. It’s better to feed the curiosity and read lots, than read what people say you should be reading, and never actually read any of it.
3. The importance of keeping your head on a swivel in #startuplife.
The month of December felt like one of the best months I’ve had so far. I knew what I was doing, I knew how to do it, I knew what was expected of me, and all I had to do was do it.
I took extra time to structure my own days and weeks ahead of time in order to be as productive and efficient as possible with my actual time at work.
My output levels were higher than ever before, and my energy levels were also through the roof. It was good.
Unfortunately, while things were going great for me in my little world of marketing, the rest of the team was going through some struggles in relation to our product. While I was aware of this fact, I was largely uninvolved with the process. Mostly because I wasn’t aware of the depth of some of the struggles, but also because I was so focused on my own stuff.
While it’s not wrong for me to have had a good month while the rest of the team had a rough month, it is wrong for me to be so glued to my own screen that I’m not aware of the larger picture. When a company is as small as we are, every person needs to be in it together—regardless of their day-to-day tasks.
One lesson I’m taking from this is to work margin into my own work day. Margin that is specifically set aside to help coworkers or my bosses with the larger picture. I’m not sure how that’s going to work when it already feels like I could be working 24 hours a day and still have lists of stuff to do, but I guess that’s just part of the learning process.
This week in New York City!
My mom and a couple close family friend came and visited last weekend, and we had one of the most exhausting couple of days I’ve had since being in New York. Those women go hard.
We saw Times Square like a million times, Rockefeller Center, a giant toy store that probably has an iconic name that I’m unaware of, a New York wedding dress shop, the Brooklyn Bridge, a real-life ballet, Brighton Beach and the most delicious Russian food this side of the Bering Strait. It was intense, but so good.
This week was sunny and 68 degrees, so I spent a solid chunk of time walking along the river. I live in a beautiful city. I’m so grateful to be here, and for randomly tropical January afternoons (on a weekend, too, so I could actually enjoy it!).
Thanks for reading, see you next time.