the ramble

7:37AM: Well, the alarm is working today. And I’m awake, despite the alarm’s competition with the soothing noise of my fan.

8:00AM: I don my black pants, respectable green button-up and hoop earrings and make my way to the back patio for my morning Chai, muffin and reading. Luna chases and is outsmarted by our neighborhood squirrel until I drag her inside.

8:19AM: I move back inside to work on website navigation maps for the early part of the morning.

9:21AM: I wrap up my initial site map research and get ready for a morning prospect meeting.

11:40AM: After a very productive prospect meeting with some fantastically nice people (have I mentioned that I love working with non-profits? Good people. Such good people.), I ride a somewhat scary, noise-making elevator down to the lobby of their offices and head back to my car.

12:10PM: An enthusiastic Luna greets me at the door.

12:25PM: I settle onto the patio with my leftover burrito and guacamole. Unfortunately, my settling is short-lived, as a Very Large Wasp wants to sit at the table too.

1:12PM: Back to work! More navigational structures, content channels and key phrases to comb through.

5:30PM: Feeling a little overwhelmed and tired out by the day, I force myself to take a break from the head-down computer work and make my way to the local print shop to print out another new contract. It’s a good week for new business, it would seem.

6:06PM: With Luna in tow, I walk the newly printed contact to the client’s home, which is (happily) in my neighborhood. Hoorah for saving on scanning costs at the print shop. Along the way I run into three separate groups looking for a lost dog. Sad.

6:30PM: Back at home, I warm up some leftover pizza (with real tomatoes and mozzarella. Mmm) and attempt to relax with my serial killer book (relax = oxymoron in this case?) while eating on the couch and then taking a warm bath.

8:30PM: I’m jolted from the serial killer book (which I should not be reading after dark, as I am a sissy and won’t sleep well) by a phone call from my Well-Traveled Friend who talks to me about all the interesting transitions and turns her life is taking.

10:08PM: While watching some episodes of Samantha Brown’s Passport to Europe, I type up this account of the day. I feel vaguely stressed, wish I would have gotten a little more done…but overall it was a really good and mostly productive day. Though in the future, I think I’m going to try and schedule meetings for the late afternoon. Morning meetings throw my schedule for a loop.

Every year for the past few, I’ve done a little exercise I like to call Minute by Minute. In said exercise, I keep track of my days for one week giving you a minute-by-minute rundown of what my life looks like. The past couple of years have been winter weeks. This year, you’ll get a look into my summer. My first summer as a full-time entrepreneur. Fun, possibly stressful times will follow.

9:30AM: I’m awake after a hot night of fitful sleeping. The fitfulness I attribute to A. uncomfortable temperatures and B. reading books about serial killers. Am totally a scaredy-cat.

9:32AM: It dawns on me that my alarm didn’t go off this morning. This is the second time this week. Perhaps my 10+ year old alarm clock is on its last leg?

9:35AM: I’m up and boiling water for my Chai and feeding Luna who is, as of yesterday, officially two years old.

9:40AM: I turn on an episode of Loveline (from the Adam Corolla days) for background noise while I don today’s sassy green dress and tame the rat’s nest of curls on my head.

10:00AM: I retreat to my shady back patio with my Chai (complete with rich-tasting honey from the farmer’s market and a little milk) and a contract I need to read and sign.

10:15AM: I realize it’s time to go, grab my Chai and jog out the door (after compulsively checking the door locks). I have a haircut at 10:45 and need to get a muffin before that.

10:45AM: My brand new stylist and I decide to try growing my hair out. I walk out with a half bang and straightened hair. Next appointment, I think the color is going back to red.

12:28PM: After a quick bank run I’m home watching Luna eat (and by eat, I mean lick and chase around the floor) a dog brownie I bought for her birthday. I realize that I forgot to stop by the local print shop to scan my signed contractor agreement–so back out the door I go.

1:15PM: Home again with a burrito in tow…I start washing my bedding, as something creepy and crawly has been biting me at night (gross) and I think it’s a spider that lives on/near the bed. Everything is getting dried on high today.

1:21PM: I settle into the office to get some things done, feeling slightly annoyed that the alarm didn’t go off this morning…which means I’ll have to put in more time tonight or over the next few days to catch up.

1:45PM: I finish my social network management work for the day and start sifting through emails, sending off invoices and confirming appointments. I didn’t realize when I started the business just how much of this I’d be doing. Emails are plentiful these days.

2:00PM: The landlord’s wife shows up unexpectedly to take a look at the garage roof (of which, a piece is falling off and has been like that for a good month plus.

2:11PM: Back to reviewing contracts and agreements, balancing this month’s books (I know, it’s not the end of the month yet, but I don’t expect anything to come in or go out tomorrow…so why not hit the books today), etc.

2:54PM: How is it almost 3:00? Yikes.

3:38PM: I finish typing up a few things and debate on whether to start on one of two large projects. I have less than two hours before I have to leave for tonight’s Content Meet Up and I hate starting projects I can’t finish. Also hate stopping early when there is work to be done. Hmmm.

3:47PM: I decide to work on (and hopefully mostly wrap up) the content worksheet I started this week: “What should I put on my Economic Development website?” A worksheet that will hopefully be followed by some other industry-specific worksheets.

4:14PM: Heat and humidity from the dryer drive me to the back porch, which is slightly cooler. It’s shaping up to be a brutal summer, unusual for Denver.

5:00PM: I pack up my book, notebook and wallet and walk to a restaurant down the street for pizza and talk of content strategy with the content pros in the area. Tonight we’re talking about self-branding in the content space.

9:00PM: I make my way back in the slightly cooler evening to my still-quite-hot house. Luna is trying to get cool by hiding under the bed. I wonder if this strategy works…

9:20PM: One semi-cool bubble bath and one chapter of Inside the Mind of BTK later, I remake my bed with the freshly laundered sheets, fix my alarm clock (which didn’t go off because the dial got turned off the radio station) and put on a documentary about New Zealand.

10:03PM: This documentary is boring. Instead of paying attention, I have a conversation with Relatively Dashing Roommate regarding Macs, independent contracting and AOL.

10:05PM: Now it’s time to try and cool down, relax and get some sleep. The next couple days promise to be busy.

6:20am – The puppy let me sleep in! I love the puppy!

8:42am – Remind self to go over credit card bill, as I noticed some suspicious charges and need to pay soon.

9:07am – Editing world! Tomorrow is National Philanthropy Day, very much looking forward to that.

9:34am – I lurrvvs Zucchini Bread.

10:18am – Phone interviewing the world’s happiest Realtor.

3:07pm - Today’s lunchtime goals: go to bank (fail – bank is closed for V-Day); mail things to my mother (check). Today’s after-work goals: email client with copy questions; put together directions and itinerary for tomorrow.

3:45pm – 7 email campaign copy docs later…

4:03pm - Devouring articles. Mmm, tasty content strategy.

4:06pm – Figuring out what to call Content for Do-Gooders. Content marketing agency? Content agency? Content strategy firm?

5:15pm - As usual, it’s LOUD.

7:00pm – Very frustrating in LinkedIn groups when people use my question as a platform for self-promotion and don’t even get around to answering it.

7:41pm – Snuggling a tiny Luna in my lap and typing up my day.

7:48pm – I may put off that content commentary until first thing manana…man, oh, man am I sleepy.

5:44am - Hate puppy. Hate barking. Hate, hate, die, puppy…zzzzz

6:01am - Okay, don’t really die, just SHUT UP.

6:22am - Fine, I had to be up anyway.

8:42am - Ahhh, meeting time. Hoorah mornings.

10:23am - An editing morning. Trying to push through all the proofs and get to the awesomeness known as content strategy.

12:23pm – So many legal disclaimers…

12:57pm - 100 pages later…

2:00pm – Content strategy slows toward a stop as I wait for Big Brother (aka. the IT department) takes 300 years to get a chart–making software installed on my machine.

2:47pm – The boys who work here are way more giggly than the girls.

6:00pm - Home sweet running around like a chicken without a head…

6:21pm - Arrive at The Tavern Wash Park for our monthly content meetup–hoorah!

6:45pm – Learn things about email marketing, how to get clients to “own” content and such.

8:31pm - Head home to a house full of puppies and one dog trainer. Roommate has a plan for training Evil Genius. Thank goodness!

7:01am – Receive email from Brief Roommate linking me to creepy Craigslist man. Am afraid he might try to make out with my dog.

8:04am – Car clock does not auto-change for daylight savings time. Rarely think this, but boyfriend would come in handy right about now.

8:17am – Come up with brilliant ideas all the way to work. Wouldn’t it be neat to teach a class on content strategy? We could find a deserving non-profit and have the students to a full content strategy for said NP.

9:15am – Marketing is a whole lot like dating: just like tooting your own horn all date long will make the date unsuccessful, so will tooting your own horn as a business. Customers want it to be about them (and so do dates).

11:00am – While deep in contemplation about editorial calendars (something I know you all contemplate deeply with some frequency), my stomach begins making loud complaints about daylight savings time and how we’re supposed to be eating lunch right now.

5:02pm - Headache = ugh.

6:30pm – Finally home. Hate snow.

7:31pm – The Massively Sucky Puppy is upstairs barking. When I go to investigate, I find that she’s been up on the table eating napkins, then in the recyclables eating newspaper and finally in my roommate’s things eating a sock. She finally listened when I yelled, though. Progress.

7:39pm – Planned on looking over a social media strategy, but am so beat. It’s funny how sometimes writing consumes my life and other times I’m neck-deep in strategy land.

7:52pm – Decompressing with, you guessed it, 24.