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To be perfectly honest, on most days I feel like I just can’t do it both. Not the way each job deserves to be managed, anyway. I’ve made it work for over 2 years now, advancing a corporate career and growing a blog. But something’s different this time around. In today’s post, I’ll give a little update on how things have been since I took on the new social media manager job and how I’ve still managed to keep blogging.
The New Job
Ever since picking up a new full-time job in June, I’ve reverted from freelancing/blogging full-time back to the 9-5 (more like 7-6 in reality) life of a corporate employee. In case you didn’t know, this is the life I knew for 7 years and I am a veteran at it. The commute, the meetings, the onboarding process as a new employee, getting to know people and building new relationships… I’ve been there and done all that.
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Coming Back to Work This Time
Yet still, coming back to work was SO HARD this time. Much harder than I’d anticipated. I couldn’t shake off the doubts I had about why I came back to work. I couldn’t ignore my anxieties about only publishing one post a month (my record in the last 2 months). I couldn’t stop feeling the guilt of not being able to tend to more chores around the house and leaving them mostly to my husband. And truthfully, I couldn’t help but reminisce the days when I did things all according to my own schedule.
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The New Job – Why I Love It
Despite all the inner demons, I’m going into the 4th month of this social media manager role at the new company. I started to realize I actually really like this job. There are a few things that are quite rare about this company and this job that keeps me fully engaged:
- Highly visible, impactful and clearly-defined projects that I’ve been spearheading.
- A really, really, really friendly and supportive environment – everyone is SO friendly and SO nice. I never knew this is possible in Corporate America. I think somehow I had the belief that t being overtly nice is detrimental to one’s own success in the corporate world. Oh, how wrong was I!
- I have an intern that I supervise now! It’s such a game-changing experience. It has given me next level insight and self-reflection that I could never imagine before. More on this later!
What Keeps Me Going
Social psychologist Dan Pink has famously coined the trifecta that makes up motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. When you have all three, you will not lack the motivation to do something that you choose to do. For both my blog and my job, I have the autonomy in the ways I do things, the necessary mastery to do a good job, and the purpose of why I’m doing it. Hence, I am doing everything I can to keep up with both of them!
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The Blogging
Strong motivation has everything to do with how I fit blogging into my life on top of the 9-5 hours. It’s what keeps me going. With all that said, what I struggle with the most right now are two things: 1) Finding the time to sit down and write 2) keep up with social media. Here are the things that I do that allows me to blog on top of having a full-time job and still keep my sanity:
- Fully utilize my commute. Podcasts and audiobooks used to be my thing during the commute. But when I have an article to write, I try to play classical music on 50-minute drive home. Dvorak and Sibelius are my current faves. I’ve learned this kind of music is very conducive to organizing my thoughts and ideas.
- Plan ahead. Then, plan ahead more. I thought I knew what I was doing when I did photo shoots in bulk, planned my Facebook posts ahead of time, and had about 2-3 topics laid out ahead of time at all times. But now, in addition to all of the above, I am planning my Instagram posts, and work on content weeks ahead of time.
- Accept that work doesn’t stop when I leave the office. After hours spent at work with my brain fully engaged and operating at peak capacity, I drive home, eat dinner, and crank up my brain capacity again for blogging. It’s my routine now. I have accepted it.
- Adjust to a slower pace with my blogging process. At my peak, I was publishing 5 posts a month. Now I am just grateful to publish one. Now, I am not satisfied with this cadence and am working on ramping up. But for now, I try to have peace with what I can do.
- Be even more selective in brands I work with. Working with brands is an essential part to a thriving blog. As a blogger, working with brands comes with many perks. One of the perks is that I get to try different products and brands. And if I like them, they serve as good foundation for me to build content. But since I know I have a limited capacity to write, I have to limit the number of companies/products I work with.
- Give up on perfection. Even when I was never that much a perfectionist to begin with. Compared to before, I have less time to do all of the things I wanted to do. My instagram feed is not perfect anymore. My tweets are not interactive/engaging anymore. I may not have a Facebook post scheduled everyday anymore. But for a while, my objective will be to just keep the flow of content going… and not strife for perfection!
So that’s a wrap. Happy October and the season of Fall is upon us. Everyone’s favorite season is just around the corner!
All photography by Natalie Alvarado @ Stylenfuse
Disclaimer: I received thisYellowcake Peter Pan Collar Tunic for free to provide a review and was compensated for this collaboration. As usual, I only publish review on products that I TRULY love and all opinion is neutral, mine, and only mine!