Jill Fehrenbacher of Inhabitat told us that her New Year’s Resolution is to spend less time in front of her laptop in order to spend more time with her family and friends. It is easy for a blogger who writes about his or her passion to be carried away. After all, it does not feel like work. It is probably why I feel that I succeeded in seamlessly integrating my work into my life.

Jill has a point. Being an editor of a blog could be very time consuming. Running a blog has always been a 24-hour job. It is part of the culture. I guessed it comes from the fact that blogs are about what is happening now. The real-time factor distinguished us from traditional media. But to enjoy a balanced life, we need to look at how we can avoid that. I already have a few ideas to maximize the impacts of my online actions. I will test them and will tell you about it if they make a difference.

With the projects I scheduled for 2010 for kimvallee.com, I also started exploring how to reorganize my work. Since I want a balanced lifestyle without diminishing my professional success, I need efficient tools to plan my work schedule and to delegate more. This is why I include “organized” in my New Year’s resolution.

What is your New Year’s resolution?

+ photo: kikki.k – an awesome stationery store in Australia (they shipped internationally but it is too expensive)

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I was proud to read what Genevieve wrote on O.xide Design’s blog about my coverage of working with them for my husband’s birthday party. Gen wrote: “Bloggers like Kim are more like editors of magazines”. Even if Genevieve only met me once, she understood what I do for living.

Her comment brings the question of defining my job title. How do professional bloggers differentiate themselves from the casual bloggers? How we differentiate the different types of professional bloggers? You get the corporate bloggers, the bloggers for hire and the bloggers like me who are creating their own publishing company.

My Quest for the Right Job Title

After months of telling people that I was a professional blogger, I noticed a flaw. It does not convey my business goal. I must not forget that I am entrepreneur. I founded KimVallee.com to be a publishing company, a recognized media authority. I am the founding editor of that brand and this is where I put my energy all day.

Being a small business owner has its challenge. When you are a blogger, you are at the front of the brand. So, how do you disconnect your role from the brand? I feel that my job title should take into account the positioning of the brand.

Do We Need a Job Title?

Some people argue that job titles have become irrelevant. Maybe! After all, I am a lifestyle and entertaining expert when I give interviews for newspapers or magazines. I am the editor of a women online magazine (or a blog) when I meet people in my daily activities. That distinction works fine.

Still, we need to quickly tell new acquaintances what we do for living. You must take into account that the people you will meet are not necessary savvy in your area of expertise. Therefore, it is easier to refer to job titles that everyone can understand. This is why I say more often that I am the editor of a women online magazine instead of the editor of a blog. Or maybe it is because I always treated At Home with Kim Vallee (my main blog) as a women magazine.

What are your thoughts? Any advices?

+ photo by Jérôme Paradis at Webcom Montreal

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Like many of you, I lost control of my inbox over the last months. I received too many emails every day. Once in a while, I would try to sort everything but I often gave up after an hour due to this immense task. Not anymore! My inbox is empty and it will stay that way.

Sort Your Emails by Priority

If you switch to the priority technique, you will never have to deal with a full inbox. The revelation came from the fact that you need two sorting systems for your emails. First, you sort your emails by assigning a priority level to every email. Once a task is done (email is answered), you move the email in the right filing category. This way, your inbox stays empty at all time. As a bonus, you will not forget important and urgent things.

Make it Fit Your Needs

Define your own priority level. Do it in function of what you do for living. You could have 3 levels: Urgent, Important but can wait, Later. This is the simplest and quickest way. You can find inspirations on organization office supplies, like the Make it Work bundle that I am showing you.

I define instead a 7-priority level system that is task oriented for my work as a blogger.

• Rush
• Must respond
• Daily Reads – I create a filter on Gmail to immediately send my favorite newsletters to my daily reads
• To Do – it is a mix of current meetings and tasks
• To Write About – to remind me of potential stories
• To Read when time
• Project.

Everything else is deemed trivial. I either archive the email, with or without further classification, or delete the email right away. I went over my full inbox in 2 hours using these rules.

My inbox was full because my old classification system required too much thinking to determine how to file each email. Plus, it failed on the urgency of the emails. Assigning by priority forces you to take an easy decision. I am convinced my inbox will stay clean from now on.

I wish to thank my good friend Nathalie Rivard for telling me about the task oriented sorting mechanisms. Nathalie got that advice from Isabelle Lopez, who got it from a friend. We can all learn from each other.

SOURCING:
+ Make it Work Bundle by Knock Knock $30.60 USD

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