Okay, so I joined Facebook a while back. Never did anything with it, since it’s not real clear (on the site) just what you can do with it. There’s lots of forum posts about it, but they’re not much help when you don’t know squat about the site to begin with…

So a couple family members have added me as a friend. Thanks, family members :-p Now I have to make an effort… hah!

Dishes are soaking in the sink, now’s a good time to dig in and learn more about using Facebook. Oh boy. Google search brings up 461,000,000 results on “how to use facebook”. Here we go. weeeeeeeeee!

My first stop was HubSpot. Downloaded the free ebook. This one is about marketing, so will save that for later. Right now, just want to know the basics. HubSpot looks like an interesting site, bookmarked.

Next stop was How to Use Facebook’s Homepage. Followed the link about Facebook codes, which I guess is about customizing. Bookmarked. One needs Greasemonkey, a Firefox add-on, which I haven’t gotten around to installing yet. Guess it’s time… Can use that on Etsy also, should’ve had this add-on a long time ago. I see it can be used with Flickr, too, which is another one I’ve been dragging my feet on… Okay, it’s installed.

Next stop: How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Blog on ProBlogger. Bookmarked. Another interesting site.

Now these sites look great, but I want to learn about personal use (except for the customizing stuff) before I go using it for marketing. Moving on, I find How to Use Facebook on Mahalo. Wow. This site looks great, and this article is just what I’m looking for: Step-by-step on how to use Facebook. Just like the title says. YAY! They also have articles on using Twitter (*shudder* – I know I should jump in, but… ewww), Digg, YouTube, MySpace…

Dishes are calling (okay, screaming…), but now I have a starting place. Bookmarked the Google search, just for good measure. Look out Facebook, here I come! hah!

Today is Sunday, the traditional “day of rest”. Well, maybe for some… For me it’s a day to catch up, tie those annoying loose ends that are always dangling about, plan the week ahead, and maybe – maybe – wash a dish or two.

One would think that if a person doesn’t have a “real” job, it would be plenty easy enough to get things done. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, if I had a “real” job, I wouldn’t have time to eat or sleep.

Ecommerce is my Real Job. Living in the middle of nowhere (75 miles from the nearest Walmart = middle of nowhere) doesn’t provide a lot of opportunity. I love ecommerce, and am very thankful for its existence even though it’s often misunderstood by the “real” people with “real” jobs in the “real” world.

So yeah, I’m self-employed. That alone is a job. Trying to ride herd over my independent nature is no easy task. Add a bit of obsessive behavior and AADD (adult attention deficit disorder), and it becomes a heroic challenge. Instilling order among the disorders is not for the easily-defeated.

Time management plays a HUGE part in my life. Can’t live without it, can’t live with it. It’s an ongoing battle to keep any sort of schedule that isn’t set in 5-minute increments. Those who are familiar with AADD know what I’m talking about. If you’re not familiar with it, check out that link to Wikipedia’s explanation. Here’s another site I just found, looks very interesting: Born to Explore

Fire ant busy at work. Do ants sleep?

So anyway, breaking a workday into segments doesn’t work. I’ve searched for an answer for years now, trying many ideas that just didn’t help. Then I found biphasic sleep and it’s pretty much turned my life around. That link is just for one of many sites that have information about this type of sleep. A quick Google search will bring up a lot of info.

So what is “biphasic sleep”??? Well, you could call it “taking a nap”. It’s exactly what the name implies: two sleep phases. Most people use one sleep phase, or polyphasic sleep – they have one sleep session in a 24-hour period. The biggie about biphasic is that you go with the flow of your body’s natural sleep cycles. These are 90-minute cycles that include REM sleep, which is the deep sleep that we need to re-energize. By going with the natural cycle, you don’t force yourself to wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle. When you wake up, you really wake up, as in refreshed, energized and ready for the day (or night). And you don’t need an alarm clock!

Lizard, ready to take a nap.

So instead of breaking the workday into segments, the day breaks up into two days in one 24-hour period:
-7 or 8:00 AM – get up, putz around the house, maybe work a little. This “first day” is mainly for housework or personal stuff, with some time set aside for making things and photos. I do try to get one thing listed in each store every morning, but all the work has been done at night.
-2 or 3:00 PM – go to bed, sleep for either 1 1/2 or 3 hours, depending on how physical the morning was.
-Sometime around 4 – 6:00 PM I’m up for the workday: photo editing, writing descriptions, researching vintage stuff, listing in the stores, etc. This “second day” is mainly for work and making things, though sometimes dishes or something get done or office area gets cleaned or whatever.
-2 or 3:00 AM – go to bed, sleep for 3 to 6 hours.

And yes, there’s still a time management factor, but it’s in bigger chunks, and even in days (laundry, photo sessions, etc. have their own day(s)).
This is like a whole different way of life, and has made an amazing change in quality of life.

It’s 1:31 pm and I haven’t done anything yet today. It’s cool and cloudy, with some sprinkles now and then. It sure feels like we’re into our monsoon season, but it’s not supposed to happen until July! Aha – just did a Google search, and it’s definitely coming early this year. Ack. Garden’s not planted.

Hard to do anything on cool, rainy days. Just way too tempting to stay in bed with a good book, especially when there’s furry critters to snuggle up with.

Well, okay, I take it back. I did download a bunch of calendar templates for Excel. Seem to have a problem remembering what day it is, heh.

Some friends get together on Friday mornings. We started out as a quilt group, but don’t always get much quilting done. Our current (and one and only) quilt has been in the works for about a year now. One day we’ll get the top finished – shouldn’t take but a couple more years, since it’s only a lap quilt…

Anyway, once again I have misplaced Friday. Mr.B called and woke me up about 11:00, then came over to look up some stuff on the internet. Didn’t realize it was Friday until about noon, when I checked the email.

So now I have all these cool templates, even printed out a 2009 calendar (lost the site, or I’d link to that one… sorry). We’ll see how it goes.

Did also find a nice calendar to embed in blogs – has holiday notations – so, if I can get myself to doing this blog thing on a regular basis, it’ll be in my face every day. yippee.

vertex42 is a cool site. Lots of Excel templates. If you’re not already familar with it, check it out.

Stuffs to do. Laters…