Armchair BEA: Ask a Not-So-Expert

I think it's hard to write tips because it really depends on the person and what works for them. Stating this, these are the few things that work for me.

I'm not huge on sticking to a strict schedule. I think it takes a lot of the fun away from reading for me when I'm forced to read something. What I've found works best for me is to have a little wiggle room when reviewing. Giving a deadline date for a review for authors instead of an exact date gives me a chance to usually fit in books I'm wanting to read on my own time. Obviously, this doesn't always happen when setting up posts, but I try. 

Putting things on a calendar really helps me. At first, I totally thought it would suck and didn't do it for a few months. However, when NetGalley started getting busier I realized I needed to do something to keep track of important dates so I started making lists by month. Now I keep a color coded calendar through Google because I like that it syncs with my phone to reference at a glance. I also break my emails up as I get them to different folders if they're for future posts or copies of books. 

If you're at all like me, I use my phone a lot! This is the one thing that keeps me the most organized. I use multiple apps, shortcuts, task managers to keep on top of things. This also means a lot of passwords! Last Pass is a cool little app that keeps track of all those different forms of passwords we have. Reeder is a simple Google Reader app to keep up with reading posts from friends.(I'm sure there's likely a free one, but I'm going off of apps I've used in the past.) Shortcuts! I don't know, maybe it's me but I hate having to retype information on my phone. For instance, I get Twitter mentions through text. When replying to people I tweet with a lot, it's kind of a pain to type "@username" every time so I made an iPhone shortcut for things I say a lot. [Go to Settings > General > Keyboards > Shortcuts] It's something small, but saves time when doing multiple things at one time.

Lastly, give yourself a break! It definitely helps from burning out. I personally take a day in the week off from doing things blog related if I can. Who needs another thing "To Do"? Blogging should be something you want, so keep it enjoyable!