Juggling work (where I’m down a co-worker), taking care of my disabled mother, running a popular blog AND an Etsy shop is NOT easy.

Let’s make that very clear. But, I like to stay busy.  So how do I manage it all? Planning. 

Unless I have plans on the weekend, I try to get all my errands done on Friday afternoons so that I can spend my Saturday and Sunday working on Etsy shop or website things. Sometimes it ends up just being Sunday if I can’t get everything done on Friday.

Since 1998, I’ve ran some type of fan site. Whether it was BSB fan fiction, fiction in general, NASCAR, or again, just Backstreet Boys, I’ve had some type of website. I think I would feel incomplete (no pun intended) if I didn’t have a website. Thankfully I have a set of girls, one in particiular, Emilia, who helps me with the blog. She’s had websites almost as long as I have and I’ve brought her own as a co-owner. 

With the website, I can do things throughout the week unless it’s some huge undertaking. However, the Etsy shop isn’t the same.

While I can pack, make, and send some orders throughout the week, I do most of my orders on the weekend so that they aren’t a) rushed and b) rushed. Any small orders, such as stickers, I handle throughout the weekend, but bigger orders such as cards or T-shirts, I take care on the weekend. I try to make one shopping trip to get T-shirts because either of the shops I get them at isn’t just right up the corner. One is near the Atlanta Braves stadium and if there is a Braves game going on, then I head more north to the next location, but during the week after I get off work, it’s a traffic cluster there. 

Something else I plan? Social media marketing. 

I use two different tools to marketing for my social media accounts – Facebook Business Suite and CrowdFire. While Facebook is free and you just need a business account, I subscribe for a small fee for CrowdFire. This is where A LOT of the planning comes into play for Etsy and my blog. (I’m not even talking about social media for my job here.)

BSBFangirls.com

For both this site and BSBFangirls.com, posts are sent out when a new post is posted automatically. Also on BSBFangirls.com, I use a plugin that will tweet out recent articles randomly throughout the day that are within a certain time period. I can also block ones out that are time sensitive. 

I also use Facebook Business Suite to schedule Instagram posts (Instagram is now owned by Facebook) and you can use FBS to do that. So I post two BSB photos a day, and one that is related to my Etsy shop on the @bsbfangirls Instagram account. 

Just A Fangirl, Inc. on Etsy

For Etsy, I use CrowdFire for Twitter. You can sync your Etsy shop up to it so that your listings will show up and you can schedule them out. During the weekend, I schedule them out for the entire week, until the next Sunday.If I add something new during the week (which is rare), I insert that in randomly throughout my scheduled post. 

For Facebook and Instagram, I again use Facebook Business Suite. Just like I do for @BSBFangirls on Instagram, I do the same thing with @JustAFangirlInc, except only once a day. I also try to schedule one post on Facebook a day. 

TIP: Never go over 3 posts on Instagram a day or 2 on Facebook. 

So that’s how I do it. Do I have much of a life? Right now with COVID-19 flaring up again, no, I do not. I’m vaccinated, but I’m not taking any risks with my Mom. 

So my best advice is planning. Planning. Planning.

Did I say planning?