shovelSo last week, I went offline Wednesday night until Saturday night for the holiday of Sukkots. It was three full days of being offline. I did the same thing for Rosh Hashanah a couple weeks before, and I do it one more time this week (starting Wednesday night).

Going offline for three days in a row is really not easy for me. Not easy mentally, not easy physically and not easy when I get back... But it is something that I have to do, so I do it. This is how I dig out from being offline, when the rest of the world is not.

(1) I first download all the email from the past three days. Now this is a lot of email, a ton. Most spam is blocked, the spam that is not blocked is deleted. I then scan from the oldest to the newest and delete, file or reply to things. Anything I can't reply to stays in the inbox until I can reply to them.

(2) Then I check blog comment spam.

(3) I then read blog posts at both SERoundtable and SELand.

(4) Then I will go through all the feeds I missed over the past three days. Most I will skip, because they were covered at either SERoundtable or SELand.

(5) Then I jump on QuickBooks to review billing items.

(6) Scan emails again and then hopefully get read for bed. Keep in mind, I don't start item #1 until it is very dark outside.

The following day, I go to the office. This happened to be Sunday for these holidays. Yesterday, I was in the office for about four hours.

(1) Reply to emails that required me to be in the office but did not require additional help from staff.

(2) Review and pay bills.

(3) Send out invoices to customers.

(4) Go through emails again and file things away.

(5) Review feeds again.

(6) Prep things for Monday.

Then last night, I prepped some stories for SELand and went to sleep.

This AM I was still behind by thirty minutes. Maybe because it was Monday, maybe because Danny is away traveling for the next 6 weeks. Who knows.

I still feel behind.

It all starts again Wednesday night. To make things crazier, I am closing on a new house and moving next week.