Nayu's News #76 Blog changes! Dark Fridays, Cutting down Email checks

I'm going dark....

No, not that kind of dark - I'm not closing down! Basically every Friday I'm deliberately not writing, not reading, not blogging, not tweeting, and not emailing. It all came about on my birthday. I was having fun with video games and anime all day long. 

I watched lots of the anime Yumeiro Patissiere, all about Ichigo's training to be a top patissiere

I felt really refreshed from it, and figured I'd like to do it more often. I thought about doing it at a weekend once or twice a month, so it doesn't encroach on precious writing time. 

Muse asks "What about me?"

But then I realised I could easily do it more often than that. By doing it on a work day, I'm not 'missing out' on writing, which does have priority. Keeping Muse happy is always on my agenda! Sometimes I may pre-schedule a post for the Friday, sometimes I won't. It'll also give me the opportunity for extra rest to recharge my own (and often lousy) batteries. 

Relaxing is good - this is Amu (sitting down) from the anime Shugo Chara with her chara Ran chilling out

In addition to my new Dark Friday, I'm fine tuning my emails. Now, I'm getting blogging fine tuned by writing reviews as soon as I finish a book, when everything is fresh in my mind instead of a week or two later when I've crammed my head with lots of other stories. That is saving me quite a lot of time when it comes to writing a blog post. 

Random anime girl in purple with a clock

 I think most of you can relate to emails - there's always another to check. I have 3 accounts, 1 predominantly for shopping, one for this blog, and a personal one which has some shopping/blog emails as well as ones from friends & family. I checked them everyday, sometimes more than once a day. 

"Here I am again..."

That might sound simple, but it was taking a lot of time. Now, I know in the past I've done something similar, somehow I managed to forget all about that! My bad. 

"Had I done that already?" something the forgetful & spacey Aria from the anime Sisters Princess might say

 I'll be checking emails on all 3 accounts every Tuesday and Thursday. Unless an email needs an immediate response, I'll answer & send emails on a Saturday. 

More time is always good for doing fun things!

Already it's making a huge difference. For example, after putting up today's post I had pretty much nothing else to do online - how cool is that! It means I can focus more on chatting with my friends when they're around (which is usually when I'm online), or if they aren't here I can go rest more! 

I wish I had a friendly bear to rest with! No need for a sofa!

Those the minor changes going on at the moment - how do you find more time to do things? Do you try to limit the amount of times you check your email? Do you turn off alerts on your phone if you have that option? 

I'm sure the inquisitive Holo from the anime Spice and Wolf would love to know how much time you devote to emails!