My Morning Tech Routine

Jill Ball asked What's Your Morning Tech Routine? over on her blog Geniaus. That's a great question, so I thought I'd post an answer. I do the following in about the same order every morning, but it may change up a little bit depending on the crisis. Oops, I mean the day. My Pug, Millie, has a tight schedule for whatever reason, and she prefers to stick to it. Therefore, she wakes me at 4am. Every. Single. Morning. I feed her then she has a stint outside for which she needs me to open and shut the door for her because of that whole "no opposables" thing *Waving thumbs in the air*, and then she goes back to sleep. However, I'm not able to go back to sleep. I'm too worried that I'll oversleep. Therefore, I stay awake and this is what happens in my very quiet house early in the morning when everyone else is still dreaming:

• Check my email and respond back to anything that needs responding back to immediately; scan Google Alerts then delete; research any companies or individuals requesting me to guest post, review their app, or requesting to guest post on this site; read and comment back on any comments made on my blogs; and delete any other irrelevant email.
  
• Check Twitter and tweet, "Good mornin' and howdy from Texas! ;)" This is indeed done manually. [Caroline LIVE!] I could automate it, but that would negate the whole point of doing it in the 1st place. Who's online at this before-worms-get-up hour? My Aussie friends [Like Jill Ball] are usually thinking about wrapping it up for the day. My UK friends are usually gearing up for lunch and a cuppa, and then there are my early bird East Coaster friends who are just about in the same sleepy frame of mind as I am, but with one hour less of sleep grogginess than I have because of the time difference. Then there are the real early bird friends in my time zone that are as about as desperate for that first cup of coffee as I am. I've yet to wish good morning to any West Coast friends who are up. Mainly because they're still asleep. Anywho, I see who's on, try to wish these early bird tweeters a good morning individually and see what they've got on tap for the day. It's a great way to stay in touch, and I do it every morning. Without fail.
• Also I have this group of authors that I shoot the bull with every morning which is really cool.
  
• Check Google+ for any activity from postings, and read a few posts and comment.
• Handle any Facebook requests for friend invites, respond to any postings and make a few comments. However, I'm not a big Facebook fan, and I don't tend to stay long.
• Tweet any new blog posts of my own. Oh, and post them on Google+.
  
• Schedule some tweets for the day using Hootsuite's scheduler.
  
• Check Klout for notifications, analytic info, and new perks. They used to email you for new perks, but now? Not so much. Therefore, I check in. Why? Cuz it's free stuff to review. What kind of free stuff? All kinds, but the last one is a smartphone with Windows 7. It's worth it to me. And I check 3 other social media analytics/metrics: Twitter Counter, Hootsuite Analytics, and Twenty Feet.
  
• Check Google Analytics for all blogs.
• Check Feedburner Analytcs for all blogs.
  
• Check Weebly Analytics for all blogs.
• Check Mailchimp newsletter stats.
  
• Will be adding Examiner.com analytics to the mix as soon as I'm activated officially.
• Read blog posts if they have been tweeted recently on Twitter or if they show up on my Feedly and retweet or tweet them. These are done on my iPhone because by this time I'm getting breakfast together for the kids or I'm waiting by the door for them to come on. [Did I mention I'm a multi-tasker?]
• My dau handles my iPhone while I'm driving. If there's something that needs to be responded to, she does it for me. However, this doesn't happen often.

The following tech tasks are done periodically throughout the week in the morning:

• Check affiliate ad stats through the major 3rd party account companies.
• Check affiliate ad stats through the companies who handle affiliate management in-house.
• Change ad placements on sites.

After all that's done for the rest of the day and evening, I:

• Write or (now) video tape blog posts. But? I was in Drama in high school, and I do better with a script. Therefore, the video blog posts are written and memorized first. I'm a diva like that. *Flips hair*
• Write guest posts, articles for Shades of the Departed, now starting to write articles for Examiner.com, and brainstorm writing topics.
• Review apps and books, online services, and the like.
• Monitor online news for both the genealogy world and the tech world.
• Monitor online news for new apps and see if they'd be relevant to genealogy. [I like to think outside the box.]
• Curate news on twitter constantly for the genealogy world as well as the rest of my tweeps. I network a lot outside the genealogy world, so I try to to be relevant to them as well.
• Answer questions that pop up on Twitter and Google+.
• Plan and write blog posts for my soon-to-be blog, BloggingGenealogy.com. [Go and sign up for that site's subscription so you don't miss any updates once they start.]
  

I think that's it. I'm sure there's something I'm missing. As you can see, my morning tech routine, takes all day and most of the evening, but I'm not working at my desk constantly. I'm shuttling kids to and fro and because of the flexibility that I have because of my iPhone, I'm able to multitask when I'm waiting for football and basketball games to start, when I'm sitting in the bleachers in between games during the tournament, when I'm waiting for the water to boil for spaghetti, and so on.

And if I'm lucky, I get to do some of my own genealogy. You know? The thing that got me started in all this? Yeah, that. What I try to do is incorporate my genealogy in articles and blog posts as examples. I'm sneaky like that. *snort*

~Caroline

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