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Hey trash elves, just wondering if you or other sellers every struggle with this. I’ve noticed that some days are much harder than others to work through all these steps (planning vs doing, etc), before I was medicated for depression and anxiety it was a lot worse. I’m looking at potentially partnering with someone to sell more online and we want to try and separate our labor a little bit although I’m not sure what makes the most sense as I have more experience with everything from research to listing to shipping and we will likely need to experiment a little bit with what our brains have an easier or harder time with.
I’m curious how everyone has distributed labor and dealt with executive dysfunction/brain foggyness, etc. Thanks!
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I have the same problem, I just try to push through it. What I mean by that is that I try to get what I can done (which some days are very little) and not beat myself up. The one thing I make sure I do is get out any packages that need to be mailed out. I would love for my husband to partner with me, but he has zero interest in the business. He supports me, but doing any part of the listing, pictures, purchase, essentially everything makes him want to pull his hair out.
I know that’s not really any help on how to do anything, I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. I am trying to figure out my own system and I can’t seem to come up with anything that works consistently. I’m hoping others will have some good tips.
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I wanted to come back to add that the hardest part for me is to not feel like a failure when I have a bad day. I don’t know if that is what you experience or not. I just try to do one thing, even if it is just researching stuff I want to list. I know this isn’t the best way to handle it, but I know if I come down on myself for getting nothing done I will be even more stressed the next day and that makes it worse. I am also a stay at home mom and with the house and son I get maybe three/four solid hours M-F to work on stuff and that is on a good day.
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Hi sidehustlershane, dunno if you’ve seen the Trash Elf Listing Challenge, but we’re a group of great folks who set ourselves a goal to list a certain amount each week and then post our numbers. It’s an accountability factor. It definitely motivates folks to list, which is one “to do” for an eBay business.
10KontheBay is a YouTube vlogger who did a great vid on how to eliminate Death Piles. It would work really well as a template for how to create your eBay schedule too!
Like LittleBlueHouse, I have a supportive husband who flat refuses to work in the business with me. Now he has his own business, and I work in HIS business as well as mine, and my eBay is definitely suffering! As LittleBlueHouse said, the one thing I ALWAYS do is get my orders out as fast as possible – I try to never have a late shipping fault. But for the rest… time waits for no man (or woman) and I seem to struggle to work out how to get through my day.
However, I have worked out a few problems of my own that may help you in putting your schedule together.
1. Group like tasks. Sort all items that need cleaning into one spot, items that need researching into another, items that are ready to be photographed into a third, and so on. Some days you’re just not in the mood for listing, so you can research. Other days you don’t feel like either and can do cleaning or repairs.
2. Consider unusual task completion schedules. Clothes can have buttons sewn on or small repairs sewn while watching TV. Jewelry can be cleaned after doing the dishes. Quilts and coverlets can be photographed on your bed when you strip it for your weekly laundry load. And so on.
3. Wherever possible “go” to work. My biggest problem is that I work IN the house. I don’t have a set room for eBay. My computer is in the living room, my packing station is in the garage, my listed items are stored in the shed. I have several different places to be to get stuff done. It was by necessity, but it is the biggest time waster on the planet! I just don’t do stuff because it’s such a PITA to get to it. The hubs has claimed our only available spare room for his business, and working in the garage just didn’t work because I had to (1) work around everything else in the garage and (2) deal with extreme cold or extreme heat depending on the time of year. Honestly, my best advice is to have a separate space, room, or building where you have everything together. Okay, maybe storage for listed items can be elsewhere, but if you can have your photographing and listing and processing space, with a comfortable working environment, you’ll be more likely to actually get some work done. If you can use a spare room, close the door at the end of the day when you “leave the office” and open it in the morning when you “go to work.” It’s a psychological thing, but it creates a separation of home and work that just isn’t there otherwise.
4. Last suggestion; create a routine schedule, depending on what type of worker you are. For example: On Mondays, you sort and clean. On Tuesdays, you research. Or, if you’re more of a daily person, you could pack orders from 9-10AM, then do research until lunch. After lunch you list for 2 hours, then pack orders again before getting to the post office before closing. Whatever works for you. You will be more likely to get stuff done if you have an allocated time to do it.Hope these suggestions help you, and we would love to welcome you to the Listing Challenge. Look out for us on Monday. (P.S. I’m the worst lister in the group, but I never give up! So what? I’m rock bottom three years running, but I’m still here and still listing (some days) and that makes me a winner!)
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@littleBlueHouse He went back to school and qualified as a sewing machine repair tech. So now he services machines from all over, as he’s the only tech in 4 counties, and the only one in a much larger area who will work on vintage machines. We get folks from the other side of Texas who bring us their 200 year old treadle machines to work on. He also does industrial machines (those huge things that weigh 400lbs), longarm quilting machines, and industrial embroidery machines. He does the work, I do everything else. I had no idea how much work was going to be involved in “everything else!”
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I understand about depression, what I call the darkness, it can be a lifetime battle. Everyone is different but for me, it also negatively affects my personal life if I let it slide. When I start slipping backward I have to give myself regular scoldings and pep talks, finding something to give me a break in the daily grind helps, along with exercise. Good luck.
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