The 30 hour day!

How many of you feel like you have too many 30 hour days?

Competition for my time is increasing, and the abundance of digital software makes it virtually impossible to hide. Think emails, voice messages, texting, pictures, videos, messages, phone calls, faxes and just plain old hand writing notes makes it impossible to do this in a standard 8 hour day. Everything is double viz. Answer phone while watching video. Answer emails in meetings etc. Is 30 hours enough?

No I am not indulging in some of our new ShotPak® cocktails in front of the fireplace as I write this blog, but on a plane thinking some days it just never seems to end.

Who misses the 8 to 5 office day, stop for a cocktail on the way home to miss the rush. Then the family at dinner and some after dinner activities followed by the news and bed at 11pm the latest. Up at 6.30 and the easy repeatable boring day.

Today up at 5.30am and on the cardiovascular machine for 20 minutes and opening the Blackberry for overnight text messages, emails as I run at a fast pace. Now 20 relaxed minutes become 40 active minutes as you do two projects at once. (20)

Shower, shave and leave by 6.45 with 30 minutes to the office and start returning calls while driving, another double activity and thus 30 minutes of double activity.

50 additional active minutes already and I am not at the office!

The office, no longer a refuge of cups of coffee, sports stories around the water cooler, but a race track of digital activities.

I log on and look at the emails in, emails requiring answers and meeting appointments flash across the screen taking up another 2 unplanned hours of the day. The phone message light is flashing and the number 4 shows we have a catchup game to play as well.

Start breathing slowly as I sort the work load. 70+ emails, 6 urgent from the day before, 4 telephone calls to return. I decide to walk to my mail box and find some letters, internal mail and a fax. Who longs for the days of the fax machine and no email?

7.15 I start on the 6 urgent emails and its 8 as I finish and the phone starts.

Next off to the first meeting of day and with my trusty Blackberry start answering emails whenever the meeting drifts from my sphere of business. Netresult one hour meeting and 20 minutes of double activity emails. (70)

Back to the office emails have crept up to 85 which in my business is 85 opening and 85 minutes replying. What happened to my secretary and her shorthand and 150 minute typing skills?

The phone starts and conference call for 30 minutes and I am opening and reading mail at the same time. 30 double activity minutes. (100)

Email and calls and its lunch time. What happened to the one hour lunch break?

Start eating joined by others and discussion heads to the afternoon meeting. Finish lunch and back on the job after 40 minutes to get ready for that meeting.

Email back up to 60. Between telephone, mail, meetings faxes and visits to various offices it is 6 pm. All the time double tasking means 150 minutes of double activity. Where did the day go. 20 from lunch and 60 after 5pm means I have worked already 250 double activity minutes.

Drive home and answer messages and another 30 minutes of double activity. (280)

Dinner, open my home private email and wish I hadn't. Finally while watchingTV holding a yes/no conversation with my better half I open the daily news paper.

Relax with the newspaper and one eye on the 11pm TV news I take one more look at the Blackberry to find 30 more emails and text messages. 80 minuteslater = (360 minutes or 6 hours of double activity time I am ready for bed).

Midnight fall into bed and the 5.30 alarm seems to be just too early.

So from 5.30 until wake up the next day my body has 24 standard hours and 6 hours of double activity action which is the perfect 30 hour day.

How did this happen?

Let's move to viral marketing, which we mentioned a year ago was our chosen method of marketing ShotPak® brands.

What does viral marketing mean?

Internet advertising or marketing messages that spread exponentially whenever a new user is added. Viral marketing assumes that as each new user starts using the service or product, the advertising will go to everyone with whom that user interacts with.


So now I realize part of my 30 hour day is caused by viral marketing news reaching me. Imagine as this develops, is the 50 hour day far away?

In conclusion, each email you send gets you two more back and it never stops.

We Americans are already one of the hardest working nations in the world and now with viral marketing we will some day not sleep longer than 3 or 4 hours a night.