working 9 to 5?

[keziak]

Wondering if most people here have a set schedule for the day and week and sucessfully stick to it?

I"ve been informed that due to my condition I really need to set boundaries with work and stick to a schedule. But for me work has always been activities that fill up my day when I'm not doing things like eating meals or running errands. I'm going to try to adhere to a 9 to 5 or 6 schedule which will be tough because I've always worked before and after that window.  No more ending auctions later than 4:30 I think. Or doing the mail at 7pm.

[toysaver]

I just make a list every morning of what needs to be accomplished and cross my fingers it gets down before bedtime. 

[sin-n-dex]

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@keziak wrote:

Wondering if most people here have a set schedule for the day and week and sucessfully stick to it?

I"ve been informed that due to my condition I really need to set boundaries with work and stick to a schedule. But for me work has always been activities that fill up my day when I'm not doing things like eating meals or running errands. I'm going to try to adhere to a 9 to 5 or 6 schedule which will be tough because I've always worked before and after that window.  No more ending auctions later than 4:30 I think. Or doing the mail at 7pm.

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I would stick to whatever schedule works. Right now my eBay time is 5pm to 9pm during the night, Sundays I do my bookkeeping before the auctions end (I kind of log stuff during the auctions ending too). We have a tradition here on Sunday afternoons for me and my ex to get together (online, we're in different cities) and watch what ends and for how much and chat about eBay stuff for a couple of hours.

On Saturdays I process inventory or do other things I don't have time for during the week. I consider Saturday to be my day and I might not answer messages until later in the evening when I'm at home and on the computer.

I just finished getting my first batch of stuff packed (that's everything that sold on Friday). I'm about to print postage for yesterday's sales and get to that a bit later. The idea is to be caught up on shipping by 4pm when auctions end.

C.

[mike_jayroe]

I retired 11/2/2020. My days are filled with boredom watching TV, reading books. My exercise is walking my two dog multiple times a day, weather permitting or trying to get yard work done in the warmer months. As far as e-bay goes my sales have dropped off around 90% since my first year (2022). Mostly I am trying to downsize items I no longer want, but evidently other people don't want what I am selling.

I have tried marketplace for larger items or yard sales and have had no luck using either one of them.

That is why I decided to give up around the end of November. I am convinced that the economy is going to crash after the election so why bother trying to sell anything.

Hopefully I will be proven wrong, but I don't think so. Best of luck to everyone else who will continue to try selling here.

[mr_lincoln]

Hi @keziak 

What activities do you consider "work"?

For myself a lot of what I do to get paid is work BUT it is work that I enjoy doing.  Things that one likes to do is actually therapy in my mind.  

I read an article years ago about people and their most productive hours of the day.  People who realize what hours they are most productive can utilize that time to get the vast majority of the "must dos" done leaving their less productive hours to do (or not do) other things.  

I've always been a morning person and like getting lots of stuff done before noon.  You might consider doing a self critique about when you have the most energy and drive to accomplish something and when you feel less like doing anything.  During the latter don't feel bad that you aren't getting anything done, just enjoy that "down time".  

The concept to ONLY work between 9 & 5 would be great IF one's most productive hours are somewhere between 9 & 5 ... 

[keziak]

Do you run auctions one day a week? Do you do mail  most days?

[keziak]

Thanks for asking. My routine since Spring of last year has been to putting swimming first. Unfortunately I chose to swim at 5 in order to always get a lane and I got way less sleep which is a disaster for a person with my condition. Still recovering from the ramifications of that. Now the goal is to swim at 6 when hopefully the early birds will be gone.

Then there are my extensive gardens. So come home, do NOT check my computer, and do that for  maybe an hour. Spend much of the day on the mail plus work activites like going to the P.O., scouting and volunteering at a library where I sometimes can get books, sometimes not.

Then in the evenings I have either done more mail or worked on auctions. I work so late that I have no time to read which is important to me. Taking the evenings off will be radical. 

So a nyway thanks for reading that. Really the ONLY thing about making real change is to embrace making less money. This is hella hard for me even know I don't really need how much I've been making.

[dbfolks166mt]

     If you are talking about eBay work most of my work is confined to a few hours, probably about 3-4, on Sunday and an hour or so on Monday. That is not counting the time I am on this forum. I use the auction format almost exclusively and do not use OBO. I run 10 day auctions that end on Sunday. So on Sunday I schedule the auctions that will start the following Thursday and handle any sales (packing, labeling, etc.) that end that Sunday and then run them to the post office on Monday, which is 1.5 miles away. The rest of the week I am free to do other jobs, go fishing, hunting, camping, hiking........... and not have to worry about eBay. 

     The other forums and venues I sell on I handle much the same way. 

[mr_lincoln]

You are more than welcome @keziak 

You will have to decide what are your Must do items and Wanna do items and build your schedule around that.  You may go through a period of time where you cut back or eliminate some activities until you reach a state of mind where you aren't stressed. 

I am a morning person and that may stem from the fact that while in Jr High thru 10th grade in high school (4 years total) I had a morning paper route Mon - Sat.    The papers were delivered to our house, so I was up at 5 AM, folded papers then road a 5 mile route on my 5 speed bike ... all before getting ready and going to school.  Suffice it to say, when I arrived at school, I was WIDE AWAKE LOL!  I also played sports, was in school plays and did my homework at night.  

To this day I often wake up BEFORE my alarm goes off ... sometimes it's like a minute or two but normally about 15 minutes.

[turtles-trading-post]

I retired in September.  In the past few years I worked from home a lot so working at the house is  second nature.  I also worked too long and hard while working from home.  I'd work right through lunch time and work late. I always had that one more thing I wanted to do before I quit for the day!   I'm in Pennsylvania and my client was in Seattle so I pretty much had to be available until after 8pm my time!   I got used to that schedule.

I had set up my eBay store during Covid as my retirement gig.  I did go back to work for a few years after that, but kept at it.  When I actually retired, I slid right into eBay full time.   

My schedule is that I don't have a schedule.  I get up when I want, I always hated getting up early.  I sit down with my coffee and see what has occurred overnight on eBay.  I then handle any inquiries and start what eBay work I want to do for the day.  I will send out my "Send Offers" and on certain days my "Sell Similars" where I will cancel and relist my 50 or 100 oldest items.

My items are all flat paper items that get scanned.  I always have a stack of them next to the laptop so I start out by listing a few to get in the groove.   Then I will scan my next 100 items. Early afternoon I go fill orders so I can get them to the post office by 5pm.  

My kitchen is open to my family room, so I'll sit at kitchen table with my laptop in the evening and prep the scans I did earlier.  It's easy work just to keep my hands busy. Then I may list some of it.   This is time with my wife as she sits in the family room with the TV on  so I'm watching whatever buffoonery happened in  politics that day.  If I just sat in my easy chair to watch TV, I'd fall asleep!  So I'm better off keeping my hands moving.  I go to bed around 11pm (again, when I want to) and I've learned that I need to stop working at least an hour before that or I will be listing in my dreams!  

I do take time to do other things during the day.  I may spend  time gardening, tending my pool or other chores.  We do babysit the grand children a day or two a week.    I like to keep busy and not like my brother in law who retired to scrolling through Facebook everyday, complaining he has nothing to do.  I do suggest to him that he find a little side gig and his response is "I'm retired and that's work!"   

[chevymontecarlo88]

When i was rolling many platforms/sales i had to have some type of discipline through schedule. Also with that i believe that having the separation from work and leisure is crucial (for me). My days would start around 430 am - 600am PST with coffee and online maintenance.  (email follow ups, listings, sales ect.) Usually i would start listing/packing soon after. Typically by 9am i would drop off packages at the post office/UPS/Fed Ex and start the morning sourcing locally which would end around 12-2pm typically. After that i would go home to do more listings/photographing and organizing the days worth of sourcing. I would try to end around 3-5pm each day. It was a fluid schedule and changed daily depending on wants/needs. I would try to accomplish this 4-6 days a week depending on needs. I also made sure that i would give myself a break each week where i could hike in the mountains for a few hours which helped refresh my batteries. Taking a day off when nothing was going on was also key to help keep me sane. Even though i liked to shut everything off by 5pm, my phone is always glued to my hip to answer questions or respond to those who sourced for me. My schedule was not as strict as some may do but it also was designed for me to get through the day casually without any needed stress or deadlines. My approach does not work for some and i know i could maximize more sales and sourcing if i hustled more. I don't want that and cherish my time with friends and family. Whatever works for you is the best choice. IMHO

[mr_lincoln]

@turtles-trading-post 

Your brother-in-law is missing the boat on retirement that's for sure.  I consider myself semi-retired mainly because of what happened in my industry when Covid hit.  I've been in the packaging industry since 1983.  I started selling on eBay in 2015 as a side hustle while working full time as an independent sales rep covering 5 states.   I ran mainly Auctions ending on weekends which was less of a burden for having to ship during the week since I traveled quite a bit.  When Covid hit every project I had with customers simply stopped and nobody was letting anyone in their plants that didn't work there so trying to find new projects wasn't an option either.   So, I switched to the internet sales business and local auctions circuit full time.  It took my industry over a year to "open back up" but many of the people I had worked with and called on were no longer there so I decided to stop traveling and only offer AutoCAD drafting services to my customer base ... which I still do today in a few accounts.  Since I was nearing "retirement age (LOL)" this made the most sense because I already knew the amount of time and money involved traveling in 5 states looking for and supporting projects.  A lot of reps who just sold machinery had to find other jobs after Covid because commissions flat lined for them.  Since I did more than just sell machines I was able to continue with some cash flow from that industry. 

People have to find their sweet spot, that's for sure. 

[keziak]

Do you mean you ship just once a week?

[keziak]

I'm a morning person too, especially when I delay eating. I get very tired in the evening so often do mail then because it requires less focus. I am running lots of auctions right now and work on them during the day. Keeping up with listing everything is really tough. 

There are things I want to do NOW, not wait until I retire or drop dead. I did a lot of work in the garden this spring and I must say it looks fantastic. Once I get out there I am fine but other times I fret about it.  Also love to read and I need to make time in the evening for that.

[keziak]

Covid changed a lot for me. I lost my sources of inventory and had to find another which was Facebook Marketplace. I've spent thousands and thousands of dollars there by now because I haven't quit. It enables me to avoid library booksales which were so stressful for me.  There has been a before-and-after change at local libraries, too. I know for a fact that at least one local thrift got so many books they wouldn't take them for some time. People probably whiled away confinement by cleaning out their houses. So counting on libraries is no longer a great approach at least for me.