Staffing Balancing Admin Duties and Posting

[Samantha 64]

This probably seems like more of an issue to me now because I've been super busy on the admin side of things since September. We had our anniversary even in Sept. that I planned and ran for the entire month, then I had Halloween, and for some reason, I thought it was a great idea to run a mini event in November too. Then in December, we decided to commission a skin and since we were changing the skin we thought it was a good time to get all the changes that we wanted to make all in one go so all of December I was busy doing that along with one of our mods. We just got our new skin two days ago and it's amazing and I love it and now I feel like everything is done.

 

However, I constantly find other things that don't necessarily *need* to be done, but I want to get done. And once I think of it I'm compelled to do it to "get it out of the way." and A lot of times this comes before posting. 

 

I'm not inactive, not by any means, but I feel like I get distracted too easily by staff things that can wait instead of posting (even though I really want to post). So how do you guys balance staff jobs/obligations and posting? 

[katherineespair 36]

I relate to this so much.

 

Lochland is in the middle of its 4th birthday and i have all this planned.  I've been planning since september and completed much of what i wanted before then. During november and december the staff has a sort of de-stress period where we take a break from activities outside of running the site. In otherwards no big contests or things of that nature. We don't even have a december Activity check.  During that time I hit the posting hard and now we are in our birthday and i'm having trouble putting on the breaks and getting my sorry butt back into my admin seat. I have a list of what I need to do, but I've built up this activity that has me pushing for the next reply.  Don't get me wrong, i LOVE what I do and I know that once I remind myself that no post has to be done THIS MINUTE I'll be able to get back to hop right back into the driver's seat. The problem is reminding myself that it is okay not to post every time i get a reply.

 

My remedy last time this happened was to cut down on characters and threads then make a list of what I needed to do and schedule a time for posting.  We can alll have our cake and eat our pie too. ;)  It's just getting our stomach to switch to pie. Frosting can be pretty awesome.

[Samantha 64]

18 minutes ago, katherineespair said:

Don't get me wrong, i LOVE what I do and I know that once I remind myself that no post has to be done THIS MINUTE I'll be able to get back to hop right back into the driver's seat. The problem is reminding myself that it is okay not to post every time i get a reply.

 

We seem to have the exact opposite problem. I always feel like admin things have to get done right now and it's not that I think the posts can wait - I don't. It's just that I can't focus on getting posts down if I know something else has to be done. 

 

Quote

cut down on characters and threads then make a list of what I needed to do and schedule a time for posting.

 

I ended up cutting back on my characters right before the anniversary. I have been planning and writing up prizes, roulettes, and writing new codes for the events that I just didn't want to waste time on posting with characters I didn't feel were going anywhere. So I'm down to three characters that I love and are generally easy to post with. But I think I do need to decide on a couple days out of the week when I don't do anything staff related and maybe come up with a way to ban myself temporarily from accessing the ACP 😂

[Elena 546]

Have days dedicated to administration duty and have days dedicated to posting. Also have the other staff members help you more.

[Shades 676]

1 hour ago, Elena said:

Have days dedicated to administration duty and have days dedicated to posting. Also have the other staff members help you more.

Exactly this. Schedule is your friend. I'm a solo admin, so trust me, I know it's hard. Back when my site had a lot of characters coming in, I was driving myself nuts with setting up claims, sorting them in groups, etc. Then I decided to establish 'business hours' (these can be either full days or parts of the day) and now I'm a lot less stressed. If you think of adminning as a job, you're not working 24/7, right?

 

You have a set schedule for work, so why not for your admin duties? It takes a while to switch to 'off' mode, but you get used in time.

[Achera 22]

Omg, I can relate to this so much! We just are celebrating our first year, then there were the holidays, and it's been an interesting couple of months for sure! I'm one of those people who will constantly just stare at the board and find new things to add and fix. There have been times when I just didn't roleplay because I was so busy with the admin side of things and my real life. 

 

While you already got some great advice from others, I'll share what I've been doing so you can see other options. My staff keeps a Trello of what has to be done, what's being worked on, what's on hold due to another area, etc. I'm very visual, so I need to see how much there actually is and what needs to be done at some point. We also have labels that are assigned so we can see who's doing what. For me, that's a HUGE weight off my shoulders because I tend to do a lot of the stuff, so if I see Bob is working on x and Lola is working on y, that's already 2 things I don't have to worry about. 

 

If there isn't anything pressing, I'll go and catch up on my replies. If I'm caught up and I don't feel like tackling one of those big projects, I'll just go poking around for a smaller thing that I personally wanted to do. I use replies as rewards too. If I get x done, I can go reply to someone because I've been dying for that post. 

 

It's hard sometimes to try to balance it, but you'll find your groove. Hopefully what people have suggested will be of some help!

[webs 14]

Recently admin-wise it seems constantly busy, and while we have a team of staff to get things done, we all have different duties, some shared, some not. The apply forum has been loaded with character applications for about a month or so, to the extent that we locked it over the Christmas period because there were SO many and none of us could work over a period of 3 days (Eve to Boxing Day). It's busy again now, but we can pull all hands on deck to get things done, which is a relief. But I've only been writing one or two posts a week, if that, for about three months now.

 

I used to set myself the task of doing posts and staff work each day, using Todoist to schedule things in. I would list all the replies I need to do, schedule two or three per day based on when they were replied (or sometimes per character when things were very busy), and then mark all the urgent staff duties as priority 1 or 2, and the lesser ones as nothing so I could prioritise properly. It meant that I did most of my duties of the day, and the ones that weren't necessary I could reschedule.

 

I want to get back to that method as I was able to post plenty and do my tasks promptly, though depression and just the utter appalanche going on have held it back. Right now I'm turning to post bombs so I can work through by character and make sure they all get caught up gradually.

 

What's been said above, about not scheduling things like Activity Checks or other busy events in holiday seasons, would be magnificent, honestly. Those little breaks where you're not doing anything major and can cruise through both posting and duties - bliss.

[Mystic By Moonlight 4]

I relate to this a lot because I run the site by myself so if I don't do it...it doesn't get done. 

 

However, I knew that it's more important to keep my members posting that to do the little things. Because if I don't keep the members posting, they're gonna get bored, they're gonna leave. So typically (although I'm a pretty quick replier in general) I wait to do those smaller admin tasks when I'm 'caught up' because then I have time to focus on them and I don't feel guilty about leaving members waiting. 

 

 

[Rune 1,099]

I think every admin can relate to this. XD 

 

It's a matter of deciding what needs done now and what can be postponed. I also set goals for myself because I am fueled by "winning." I try to do at least 1 post a day, but some days (like days I'm off of work) I set the goal higher. 

 

Also when we run an AC we declare a weird sort of time off for staff. We don't generally touch apps unless it's a new player and take the time to get posts done. It's two weeks every two months where we do nothing we don't want to XD 

 

Deciding to work on admin things after you finish x amount of posts or deciding on a time that you'll stop staffing and start posting might help too.

[Quell 249]

My co-admin and I make a list of tasks that need to be done on a project management site (trello). We have them divided into importance: To Discuss, Some Updates, Rainy Day, etc. so that we know if we're bored as heck we can look at the rainy day list and find a staffing thing to do; or if we have something that needs to be discussed immediately we can do that as well. 

 

That said~ I think I'm the odd ball here. >> I think of my job as an admin as equal to (or lesser than) my job as a player. So I'm usually only doing admin stuff when I'm either 1) caught up and can't post or 2) too (fill in negative emotion) to formulate a good reply.

 

My only exception is applications. I try desperately hard to make sure that applications are done within 24 hrs and if they're not done with in 48, it's because my legs have probably been cut off by a train.

 

(Obviously, I'll always answer questions in the cbox or help a member who is struggling with something immediately as well, but if the code is not bold, I'm probably no going to stop mid post and go make something bold.)

[Rune 1,099]

I think the message that is going to get repeated here is to make sure your take the time to actually enjoy your game... And if you have apps they get done first. XD 

[Bass 26]

I am a number one offender of choosing staffing over playing. This is why I am going with a lazy admin approach right now. We have a single claim that is everything wrapped into one master list. We scrapped applications in favor of "post a shipper with enough information about your character that you could plot" system and called it quits. The members do most of the heavy lifting and then we only have one list to update. If we don't have time, we take two seconds to sort the account and let them know we will update the other stuff when we can. Members can delete their own stuff, change their own names, and the member group system I setup only separates accounts by character, author, and inactive. The other "member group" specialization is up to members in their profile. Cutting out the little petty stuff like that lets me focus more on the non-play things without giving me an excuse to choose admin over reply.

 

Also though, I don't agree that you should ever cut your characters just to make time to do staff things. At no point should you feel like your "obligation" to being an admin should trump your ability to have the characters and plots you want. If you aren't feeling them, sure. Cut em. But not with admin duties as an excuse.

 

My tip? Find a way to loosen up and let people help. Get more staff. Let your current staff have more responsibility. Don't let yourself carry it all, even if that is just in your nature. Share the burden and have some fun.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Bass

[Sadrienne 242]

9 hours ago, Rune said:

I think the message that is going to get repeated here is to make sure your take the time to actually enjoy your game... And if you have apps they get done first. XD 

 

This is exactly it. We talk a lot about "creating the game you want to play", so if you get stuck doing administrative stuff instead, you've got a bit of a problem on your hands.

 

Applications are always a priority for me, because waiting for approval is a sucky feeling and I want people to be able to jump in asap. So if an app is waiting there, I get onto it as fast as I can. 

 

What happens next depends on my mood, my creativity level, and whatever has inspired me on that day. Yesterday, I spent hours re-coding the profiles because for some reason, I decided that it absolutely had to be done. Also, while I was walking home from work, a vision (I kid you not) of what I wanted to achieve had jumped in my head. The same thing had happened with the re-code of our header a few days earlier, and the end result is I love the new looks. So if I'm inspired at that level, I'll ditch posting for coding.

 

And the same goes the other way. If I'm inspired like that for a post, my fingers cannot type fast enough! So I'll bang them out and have heaps of time to do other fiddly stuff after. 

 

I find that generally the two balance each other out. Some days I'm also heckin' inspired to write a documentation (which is how I ended up spending a whole day writing up the history of House Elves and wizarding fair work laws regarding slavery of sentient species), so that might get done instead. I have a "stuff for Mousie to do" list in staff that I go back to, tasks that aren't necessarily essential, but can be done if I have the drive for it.

 

If you're getting too bogged down in admin tasks, you either need to schedule yourself some limits so that you get time to attend to both---or look at getting some further assistance. Enjoy what you make, guys! 

[Zahhy 130]

What a great topic! I'm so interested in seeing how everyone else manages this! My system isn't exactly through or sophisticated. Sometimes I admin and never post. Sometimes I post and never admin. It literally just depends on what is the most important thing to me and my players at the moment.

 

What I do is keep a running list of Admin Goals. These can be simple things like a shortlist of what I'm putting into next month's newsletter (Which I USUALLY require myself to have posted by the 10-15th of every month but this month got away from me - and that's the only deadline I ever give myself). The list also is sort of prioritized. If it is immediate it gets put into bold letters and then I finish it that night before bed. If it can go a few days it gets regular text and means I push it off. Usually, it just depends on what my players are asking to see and how much fun I think I'll have.

 

There IS SO MUCH on my list that never gets done. It can float there in the back of my mind until I get around to it. If it is NOT ESSENTIAL for gameplay, I don't do it unless I feel inspired. I never let admining take away from the posts that I really want to do.

[Icewolf 258]

I first came up with the site in September of 2016, and at first I had lots of ideas that I wanted to do for the site, mainly addons for promoting it, like a tumblr, twitter account, etc. I have tried setting up forums before, only to have a very small member base and I thought that these would help, but I soon came to realise that they are a distraction when you're first starting out, as is making new skins, etc and they are probably what admin do to distract themselves from actually making in character posts. I recommend keeping to what's essential to begin with and only branching out into other things once you have enough help running the admin side of things. Creating new forums is probably not a good idea, either because they become an excuse not to post in your original forum. (Sorry if this post doesn't make sense as I have a bad cold and I'm quite tired.)