A Typical Monday As AOKP’s Social Media Guy

6:00AM

Alarm goes off.

6:14AM

Wife, annoyed by my snooze alarm, says something borderline-nasty-but-justified that ultimately gets me out of bed, grumbling.  My alarm sounds like banging digital cats together by the forehead.

6:15AM-6:30AM

Eating breakfast while responding as much as I can to tweets to @AOKP_ROM (Usually at least 2, but as many as a dozen or more after a fresh release).  Update my apps and podcasts.

6:30AM-7ishAM

Hygienic rituals, commute to work

AT WORK

(Note about my job: I work in IT.  This means I’m either really, really busy, or bored to tears, depending on what’s broken.  A typical day is a brief periods of both.)

When I have downtime at work, this is my usual priority hierarchy for stuff I do to pass the time:

• Check cool sale sites (1saleaday, woot, teefury) -5min
• Tweet a lot, respond to tweets, both personal and AOKP (probably 10-15min per hour)
• Skim through Rootzwiki, XDA, and reddit, keeping an eye out for trends in reported bugs and other problems users might be having (15min)
• Look for new entries on Google searching for AOKP (2min)
• Chat with Team Kang members on GTalk about anything and everything, more often about non-ROM related stuff (varies)
• Read at least the headlines on nearly every major Android and technology site… BeyondPod/Pulse + work PC browsers get a workout (15-30min, generally at lunch)
• Stare at my blog, Rootzwiki, and UncutAndroid trying really hard to decide upon a topic to write about and failing (constantly, been slumping lately)
• Sometimes have a conversation with the guys at CruzerLite, discussing potential promotions and products with the AOKP logo (5-10min, unless I get Joel on the phone, then kiss at least 30min goodbye)
• Try out different icon and theme combinations, looking for nice ones to feature in the State of my Galaxy Nexus series
• Reach out to themers with ideas/constructive criticism/requests (themers are some of the nicest people in the Android community)
• Hassle various Team Kang devs about the various bugs/issues I’ve heard about or stories/rumors I’ve come across, much to their chagrin (they have lives too, which I’m happily interrupting on GTalk)
• Read web comics (Least I Can Do, Girls with Slingshots, Questionable Content, xkcd, Cyanide and Happiness, Dilbert, Deisel Sweeties, a softer world, etc.)
• Scream at WordPress for eating most of an article I’ve written because I didn’t hit ‘Save Draft’ every 12 seconds (this one was one line away from being finished just above this, and then site exploded)

Work ends at 4PM.

430PM

Arrive home.  Get mail, greet cats, wash work dishes, change clothes.

432PM

Be reminded to clean the litter box and/or take out the garbage.  My wife isn’t nagging me; she just knows I’ll get sucked into the internet and forget if she doesn’t say something.

433PM

Completely forget about the litter box.

435PM – 6PM

If we don’t have anything pressing to do (errands, chores, shopping, training session at the gym) – Catch up on tweets; get on the PC and check AOKP’s G+ and Facebook for anything out of the ordinary.  Stifle internal commentary about how much I hate all the unused white space on G+.  Read the e-mail chains sent around the AOKP devs and pretend I understand more than half of them.  Update my apps again.  Monitor news sites and Twitter and all the things and stuff.

6PM – 730PM

Somewhere in here the wife and I tend to eat our dinner.

730PM – 1030PM

*Take care of the catbox I’d forgotten completely about until now, sometimes even without being told to*

This is where the bulk of my writing gets done, and the wallpapers I make get created.  My wife usually goes to bed around 830-9PM (because she’s a responsible intelligent adult, unlike me) so it is a good time to form ideas and then once she’s asleep, give them my complete focus.  During this time I continue to be active on Twitter and quietly lurking on reddit, G+, and IRC.

If none of the above happens, it generally means my wife and I are sitting on the couch together, either playing with our Nexus 7’s or watching stuff on TV.

1030PM and beyond

I should really be in bed, but I seldom am.  I struggle to get to sleep most every night, as I am a very nocturnal person… I worked overnights for a long, long time.  I can easily be up to midnight or later continuing to goof off online, playing games on my Nexus, finishing articles or wallpapers, watching reruns on adultswim, or talking to interesting people online.

All said, I have no regrets about being a part of this team.  Team Kang members are fascinating people, all characters worthy of their own books in my opinion, and my involvement with this group has definitely expanded my knowledge and opened a lot of doors for me in the community.  Once I do get to sleep to do essentially the same thing all over again the next day, I’m not stressing over the work I put into AOKP – I’m stressing about regular, everyday life stuff.  It’s like a hobby that turned into an obsession morphed into an enjoyable job, and there’s nothing I’d trade it for.  I do wish that I knew how to code, or was better at graphic and web design, or had a larger spark of ambition and inspiration for my writing… but that’s just life.  I’ll get there when I get there if I get there.  Wishes won’t make it happen, but maybe if I keep my energy up, somewhere in this schedule I’ll find the time.  Zzzzzzz….

There’s probably a lot more, but this was all off-the-top-of-my-head writing, and it’s Monday morning.