Balancing Work, Life, Dogs & Instagram

Ah work-life balance, the phenomena we strive for, but can never seem to reach. My home life, to include spending quality time with Zach and the pups is something very near and dear to me. I quickly learned this quality family time is what I value most in life.

As much as I wish I could spend all day hanging out with Zach and the dogs and document our adventures online, I also have a really cool full-time job. I do like being able to just work during the day and come home to get my creative fix by capturing quick videos of my dogs or photographing Duke and Navy and attaching thoughtfully crafted captions along with the photos.

Our Instagram and blog occasionally come up in conversation in my workplace. At first, I was afraid to admit to my co-workers how I spent my free time, but truthfully, I am incredibly proud of the little business we created around our dogs’ Instagrams and what we’ve been able to accomplish. I quickly realized that in the age of social media and influencers, my colleagues thought our hobby was really cool. Surprisingly, when I discuss @NavyCorgi, my colleagues want to know more, because so many of them want to start a blog or instagram and don’t know where to start or think it is too much work.

The most commonly asked question I get is how do I manage it; how do I manage work, life, and being an Instagram dog influencer.

Both Zach and I have program management backgrounds so we are used to (and enjoy) tackling complex multifaceted projects. We are used to juggling quite a few tasks at a time and we thrive on deadlines. Being able to use our professional program management skills at home for @NavyCorgi, is kind of fun!

Before I dive into all the details on how we manage it all and make it seem so easy, I definitely need to add a few disclaimers because no Navy Corgi blog post would be complete without a disclaimer! It is not easy to manage work, life, and being an Instagram “influencer.” It really is a lot of work to balance everything, but it is not hard. First, I do not do this alone. My amazing partner Zach really helps with a lot of the backend of the blog and Instagram. I talked a little more about how he helps support our business on our about me post.

I also need to add that we do not Instagram and blog full-time and we never will. I touched on why we will never quit our full-time gigs to pursue blogging and social media once or twice before. So because of this, our approach to balancing work, life, the dogs, and Instagram is a little different than others who want to make their side hustle their full-time job. There are plenty of people who are able to make their side hustle their full-time gig. Allison Lindstrom has a ton of free content on her YouTube channel about making your social media a primary source of income.

Before I ramble on again and add even more disclaimers, read on to learn how we truly do it all!

KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES

Knowing your priorities–this is my biggest piece of advice to those who strive to balance their Instagram or blog along with your full-time job. Consider what really pays the bills, what is paying into your 401k, your health benefits, etc. Unlike others, I do not have a flexible job, and I am completely okay with that, but because of this, my full-time job is a priority. My friends, my health, and my family will also always be a priority to me and our blog and Instagram will fall somewhere behind these.

It’s always hard to leave these two when I go to work in the mornings. I snapped this photo posted to my story over the summer.

SET BOUNDARIES

I made a pact with myself to never allow @NavyCorgi to interfere with my professional job. Here are a few examples: I will not check Instagram during work hours, I often have an out of office up on Navy’s email address during my work hours, and I won’t work on anything blog related during work.

This may surprise people, but I only give myself about an hour a day on Instagram. Unlike many others, I do not have access to my Instagram at work. I get horrible cell service around my building so if I don’t turn my phone off and leave it in my car, my phone will die after an hour of trying to search for signal. This definitely makes setting boundaries a bit easier!

MANAGE EXPECTATIONS

We are really picky with the brands we choose to work with. One thing I hate more than anything is rushing a project and excuses. I’ve learned to manage expectations and keep communication channels open with brands before agreeing to partner with them.

If a brand wants to collaborate with us and expects a number of deliverables in a short period of time, we will walk away from the collaboration on the spot. I typically give myself three weeks to turn around any content for collaborations and most brands are incredibly understanding of this and still choose to move forward with a collaboration. They chose to partner with us because I don’t just hit click on my camera and throw together a cheesy caption; I put a lot of thought and effort into each and every one of our collaborations.

On the other hand, we’ve definitely had a few brands that wanted a quick turnaround and they did not care about the quality of the content. At the end of the day, there are hundreds of other dog influencers they can partner with on Instagram. I will thank them for reaching out to us for this collaboration and ask them to please consider us in the future.

GET TO KNOW YOUR CALENDAR

My agenda book comes with me wherever I go. I write down almost everything (in pencil, because life happens!) and I am constantly looking ahead. If you were to take a look at my agenda you would not just see due dates for collaborations or major holidays. I write down when I know we will be out of pocket or when anticipate a busy period at work. Zach travels fairly regularly, so I know to mark that off on our calendar. It is next to impossible for me to create quality content of the dogs without his support.

I also use my agenda as a rough content calendar. I love looking at National Day Calendar to mark off some fun holidays to take photos for. We don’t post for Throwback Thursday every week, but I also mark that off on my calendar as well.

KNOW YOUR WORTH

I know my worth, simple as that. To those who do Instagram or blog full-time, it may be hard to turn away sponsorships when you have bills to pay. I completely understand that. It really is hard to turn down people offering you hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars but if I take a look at my already full calendar and stay true to my priorities, it makes turning down that offer than much easier. At the end of the day, a couple hundred bucks doesn’t mean anything when I am already incredibly tapped out. This definitely was the hardest thing for us to learn though and we’ve made so many mistakes over committing ourselves for free products or a couple hundred bucks.

HAVE A SET TIME TO BE ACTIVE ONLINE

Like I stated before, I really only give myself about an hour a day to be on Instagram. I get up for work at 5am and I may check my phone for a few minutes or so before starting my day, but usually I won’t. When I get home from work I will give myself about 30 minutes to check notifications, reply to messages and comments and watch a few stories.

I occasionally give myself about 15 minutes of cardio + Instagram at the gym by spending some time walking on the treadmill and power scrolling on the ‘gram. But usually I like to be productive at the gym and just get my workout in and get out! This brings us to about 7:30pm. This is my time to be active online before going to bed. In this 30 minutes or so I will respond to as many messages and comments as I can and post our photo of the day.

I definitely could dedicate more time to Instagram, but if I did, my other priorities would suffer. If I skipped the gym to take photos or spend time on Instagram, I wouldn’t be putting my health first. If I stayed up late to respond to just a few more messages, I may struggle to wake up in the morning, making me late for my full-time job. Remember your priorities and set boundaries!

GIVE YOURSELF A ‘NO POST’ DAY

When we started Navy’s Instagram we posted every single day and kept this up for about a year or so. Last year I noticed our engagement was consistently the lowest for our posts on Saturdays so I figured, why not stop posting on Saturdays?

We occasionally post on Saturdays but for the most part you will never see a post from us on that day. I love having this day to just catch up, respond to emails, create content, and spend quality time with the dogs.

CREATE BEFORE YOU CONSUME

I was listening to a podcast last year when I first heard someone explain this concept: create before you consume. In 2018 and 2019 I really struggled with the comparison game. I felt this crazy pressure to do it all and more based on something I saw online. Now, before I even start scrolling on Instagram and opening stories, I will take a few photos or snap a quick video of the pups. These almost always get posted to our story! If the pups aren’t nearby, I will take out my notepad and jot down some content ideas or thoughts for a blog post. Doing this makes me feel that much more productive and less likely to compare myself with others.

START AN INSPIRATION BOARD

I am a big fan of Pinterest and Instagram’s saved photos feature. I would never attempt to recreate someone else’s photos, but I love using some of the awesome content I see online as inspiration when I create content. Navy and Duke have minds of their own, so it would be next to impossible for us to recreate someone else’s photo! Having an updated inspiration board is also incredibly helpful when I am feeling uninspired.

A screenshot from my Pinterest page. Check out a couple of St. Paddy’s Day pics of Navy there!

COME PREPARED TO PHOTOSHOOTS

We almost always pre-plan our little photoshoots with the dogs, especially if we are traveling somewhere for a shoot. We probably look a little high maintenance, but if we are heading outside of the house to take pictures of the dogs I will not only bring my camera bag, but treats, accessories, plenty of water, and some sort of squeaky toy to help capture the dogs’ attention. I like to think ahead and come prepared. We don’t just take photos for our Instagram feed, we also create content for our partners to post and content for our blog as well. I like to have as many options as possible with some variety.

These may not be the greatest examples, but we took these photos (and others) on the same block in DC within 15 minutes!

BATCH AND PLAN CONTENT

We’ve touched on this once or twice before, but one of the main reasons why we look like we have it all together and we are able to post every day is because we plan out our content in advance. I prefer to use the app UNUM, but there are a number of other apps that allow you to prep your feed posts and captions in advance. I typically have about two weeks worth of posts with captions planned in advance. I also use our UNUM as an inspo board by loading in photos with a certain look and feel I like to give me inspiration for future posts.

An example of what our UMUM feed looks like. We try our best to plan our posts in advance!

Wow! I originally thought this would be a simple blog post, but this actually took me a couple of days to write. Each time I sat down to write it, I kept coming up with more and more ideas and I still feel like I barely scratched the surface on how we balance it all.

I know we look like we have it all together and we may make it seem easy, but we are always looking to improve. One thing I want to get better at this year is writing my blog posts in advance. I do put a lot of thought and effort into each of these posts. I do struggle to find time to write them!

I opened a question and answer prompt up on our Instagram about this topic. If I get enough variety in the responses I will answer these questions another post. Feel free to leave your questions and comments below, or shoot us an email! We’d love to include your question in our next post.