Almost no one talks about the admin work for a wilderness trip where you share what you're doing on the internet and also keep up with work.
My partner and I are currently on a road trip in California, camping out of a van. But this is no weekend road trip. After a month or so it feels like a way of life. We have a mattress, pillows, and blankets in the van so it’s a real bed rather than a camping pad. But sometimes it's tilted.
I am reading Bicycling with Butterflies by Sara Dykman, in which she "butterbikes" 10,201 miles with the monarch butterflies. The author talks about setting up her tent after a long day of bicycling then diving into several hours of answering emails and other admin tasks.
Dykman writes,
“[I had] unstuffed my sleeping bag, donned my headlamp, made a pillow out of spare clothes, piled miscellaneous stuff in its predetermined corners, eaten a haphazard sandwich, and written a quick summary of the day’s ride in my journal. … Then it was time for work.
“Unlike most people on bike tours, I occupied several hours most nights with office work. The blogs, videos, photos, handmade watercolor thank-you cards, route planning, itinerary logistics, and never-ending emails were all necessary to lend my voice to the monarchs’ cause.”
I felt so seen.
Check out Sara Dykman’s work to save the monarch butterfly migration »
Even my partner who is very in tune with me as we camp together, sometimes, doesn't quite understand that I need to keep up with messages and that it takes time to write all these blogs and newsletters. What are you writing on your phone, he wonders. Let me know when you need some time to work on stuff, he asks me, as if there isn't a constant stream. Perhaps that's not a fair description of his intent, which is to be helpful and give me the time needed to work.
It's hard for me to explain, though, exactly what I have to do at what times because I'm just trying to fit it in whenever possible. And, perhaps more critically and unpredictably, when my brain agrees to cooperate with this kind of task. I find it hard to call it in advance, sometimes, even though that would seem like a reasonable ask.
In any office environment, the “glue” work to hold the team together and keep it functioning is usually underappreciated. Often the women on the team are unfairly expected to take that on rather than (or in addition to) the more glamorous assignments that get more credit.
If you're on a team of one, you are responsible for your team's “glue” or admin work, regardless of your gender. I've gotten personal messages from men, women, and non-binary folks running their own team of one.
If you're a founder, or if you have a team, but you delegate work to them, interestingly, you are still responsible for the “glue” work. That's commonly misunderstood. All these “delegate your emails to your assistant and save six million hours per week” hacks are not what I see successful founders doing.
I'm regularly working with founders who talk to me about the small details of their business.
And as I run my own business, if I'm delegating work to a contractor, I'm heavily invested in the details and the back and forth of emails and project specs.
So if you imagine me in a beautiful spot with my propane stove cooking tater tots or pasta, that's true. But I'm also often typing away on my phone, sometimes without internet access with airplane mode on, getting posts and messages ready to send when I get back in service.
Last Saturday I was sitting in the van next to a river after getting Taco Bell, working with a client online on recovering an Instagram account. That's the magic of smartphones, really, and part of why I can afford to live like this.
But it's also why sometimes I struggle with responding. It's a lot, and I can get socially overwhelmed easily, struggling to imagine myself “in the room” with people who aren't here physically with me.
And camping, even if it is in the comfort of a van with a mattress and fresh groceries, requires a ton of focus. Gotta hold the lid of the frying pan and get the food out safely and not spill anything else on the ground and coordinate with my partner to do all this while I have a cut on my right hand from a couple days ago. Everything can spiral into bigger problems quickly. Can't let the cut get infected cause I don't really have access to healthcare here and maybe I brought antibiotics but I'm not sure.
Usually our emergencies while camping are vehicle-related. One fall Saturday in New Hampshire, I was driving down a dirt road in my Honda Civic when a tire started hissing air. I pulled over into a flat pullout and we changed out the tire for the donut. Of course, we had no cell service, so we had to drive a few miles out of the woods (this is a common theme).
And then, apparently all the tire shops in New Hampshire were closed for the weekend. We could wait until Monday, or, we could drive to the nearest Walmart (in Maine). I looked up “how fast can you drive on a donut.” We drove to Maine at 49.5 miles per hour and got our new tire. While this is a dramatic memory, a lot of small things start to feel like this when you’re out in the forest or the desert or up a mountain.
But then, also, emails!
I am really grateful for the opportunity to spend so much time outside in such amazing natural places. I just wanted to share that small business admin is a necessary pain point perhaps wherever you are. And that you're not alone if you're struggling with the messages required to get your work out there.
Take care,
Rey
