(All images from Imagen 3)
I’ve previously discussed my writing process, which consists of a draft 0.5 which I normally don’t show to anyone, and then (preferably after sleeping on it) a draft 1 in which I hack a bunch of the junk out of draft 0.5 to streamline the messaging.

I need to apply that elsewhere.
Like my Gmail labels.
Creating a content calendar
Bredemarket just started providing content services for a new consulting client (no proposal or analysis services—yet), and one of my first tasks was to set up a shared content calendar for the client.
Keeping a content calendar in an email or a document or a workbook works, and I’ve done this before. But keeping it on an accessible, shared platform is better because everyone has the same view and you don’t have to worry about synchronization issues.
Creating a content calendar in Jira
While Bredemarket’s own content calendars (internal and external) are in Asana, this client requested that I use Jira. Another client uses Jira for a content calendar, so I knew it would work fine.
If you’re curious, the content calendar I set up has the following statuses:
- Backlog
- On Hold
- To Do
- Doing
- Done
Bredemarket’s external content calendar is more complex, but that’s because I know that everything on that calendar goes through my iterative review cycle process, and because most of my external projects require an invoicing step at the end. So “Doing” involves a lot of sub-statuses before I’m “Done.” My client obviously didn’t need all this.
So I set up the content calendar, and the first issue (CC-1, create content calendar) is Done. (No confetti, Jira? Asana provides confetti.)

As Steve Taylor spoke in “Jung and the Restless,” “So what’s the problem?”
Creating email labels
The problem is one of my other obsessive habits, labeling or tagging my emails so that I can easily find them.
All my content work for this client generates a lot of emails. And I decided that the best way to label these emails was with their Jira issue number.
So emails concerning the creation of the content calendar bear the label jiracc001.
And emails concerning another issue are labeled jiracc005.
Did I mention that we already have 28 Jira issues so far? (Mostly in the Backlog.)

I shudder to think what my email will look like a week from now. I will find the relevant emails, but will have to wade through dozens or hundreds of labels first.
