A day in the life of The Twin Cooking Project

Hello and welcome to a brand new series on the blog. Back in 2017, when this blog started as a hobby, I never knew I would take blogging this seriously, and today, we complete 2 years! I am happy that Muskaan and I are able to manage this little blog part time with our current full time jobs and because we are doing what we love - over the week and on weekends maintaining this blog - work just does not feel like work 😀

Since we are both part time bloggers, plus we are two people in this together, it REALLY is manageable. Muskaan does most of the technical work involved in the blog and I create the content for this site. This post is how a typical weekend/ day off looks for me(=Sheenam)

My blogging project takes place only on weekend/ holiday or any day off and over the week we ONLY manage social media like Pinterest and Instagram. I tracked down my tasks one Saturday and documented all that I did that day.

Being an obsessive planner, I like to list down all my tasks a day in advance so that I am not all confused the day when I actually have to complete them keeping in mind that weekend is not just for blogging but also for maintaining my social life. So, my to-do list was as follows:

• edit pictures for this recipe for lemon and feta spaghetti
• test recipe - crispy fried baby corn with toasted sesame seeds - and shoot (if it turns out well)
• brain storm recipe ideas and send a proposal to a brand that has recently launched organic milk - crossing my fingers for this one
• meet my friend for lunch
• attend a course on my favourite blogging program: Food Blogger Pro
• draft & schedule blog post and edit pictures for crispy fried baby corn with toasted sesame seeds
• draft email for subscribers on new blog post, submit pictures to submission sites
• family dinner

Here is how my day went...

8:30 am to 9 am --> Woke up and documented my site stats, google analytics, google Adsense Income, Pinterest views, etc.

9 am to 10 am --> Edit pictures for Lemon and Feta Spaghetti, which was shot 2 weeks prior to this Saturday. Here is how my editing looks like....

20 plus pictures took about 40-45 minutes, plus some extra time for uploading on drive, preparing email for brand etc etc.

10 am to 12 pm --> Start to finish crispy fried baby corn with toasted sesame seeds, which means everything from cutting, chopping, cooking, making recipe notes in my notebook, taking in-between shots of step-by-step instructions, styling and shooting the entire recipe followed by cleaning. The recipe testing was super successful, (see image below)

I could not take a picture of the shoot, but here are some pictures of how my simple shoot setup looks like:

These corn fritters for example... Click here for recipe.

The TV Unit in my bedroom acts as a kitchen counter in my bedroom turns into a studio...

The recipe styling is super minimal, not to many props... and here is the final shot of the recipe:

Moving on...

12 pm to 1 pm --> Got ready and stepped out to meet my friend for a brunch. Loooooved this burrata salad with mango salsa at CAARA - so so good!

4 pm to 6 pm --> Edited pictures for crispy baby corn with toasted sesame seeds while munching on them... I do this so often! I edit my work, while I eat it! Picture below, for example: I developed a recipe for a simple tomato pasta for a brand (the package included only Instagram story) and after the shoot, I ate my work, while I edited it:

Anyway, this time slot of 2 hours included editing pictures, drafting and scheduling blog post, creating longer images for Pinterest and Instagram story, for example this one below:

I love creating these long images!!! Further to writing the post, I also had to make sure that my new recipe reaches subscribers before it goes on the social media. Click here to be added to our subscriber list - to receive new recipes directly in your mailbox 🙂

Moving on, this was also the time, where I also submitted pictures to submission sites, uploaded pins on my Pinterest account, scheduled them for Instagram and Facebook for the next few days (the blog is posted on my site days prior to sharing it on Instagram and Facebook)

6 pm to 6:30 pm --> Attended a short tutorial on Food Blogger Pro - one of my best investments this year so far! The kind of knowledge that a food (read: recipe) blogger gets at this program is commendable! I highly recommend their membership. Click here to be a member.

6:30 pm to 7 pm --> Checked my email for newsletters and emails that I receive as a subscriber to the blogs that I love - so so inspiring! This is where most of my recipe inspiration comes from. I love the blogging community.

7 pm to 7:30 pm --> Recipe research and brain storming - drafted an email to a very interesting brand that had asked me to send them some recipe ideas. So looking forward to this collaboration 😀

7: 30 pm to 8:30 pm --> Got ready and stepped out for family dinner.

11:30 pm --> Back home.Time for Netflix! What are you watching these days?