Marketing and the weekend: 48 hours | 2,880 min | 172,800 seconds

The weekend = 48 hours - 2,880 minutes -172,800 seconds

For people who work full-time Monday through Friday, the weekend's 172,800 seconds can seem to melt away more quickly than a favorite candy bar left in the car on summer's hottest day.

While corporate offices may be closed over the weekend, automated email marketing messages are sent to potential customers and video ads are scheduled and paid for 24/7.

Facebook's business page says, "On mobile, people prefer shorter video ads—we're talking 15 seconds or less. Shorter videos have higher completion rates, so you can successfully share your entire message."

During the weekend's 115,200 waking seconds I could binge-watch 7,680, 15-second ads. But how effective for each company would this be?

Yesterday I spent time deleting marketing emails from a couple of my personal accounts. As I searched for messages to delete I realized that many companies and organizations had sent email to me every day.

I'd said yes to receive the messages and I like many of the companies but as I searched for the various travel and media companies, department stores, shops and brands finding hundreds of emails from each, I regretted that I'd opted in.

While I continue to do business with most of the organizations that push messages to my in-box every day, as I scanned the subject lines "search" had found before deleting them I realized that none had tried to get to know me. "10 top ways to cook bacon?" I love cooking but I'm a vegetarian. "Father's Day sale." My father passed away a few years ago; I miss him!

I'm a foodie, I love to cook and bake and enjoy hearing from top food publications and media organization about trends and recipes but I will probably never cook shrimp, bacon, chicken or beef. If I want to research non-vegetarian recipes, the good energy comes from going to their website and searching.

It took less than 15 seconds to find hundreds of emails each company had sent and begin selecting "delete forever."

This is a topic I'm enjoying, so tune in for more in the coming weeks.

For an achiever, there's no such thing as an overachiever

One of my top personality traits is achiever. According to the Strengthsfinder theory, for achievers, every day starts out at zero, including weekends and holidays. After working for about 16 days straight (not working Memorial Day and last Saturday), I enjoyed taking this past Wednesday through Friday off. 

For an achiever this meant taking the car for repairs and an oil change, and sorting through paperwork and laundry that had grown at home over the past three weeks.

A few fun things reminded me about what is renewing and wonderful about life: completing a four-mile hike followed by the deliciousness of a drink of water, eating out with friends and taking time to connect with people I met as I ran errands. 

One of my favorite things to do is to walk up to a checkout and think: "I've never met this person before, but before I leave I'm going to make them laugh." This is fun for me because customers are rushing, multitasking or late to another appointment, in the same mindset as I used to be when I worked for a temp agency and was rushing to secretarial jobs in downtown LA during college. Right away a twinkle in the eye, making eye contact changes the dynamics in the brief meeting over the cash register. In future posts I'll write about times I've made someone laugh. When I've been determined to make it happen, I can't remember a time it hasn't worked.

The most important thing I remembered over this long weekend is advice for achievers I once came across: achievers must schedule in casual time just as diligently as they schedule work, or work will be all they accomplish.

For achievers, there's no such thing as an overachiever, and planning for work life balance can create a full life.