We are now on Day 3 of our new work schedule, which is flipped by 12 hours.

As I speak (or write), it is 10:05 p.m. This page must be sent to “camera” (the pressroom) by 10:30 p.m.

You’ve never really mastered the art of procrastination until you’ve worked in a newsroom. It’s not that any of us our lazy – really, we’re more gluttons for punishment – it’s that our schedules are so jam-packed with various tasks at all hours of the day, that sometimes writing 15 inches about my opinion on a topic doesn’t fit well into my schedule.

This doesn’t even count the unplanned interruptions throughout the day. Take Tuesday, for example:

• I receive hundreds of e-mails per day – from spam to calendar events to press releases to complaints. They are related to one, some or all of our newspapers, and I have to make sure to keep that in order.

• We installed a new program on one reporter’s computer, which took about an hour and a half – time that can’t be spent using the computer.

• My publisher came up with a project for the newsroom employees to work on involving the Web sites

• An advertising employee reported a vehicle fire near Edwardsburg and helped out by taking a picture

• The same advertising employee’s wife also helped out by taking another picture in Edwardsburg of the Legends restaurant, which apparently has been bulldozed to the ground

• I wrote two columns, one for Off the Water about the Harbor Shores golf course as well as this column.

• Stop the presses! One story was almost inadvertently left out of the paper, so we had to rush to the last second to meet deadline.

• Seven obituaries and death notices had to by typed and edited; that number varies from zero on some days to more than seven on others.

• A lens is broken on one camera, so we are waiting on a replacement for it; therefore, cameras are being juggled around more and who took what must be organized.

• The “morning reporter” must keep me up to date the minute I get in about what she’s been working on and what has happened so far that day.

• The sports editor had to rush back from a late-running game to write up his stories and lay out the sports section, which then had to be edited.

And that’s just a small summary of everything we do here, but maybe that’s for another column when I’m not six minutes from deadline.

Katie Johnson is the managing editor of the Niles Daily Star, Cassopolis Vigilant and Edwardsburg Argus. She can be reached at (269) 687-7713 or at katie.johnson@leaderpub.com.