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The #1 Secret No One Told You About Productivity!

The #1 Secret No One Told You About Productivity!

No matter how much I write about productivity, I still receive numerous messages each week by loyal members of my community who are swamped with too much to do and too little time to do it! They feel overwhelmed, they want to focus more on the things they love and they want to know the secret to my productivity. I can completely relate to feeling like you are cagged in by your work and a slave to your schedule, but the truth is their is only one productivity tip that will help you, me or anyone else tame our workloads. This tip isn’t much of a secret, unless of course, no one has ever told you about it, so today, let’s unpack this #1 Secret No One Told You About Productivity!

What is the #1 Secret No One Told You About Productivity?

The biggest secret about productivity that you may not know is that You Can’t Do It All! I know, I know, this goes against everything we have been taught to believe about human ability and persistence, not to mention every girl power message I’ve heard for my last 30 years on this Earth, but it’s true. No one single person can do everything. Yes, I do believe you can achieve all the things you want to achieve in life, but you certainly won’t be doing it alone and if you’re clever, you’ll find ways to hack your daily life and to do list so that you are focusing on the key tasks, routines and decisions that will support your quickest route to success. Now, I want to come back to this point on hacking your life to optimize your success in just a moment, but first, I want to give you some practical strategies for taking this productivity secret and using it to your advantage!

If I Can’t Do It All, How Does Everything Get Done?

You’re probably asking yourself, if I can’t do it all, how does everything get done? You do important work, you have lots of important priorities, and much of what you handle must be done, right? Absolutely! Much of what you handle probably does need to get done, but not necessarily by you. So, if you find that you have too much on your plate, you put in the work and still find that everything isn’t getting done, you really need to start doing two things.

You Need To Delegate And Delete!

First, you need to take a look at everything you do, all your priorities, projects, work, and personal obligations. You need to have a complete understanding of all the elements that take up your time because you will need to Delegate some and Delete others. To delegate, you need to understand what tasks on your list can be completed by someone else. I know many of us, especially the type A’s out there, have a hard time giving over control of tasks to others because we want to know something has been done right, but if something does not require your hand to complete it, you need to assign it to someone else. This could mean an assistant at work, a spouse or child, or even hiring help like a cleaning service or handyman. Not every option is going to be available for every one of us, but wherever we can, we should try to delegate important tasks to someone who is capable of completing the task, even if it means we have to train them how to do it and then reap the time benefits in the future.

Once you do that complete evaluation of your obligations, you will certainly find that you have some things you are doing that can be deleted from your to do list altogether. Like I said earlier, most of what you do probably needs to get done, which means some of what you do can be let go of completely to help you lessen your load. Think about all your extras first, like voluntary obligations outside of work or home. It’s great to be a team player and responsible member of your community, but if you are overwhelmed by everything you need to do and frequently find that you are missing important tasks, you really need to delete any priorities that you signed up for. This doesn’t mean you can never add them back in, but be honest with yourself about what is truly important and be ruthless with anything that takes up your time. Of course, it won’t just be voluntary tasks that you need to delete. Ask yourself what tasks are repeatedly missed or forgotten. Sometimes when we frequently push a task off it means its not actually required to be done. Any extras like this should be deleted from your list until you have reached equilibrium with your time and tasks.

Optimizing Success By Hacking Your Productivity!

Like I mentioned earlier, all of us can improve our productivity and succeed in achieving more of what we want if we optimize our lives with a few hacks here and there. If this sounds interesting to you and you’d like to learn these tips for working smarter, not harder, I’m very pleased to announce that my Planning for Success Master Class is now available! This Master Class and Q&A replay are four information-rich hours of actionable strategies designed to solve your most pressing productivity issues. Included with the class are numerous downloads and worksheets to help you put the strategies taught in place for your specific situation. This class is a tremendous value filled with the precise information you need to optimize your daily life for productivity, but don’t take my word for it! Here is what students from the class are saying:

“The Planning for Success Master Class was so timely for me! I am in constant struggle (more now than ever) with time management and project/tasks all being priority that this class gave me major amounts of tools and guidance that will allow me to gain some sanity again. As a business owner, wife, mother and a person who wants to be all things to most people, this class gave me perspective to what is manageable and plan-able! It has been what is missing in my many years as a professional. I am so glad that I can watch the master class and q & a as much as I want in order to help me build better planning habits. I loved this class and it was time and money well spent! Thank you Alexis!”

– Beth, MO

“The Planning for Success Master Class was a truly great experience! As someone who has run workshops and training, I am in absolute awe at Alexis’ planning, delivery and thoroughness. It has been incredible value for money and I hope that many more will be able to experience this amazing product. I have been given so much information and feel so inspired! Alexis has managed to address most of the organizational, time management and motivational issues that have been plaguing me. I am in-between careers and had hit a dark and sticky rut. This workshop has not only showed me the way forward, it has also turned all the lights on! Many of the concepts were new to me so it has helped to go through the video more than once. It is invaluable that I am able to keep referring to it and I can see how it will all become second nature with some practice. The Q&A session is also extremely interesting. Alexis’ generosity with her time and information sharing are what make her such a great Mentor. I was a fan, now I am a convert! Thank you!!”

– Maria, Australia

“The Planning for Success Master Class was amazing! I have been feeling overwhelmed and almost paralyzed lately in regard to achieving my goals and completing projects. This Master Class provided me with a clear and manageable blueprint that I believe will help me to begin living my life fully again. The value I received from the Planning for Success Master Class was far greater than what I paid for it. Thank you for being so generous with your knowledge and your time. And, I think your online presence is both impressive and beautiful; how you manage to communicate with complete strangers you can’t even hear or see, with such a high level of compassion and grace, is beyond amazing!”

-Cynthia, NV

Don’t let your dreams and goals sit by the wayside any longer! Sign up for the Planning for Success Master Class and join the countless members of my community who’ve benefited from this informative and actionable class!

xoxo,

Productivity

Time-Saving Work Day Hacks To Help You Work Smarter, Not Harder!

Are you ready to hack your workday to get more done in less time and truly work smarter, not harder? If my love and study of productivity and organization is meant for anything, it’s meant to help us (me, you, everyone we know!) learn the essential strategies that make our workdays easier. So today I have compiled a list of twelve of my favorite time-saving, stress-releasing, and productivity inducing workday hacks to help you become the master of your own workflow in the office!

1. Get properly dressed: Yep, first things first! If you aren’t wear the proper clothing for work you are going to be uncomfortable, uneasy and you’ll ultimately end up working slow and miserable counting down the hours until you can return home to step into your pajamas. Although you may work in a formal business environment that requires a certain dress code, unless you are wearing a uniform, you have some say over the cut and materials of the clothing you buy, and so many brands have popped up in recent years to give women more comfortable formal office wear options.

2. Diffuse essential oils: One of the first things I do when I step into my office for a workday is create a blend of essential oils for the workday. I wrote about my essential oil secret weapon a few weeks ago, so make sure to check out that post if you want some tips from me on oils to diffuse.

3. Listen to white noise or classical music: For most of us, working silently isn’t the most productive way to work. I personally love listening to classical music while I work or turn on a sound machine app that can create some subtle white noise so that I can focus better, especially when I am working on difficult or stressful tasks.

4. Theme your workdays: Ever since I began theming my work days I have been much more efficient. Essentially, I took all my major work tasks and grouped like items together to come up with themes for each day of the week and on those days I use the theme to guide my work. Although I may need to stray from time to time for urgent issues, theming my days has kept me more accountable and helps me streamline my work.

5. Batch like items together: This goes along with theming my workdays, but whether or not you theme your days, you should always batch process your work. Jumping from task to task has been scientifically proven to be a waste of time, so when you can spend a chunk of time doing the same task over and over, you save yourself time by working more efficiently.

6. Set a timer to complete annoying tasks: Whenever I am avoiding tasks, I find the best thing to do is to set a timer to get them done! Having the deadline of a timer helps me get past my mental blocks and just do the hard work. Give it a try next time you recognize that you are avoiding certain tasks.

7. Shut your door: Shutting your door is a simple way to tell yourself and others that you are busy working. Having an open door policy in the office is nice, but when people see an open door and want to waste some time at work, they head straight for it! Likewise, when your door is open, it encourages you more often to leave your office or allow passers by to distract you from your tasks. So keep the door shut and if you are working on a particularly difficult project or task, you might want to leave a Do Not Disturb note on your door to discourage visits.

8. Make a NOT To Do List: No matter if you work in an office for a big corporation or if you work in your bedroom on your own small business, tasks come across our desks and emails that we should not waste our time on and one of the hardest parts of managing your personal workload is understanding which tasks you should not be doing. I’m a people pleaser and when I get a task, any task, I take ownership of it and strive to complete it, but through the years I’ve learned that sometimes tasks come up and they are not worth your time, even if they are assigned to you. So, as you learn about these useless tasks, keep a list of them so you know not to do them in the future. If you work for yourself it will be easy for you to delegate them to an assistant or ignore them completely, but if you don’t you may need to have a slightly difficult conversation with your boss and let them know you aren’t completing the task and give them a reasonable and well thought out explanation why the tasks is a waste. A lot of time, especially in corporate culture, tasks get attention that are worthless and our superiors keep assigning the task because that’s the way it’s always been done. Be willing to stand up for change to save yourself and your company the time and energy.

9. Use an email autoresponder and only check email twice a day: For some, this hack is NOT an option, but for those whose work is not tied to checking emails for customer service or something similar, you should give this a try. Set up an auto response email that says something like “Thank you for your email. I generally reply to all emails within 24 hours but if this is an emergency please call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX”. What this simple auto responder does is sets an expectation to anyone emailing you that they will get a response but not immediately, while also creating a process for urgent issues so that you can turn off from your email and check it when you are ready without fear of missing something important.

10. Keep your cell phone off your desk: I am always distracted by my iPhone. Not just by messages but also by the fact that I can at any time pick it up and check Instagram if I want, and I unfortunately spend too much time during my day doing this without even thinking about it. So, when I keep my phone off my desk, either on a charger on another table or in my bag, I remove the distraction. Since I use a Mac, if I get a phone call while my phone is off my desk, I can actually screen and answer the call from my laptop without having to get up, but if you are worried that you may miss important calls, devices like the Ringly or Apple Watch notify you without having to keep your phone out.

11. Keep hydrated by drinking water at set intervals: Keeping hydrated through the day is very important for mental productivity, but if you keep a bottle out and sip on it all day, you’ll end up disrupting your workflow for bathroom breaks. So, to combat this, I try to drink my fluids in bulk at regular intervals so that I’m not running back and forth from the bathroom as I work.

12. Reward yourself with activity after each 2 hour block of work: As I work, not matter how productive I am being, I always get the urge to check social media, read a blog post or watch a YouTube video, however, I have started to discipline myself to only engage in these activities after I have completed a block of work. This helps me to create a reward system that entices me to work faster and complete more tasks throughout the day. And it’s much healthier for you than taking a snack or smoke break!

I hope you enjoyed these twelve workday hacks and if you give any of them a try I want to hear about it! Tag me on Instagram @MissTrenchcoat and use #CharmedGTD in your description so me and the rest of our community can follow along with your productivity journey!

xoxo,

Online Business

5 Mistake Brands Make when Working with Online Influencers

5 Mistake Brands Make when Working with Online Influencers

Last week I posted some great PR tips for bloggers, YouTubers and small businesses that were looking to put their best foot forward online in order to attract sponsors or customers, but this week, I want to turn the tables a bit and discuss some best practices for brands or businesses who are looking to solicit online influencers to help promote their products. As a blogger who has worked with sponsors in the past and is often approached by brands for partnerships, you’d be surprised at the mistakes brands and small businesses are making when approaching an influencer. So, I wanted to share with my fellow small business owners the common mistakes I see being made and give some tips for reaching out to bloggers or influencers in a way that will get you a more positive response and better results from the influencer if and when you proceed with a partnership opportunity.

Mistake #1: You don’t do your homework on the influencer!

As a business owner, I understand that when you want to spread awareness of your brand or products you may approach multiple influencers with the mindset that having more options is better than fewer options. However, it’s very important that you really do your homework before you solicit a blogger or influencer and really understand who they are, what they do online and who their audience is. As an influencer, I get dozens of emails a week from small brands that want me to share about their products, however, it’s clear to me when when I read the first paragraph of their emails that the vast majority don’t know who I am and have sent a blanket email to a countless number of bloggers hoping to get a response. These offers are impersonal and often out of line with the context of my blog and I delete them immediately. However, when I receive an email from a brand that clearly knows me and my audience I consider their offer much more seriously and take the time to respond and interact with them. If you are a small business owner, I challenge you to do your homework and make an effort to understand the blogger you are contacting before making them an offer. I promise you will have a much more positive result and in doing your research you may be able to pitch your offer in a personalized way that will impress and flatter them into a partnership!

Mistake #2: You waste time by giving too much or too little information.

After you have done your research on an influencer and decide to reach out, make sure you respect your own time as well as the time of the influencer by keeping your email direct and informative without turning it into a short story. Give the influencer all the information they would need to make a decision on whether they will want to work with you, and make a simple pitch that clearly states your offer and objectives, as well as the benefits you are willing to offer them for their service. Don’t hold back important information or be misleading in order to “hook” a potential partner. When you are upfront with all the information, not only can the influencer make a better decision, but it will help expedite the process if you begin working together.

Mistake #3: You forget that you get what you pay for!

The number 1 mistake a brand or small business can make when working with a blogger or online influencer is that they think they can get something for nothing! I think the practice of soliciting an influencer and offering them free products or social interactions for their work is atrocious. You get what you pay for! If you expect someone to review your products or use their influence to further your brand, you must be willing to pay. Value is an exchange, they do the work and you pay them for it. If you’re not willing to exchange a fair value or their effort, it will end up costing you dearly with your reputation!

Mistake #4: You fail to negotiate.

I understand that for many small businesses, the idea of striking a deal is daunting. It may be our first instinct to approach an influencer with an offer and then if they do not accept the offer, to turn away and pitch the same offer to a new influencer. It’s easier to turn away than it is to open a dialog of negotiation, but if you have spent time doing your homework to identify the influencer you want to work with, negotiating is essential. If your offer is well received, find out what objections the influencer has and edit your offer to overcome them. You don’t have to give it all away, but even just showing that you are willing to discuss the terms of an offer can go a long way to getting someone to agree to those terms.

Mistake #5: You fail to lay out clear expectations.

The final mistake I see small businesses and brands making when working with influencers is that they fail to lay out clear terms on who is doing what and when. A mistake like this could lead to communication issues where the influencer under-performs their responsibilities or the business fails to fulfill their end of the deal, which can lead to disaster if an influencer is left feeling cheated! Make sure to lay out a clear plan that details what each party is responsible for and when delivery of those details are expected. Don’t be afraid to double check details and over communicate in an effort to keep both parties responsible for upholding their end of the partnership!

Now that you understand the 5 most common mistakes I see businesses making when working with influencers online, I hope you can take this information and make better choices when it comes to working with those who can grow your brand. I think bloggers, YouTubers and social media content creators are great resources for the small business community online, and they can be more effective for small business growth than standard advertising or marketing. Just make sure to follow these best practices when working with them for positive results and brand building!

xoxo,

Career Productivity

Letting Go to Do Your Best Work!

Does this ever happen to you? You sit down to start an important project, you know exactly what’s expected because you have either done it before or are familiar with what the end result should be, however, even before you have begun, those expectations begin to nag at you. You begin to worry that you may not do a good job, you obsess and knit pick over elements of your project and after all your mental anguish and second guessing you finish your project and it all turns out fine. Maybe you have also experienced this second scenario. You sit down to start an important project, but this time it’s something you have never done before. You’re not exactly sure how to begin or how things will look by the end, but you think about your project logically, put in a solid effort and in the end, it turns out spectacular! Why does that second scenario usually turn out better than the first? You would think that someone would do better in a situation where they had more experience and understood the expectations, but that isn’t always true. It’s beginners luck! You may have heard of it before, it’s a common phenomenon where someone attempts something new and ends up successful in their effort. Now, while “beginner’s luck” has never been statistically proven, most of us have experienced it in one way or another and we can certainly learn a thing or two about how to do great work from it!

Beginner’s luck is tied to the idea of expectations. When you attempt something new and admittedly know very little about it, you often find that when you give it a try, you are much better than you would have assumed. That’s because you didn’t expect much, but you gave an honest effort none-the-less! As humans, we are often tied up in notions of what is possible and what is impossible, and in that mindset we project upon ourselves what we think we can do, what we think we can’t do, and we end up surprising ourselves when we actually succeed where we had no expectations of success.

Okay, so how do we use this concept of beginner’s luck to our advantage? There are a number of ways where a shift in your perception to this beginner’s luck mentality can help you do your best work and live your best life!

1. Don’t be afraid to try new things, you will do better than you think!

This goes for work and personal situations. Although many of us are plagued with fear of the unknown, beginner’s luck tells us that when we try something with an honest effort we get a better result than anyone would have guessed. Even if you have tried something before with a negative result, giving it an honest shot the second time around may prove fruitful!

2. Reach for the “impossible” because that standard is imagined.

Voices outside and even inside of ourselves are often telling us what is possible and what is impossible. Think of these voices as bookies at a horse race giving you the odds in a situation. If you bet on the long-shot and lose, you just lost the few dollars you initially bet, but if you win you will rake it in! The odds may be against you in a certain scenario, but taking beginner’s luck into account, anything is possible. When it comes to your future and your dreams, if you have more to gain than to lose, trying for impossible is actually a better bet!

3. Let go of your expectations and just get to work!

Don’t think, just do! Thinking can often over complicate things and cause irrational fears to pop up. If you let go of your expectations for the end result, you will be open to whatever direction you are led to while you work. Some of the most creative and brilliant solutions have been found by accident while trying to find a solution to a different problem. Do not think, become.

Are there any areas of your work where you feel like expectations are getting the better of you? In what ways do you plan on letting go of your expectations and embracing the concept of beginner’s luck to help you do better work? Let me know in the comments how you think you can execute these ideas in your own work life and feel free to share any success stories that may have resulted from your own beginner’s luck experiences!

xoxo,

This article was first published on Strange & Charmed on July 10th, 2014 and is being reposted as part of my Holiday Prep Hiatus! For the months of November & December I will be recycling some vintage S&C content that you may have missed in order to give myself some extra time to finalize projects and spend time with my family during the holiday season. All reposted content will be marked as such. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past blog post!

Career

How to Succeed at Work!

I know I spend a lot of time on my blog and through my various social media platforms talking about how to succeed with your own online business, however, as someone who spent over 5 years working for a Fortune 50 company and had 4 different jobs in those 5 years, I clearly also know a thing or two about how to succeed at a 9-5 job as well! I know that for many of you reading this, landing that great 9-5 job or working your way up in your current company is going to be a real priority, so here are my five best tips to find success at work!

1. Exhibit Curiosity

Employers love it when they have employees that are interested in their work and curious enough to take extra time to research subjects and topics that may help them come to a greater understanding of their job. When you show a true interest in your job, your boss and company will notice and will reward such curiosity with increased responsibility, pay and ultimately, promotions!

2. Work Hard

This one may seem pretty obvious, however, you’d be surprised at the number of employees who think they are working hard but really aren’t doing all they can to benefit their employer. Sheer hours spent on the job isn’t a true indicator of productivity and hard work. What truly matters is how much you are able to accomplish with your time. If you are constantly ahead of schedule with projects and tasks, that will go a long way to show your work ethic!

3. Try Different Things

When it comes to working your average 9-5 people tend to get into routines and habits for their work. That’s not a bad thing, but problems can arise when you become too rigid with those routines and refuse to take on new tasks and experiences. When your supervisor presents you will new tasks and challenges, you should eagerly be saying “Yes” to these opportunities because this is your chance to try something new, expand your knowledge and show that you can take on new and different responsibilities!

4. Don’t let anyone rain on your parade

I’m not going to lie, competition is always going to arise in corporate culture, it’s just the way it is, but you shouldn’t let that competition get to your head or throw you off balance. Ignore the office politics, gossip mongering and rumor mill and focus on your work and producing great results. Try to be that beacon of positive energy in your company or on your team so that people always think of you as a good person and worker. Acknowledge that when you are successful with your job, people are always going to try to tear you down one way or another so that they can take your success and claim it for themselves, but you can prevent this by tearing clear of the drama!

5. Ask for what you want

Too many workers, mainly women, believe that if they work hard and keep their head down, they will be acknowledged at work with raises and promotions, however, that is not the way corporate culture works. It’s not enough that you do your job and do it well, you really need to make sure you are clear with your employer about what you want from your career and the opportunities you expect them to give you so long as you continue to be a productive asset to the company. Remember, corporate culture is competitive and if you don’t show interest in that open job position or ask for that raise, trust me, your employer isn’t just going to hand it over to you!

If you would like to learn more about how to get ahead in your current job, make sure to check out my series called How to Stand Out at Work. It’s filled with numerous tips, tricks and advice on how to gain more favor and responsibility at work so that you are poised for a raise or a promotion! Let me know what you thought of these tips and feel free to leave your best tips for success at work below in the comments. I’d love to hear your stories and how you have been able to climb the corporate ladder no matter how big or small your company!

books

What the Successful Know About Habits is Why You’re Not Achieving Your Potential

If you remember my On My iPhone post from the end of March, you may already know that I have been listening to a very popular business book called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. I actually recently finished the book and I have to admit it was pretty eye opening to hear about the role our habits plan in our lives and specifically how this pertains to success. Not just success as in a vague representation of our lives, but in terms of how often we as individuals are able to achieve the things we set out to do. I know I’ve discussed before that people often comment to me that they believe I am a very focused and disciplined person, an observation that never fully made sense to me until I was exposed to this book. The book basically explained to me the key information about habits that successful people know and use to their advantage, including how my own habits were bringing me consistent success without me ever feeling like I was “working hard.” Since childhood I have been operating under a certain set of habits that were instilled in me as a child and basically have defined my work ethic ever since. So, the fact that I am constantly achieving my goals, while obvious to outsiders as being a result of disciplined action and focus, just felt like normal day to day life to me. Now, if you feel like you are someone who is not achieving their potential, guess what? I have good news for you! You can change your habits so that success is a habitual activity for your. You just need to understand what successful people know about habits, something I fully realized while reading this book, and am going to share with you today!

Successful People Know that Our Lives are Ruled by Habits

You may think that you have control over your life, but when you boil down your days everything comes down to your habits. Humans are creatures of habit that rely on a sense of regularity to their lives in order to survive, but successful people are able to leverage knowledge of their habits and use these instinctive procedures to make them better at what they do. You can argue against this point if you want, but just accepting the fact that habits play a major role in our lives will make changing them to your own benefit that much easier. Everything from our work, sleep, social relationships, and diet are based on our habits and unfortunately, habits are a hard thing to break. If you have ever tried to quit smoking or implement a new diet or excursive regime, you know first hand that it’s hard to change habits because they are part of an overall routine. When you just try to start or stop a habit cold-turkey, you fail because the overall routine kicks in, resets itself and brings you back to your old habits fast, but when you swap one habit for another strategically, you find that success is achievable!

Successful People Know that You Achieve More when You Don’t have to Think

Remember back to grade school when you were learning math and the teacher taught you how to add and subtract. But it wasn’t enough that the teacher would teach you HOW to perform addition and subtraction, they always went a step further and forced the whole class to remember lines of equations repeatedly. 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 1 + 3 = 4, etc and so on. Well, if we knew how to add and subtract, why did we need to basically memorize addition tables? Wasn’t it enough that we knew how to add, so that if we were faced with the situation of having to add 1 + 1, we could figure out how to get to 2? Well the answer is no, it’s not enough, and the reason is because it’s always easier, quicker, and more efficent to know information or to perform an activity when the outcome is a knee jerk reaction as opposed to having to think. Thinking requires effort, it’s a process in and of itself, so when it comes down to having to complete an action, it’s actually more efficient when you know what to do, as opposed to having to think about what to do. When you have to think, time is wasted, errors can occur and questions can even arise in your own mind of whether or not you are correct. When things are an automatic response, its much simpler and smoother of a process. This is why successful people have systems and routines in place that allow them to remove the burden of thought from their lives and work so that important tasks are habitual and therefore more efficient and accurate. Then they can reserve all that mental energy that they would have used on thinking and put it to good use working on solving problems and developing new sources of income!

Successful People Know that You Are What You Repeatedly Do

Aristotle said it best “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” If all our actions in life boil down to our habits, then being a person who is aware of and in control of their habits is almost like a litmus test for success. If you can control your habits enough to achieve success once, you can do it again, and soon you can become a person who seemingly succeeds at all they do. Success and achievement are recipes, they are not the same for each and every person, but once you find the recipe to success in your own life, the sky is the limit for what you can achieve once you apply that knowledge and routine to other aspects of your life. This is actually the reason I purchased this book to begin with. As an online entrepreneur, I noticed that other successful entrepreneurs had many of the same habits and once I started seeing the pattern, I knew I needed to learn more about how to control my habits so that I was achieving at a higher level! If you look around and notice that all the people you look up to seem to have habits and routines in place that you are currently lacking, it may be time for you to change your habits as well!

Overall, I think that The Power of Habit was a great business book, and I’m certainly glad I purchased it! I will say, it was a very fun book to listen to on tape as I did, via Audible.com and I would suggest for other entrepreneurs or anyone else who categorizes themselves as a life long learner, that you sign up for an Audible membership because you are seriously able to devour more books and knowledge this way! I’m not sponsored by Audible or anything, you guys know that when I find something I like, I love to share it with you all, and so far Audible has been an excellent tool for me that I plan to use to the fullest extent!

xoxo,

Productivity

Getting the Most Out of Your College Classes

As the fall semester of most colleges and universities comes to a close, you may be taking a good hard look at your grades for the semester and wondering how you could have done better. If you are early in your college career, you may not yet have learned the best ways to maximize your time in class and in college as a whole, so I thought now would be the perfect time to share some tips about how to get more out of your college classes. Think about these tips as you head into winter break and get yourself a plan of action for the spring semester!

1. Show Up: Look, college isn’t like high school, you are actually paying to be there and believe it or not, the time spent in class can have a profound affect on your knowledge and understanding of the world. Make your best effort to show up to all your classes, and make sure to get there early to snag a great seat!

2. Sit in the front row or center aisle: Apparently, studies have shown that students that sit in either the front row or center aisle of a classroom score higher than their peers in other seats. Make this special T zone your permanent destination in every class.

3. Actively participate in class: Yep, classes can sometimes be boring and even though you are in college, there are still classes that you are required to take that may not interest you. But, you know what they say? Time flies when you’re having fun! So, actively engage in your classes, take copious amounts of notes and ask questions regularly to keep your brain working. This will result in more information retention for you and a much quicker and enjoyable experience all around.

4. Buddy up with your professors: Although some of your professors may seem big and scary, for the most part, they can be some of the most interesting people you will ever meet. Now, I’m not saying that you need to hang out with your professor regularly, however, getting comfortable with them will drastically help you with your classes and workload, because you will feel more at ease asking them for help or advice. Plus, if you become friendly with professors in your major, they are more likely to write you great recommendation letters for grad school in the future or be a great reference for a resume!

5. Get your assignments done early: In most classes you will receive a syllabus on day one outlining all your assignments and their due dates for your class. If you stay on top of your work and get your papers and projects done early, you will be ahead of the curve. A week or two before that assignment is due, when your other classmates are just beginning their work, you can bring yours to your professor and ask them to review it for you before you hand in a final draft. This means you get feedback from your professor on your project or paper with enough time to make the necessary edits and hand in perfect A+ work!

So, those are my tips for getting more out of your college classes. If you are in college or know someone who is, feel free to share this post with them, and don’t forget to check out my tips for a Productive and Successful College Career, as well as my Biggest Regrets from College!

xoxo,

Career

Why it’s Important to Wear Lipstick to Work!

Now, before you get the wrong idea I want to make perfectly clear that I do consider myself a feminist, but also a pragmatist! Sometimes you just gotta use what God gave you and say to hell with the rest! You may not think that wearing a little lipstick is going to make a difference either way in your life or career, but it does, and perhaps not in the way that you might assume. You’re probably thinking that I am advocating wearing lipstick to work as some sort of way to please the general vanity of the masses, as though wearing lipstick means that you are trying to make a good impression and make yourself look your very best! It’s true, wearing lipstick probably does have that affect on your co-workers and bosses, either male or female, but that’s not the reason I suggest wearing it! Nor am I suggesting that you wear it to heighten the appearance of your femininity and perhaps make yourself seem more attractive to the opposite sex, thus gaining some competitive edge that usually only works on police officers and speeding tickets!

No, the reason I am advocating that you wear lipstick to work is because it has been scientifically proven to help women get the attention of others during discussions! Don’t ask me where the study is that concludes this, I honestly have never seen it, I have only heard about it! Once, I attended a women’s professional development workshop where the keynote speaker insisted that if you wear lipstick to work, specifically to meetings or during any sort of discussions or negotiations, the people in the room are more likely to give you their attention. It has something to do with your mouth being highlighted by the lipstick so that it draws attention to you and to the value of your words. Pretty interesting I thought! The speaker even went so far as to glance around the room and eventually pointed me out to stand up, saying that my lipstick was so bright (I was wearing a hot pink for sure!) that I got her attention despite the fact that I was seated in the very last row!

I love being made a positive example of, but I really think she was right! For some time before this event I had been wearing bright pink lipstick (in a color that suits me, don’t think I will just pick up any old neon pink I can find!) because I thought it drew attention to me. After all, not many people think they can pull off the color, so most don’t even try. I had been getting compliments on my lipstick for a long while by the time the speaker had pointed me out that day at the meeting, and I have received those compliments ever since. I think that for a long time I had already known what she was telling us, that your lipstick mattered! So make sure you wear it and make sure you pick as bold a color as you can muster! Keeping the attention of a room is a difficult task to achieve, but to think all you need to achieve it is a little bright lipstick and the confidence to wear it!

Do you wear lipstick to work? How do you feel confidence-wise when you wear it? Do you notice that more people pay attention to what you say when wearing it? Has this article inspired you to wear bright lipstick more often? Maybe you think this isn’t true or doesn’t work? Let us know what you think in the comments!

About

Hi, my name is Alexis, but I’m known as @MissTrenchcoat all across the internet! I’m an online entrepreneur who helps ambitious women plan for a balanced life and business. I design productivity tools, classes and courses based on the latest productivity science and research to help you get all your big thoughts, plans, dreams and ideas out of your head and onto paper so you can get down to business creating your dream life!

I have been obsessed with the topic of productivity since I was young because I am naturally a very lazy person (if you can believe it!) and for me, productivity & planning were tools I could use to get ahead with less time or effort. If you knew me growing up, I would have seemed like a textbook over-achiever and I’m still considered by those who know me to be a high-performer, meaning my capacity to execute on work and solve problems is very high. When people want to know my secret, I tell them- it’s no secret! I am a devotee to my planner and the study of productivity and I’ve made it my life’s work to take everything I’ve learned and share it with you, my loyal friends and followers! I know not everyone has the time (or interest) in making productivity a full time study, but I have seen how understanding certain tools, strategies and skills can transform a life forever!

So, you might be wondering, how does someone go from being a lazy over-achiever to entrepreneur? Well, since you asked…

Growing up, I was lucky enough to have family members who worked in tech, so I grew up around computers even at a time when most families still didn’t own one. I love computers and the internet so I started dabbling with online platforms, building websites, and then blogging hit the scene! I started my first real blog in 2008 after graduating from college and then started a YouTube Channel to go along with it in 2009 (I told you, I’m OG internet here)! As time passed, I honed my crafts of writing and video creation in my spare time while I worked a traditional corporate 9 to 5, growing an audience online and loving the creative freedom of the work. Eventually, as I made more and more connections within my community and saw how my content was positively affecting the women who read my blog and watched my videos, I started to see how my blogging and youtube side hustle could turn into a legitimate business, and others around me did as well. Friends, family, and co-workers often told me they saw me working from home running my own business, an idea that wasn’t completely foreign to me. Ever since I read The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris sometime back in 2010, I understood that an online business was a legitimate career path that would give me ultimate time and location freedom, and you can imagine that the lazy over-achiever in me really loved the sound of that!

So, in 2014 I left my secure career at a Fortune 50 to run my own online business full time and replaced my income in 6 months. Since then it has been my mission to help other women take back control of their time and manifest the life they want to live. For many of the women I serve in my community, productivity, entrepreneurship and online business play a significant role in giving them time and location freedom to pursue more important and meaningful aspects of their lives like motherhood, family, travel, spirituality, and community service. I think we have all seen first hand how women can often be so hard working and self-sacrificing taking care of others that they put their own wants and needs last. This is a trend that I desperately want to end because expectation and societal pressures are literally causing women to work themselves into death and disease. I know there is a better way for women to do it all and lead the fulfilling lives they desire by prioritizing themselves and managing their time, energy and expectations!

That is my mission, my passion, my research and my business. Over the past years working for myself online, I have created a profitable passive income business that gives me the time, financial and location freedom to do this important work and get the message out to women across the globe! So that is why I am so glad that you are here on this journey with me, and I sincerely hope you stay in touch with me to learn everything I have to share and help me spread this important message to other women that they too can manifest their dream life with a little clarity, planning and self-discipline!

So, if this sounds like you, Welcome! I’m glad you found Strange & Charmed! You can follow me via Twitter & Instagram @MissTrenchcoat or follow S&C on Bloglovin if you prefer! You can also Subscribe to the blog by entering your email into the widget on the sidebar!

Thanks so much for stopping by & make sure to share what you are reading on S&C with your social networks. Use the hashtag #StrangeandCharmed so we can see all your tweets, instagrams and messages!

xoxo,

P.S.: If you want to get your hands on my latest Tools, Strategies and Skills, head on over to TheCharmedShop.com and check out my collection of printable planners, productivity and business master classes, books, and courses! No matter where you are on your productivity journey or what your goals, there is something wonderful waiting for you on the shop!

lifestyle

Five Ways to Design Your Dream Nightstand

Its so important to have a good nightstand set up by your bed. Not only does it keep important items are your fingertips while your sleeping, but it can also keep you organized and prevent you from waking up and walking around your room or home to get items to make your night more comfortable. Below are a few must have items that we think will help you sleep better at night!

1. A spacious bedside table: Depending on the amount of space you have to work with and also the amount of items you like to keep handy by your bed, your needs for a bedside table may vary, but I do have a few pointers for picking out an ideal table. First, you want to make sure that the table is not too high or too low for your bed. You should be able to reach over out of bed and grab an item easily without having to sit up in bed or hang down out of the bed. I would suggest measuring how high you would like the table before you buy and make sure to bring that information with you when shopping. Also, I always think more storage is better than less, so unless you are a true minimalist, try to get a spacious table with drawers. Even if you don’t keep much by your bed, you can always use the drawers to hold your lingerie or delicates, freeing up space in your closet or clothing chest.

2. Lamp: You may not think you need a bedside lamp if you have overhead lighting or other lighting sources in your bedroom, but bedside lamps are great to keep on in the evening while your trying to get to sleep because that softer light sets the mood for sleepy time.

3. Remote caddy: Although you may have a good amount of storage in your bedside table, sometimes its easier to store certain items in a caddy beside your bed. My caddy holds remotes, books and iPads in a safe and out of the way location between my bed and side table.

4. Phone and tech chargers: Obviously, if you have any portable gadgets like a cellphone or iPod that you use frequently, you will want to keep them near you at bedtime and having chargers conveniently located beside your bed will remind you to charge the items while your sleeping. Its a good habit to get into, especially if you are someone who finds that they forget to charge their phones because the chargers are elsewhere in your home.

5. Clock: Its probably a good idea to have a clock on your bedside table even if you use your phone as an alarm. I love my clock because its big neon letters are easy to read in the middle of the night so that I don’t feel the need to grab my cell phone to check the time.

What else do you keep on your nightstand? Leave us a comment and let us know!