Strange & Charmed

The Steps Every Business Owner Must Take Before Going Full Time

Last week I shared the story of how I left my job, built my online business and replaced my salary all in six months and many of you told me that you wanted me to share some more details on how you could make the transition to full time for yourself. So, today I am sharing some steps that I believe you must take before you make the leap!

1. Become financially stable: Thankfully, my husband and I have been prioritizing our financial situation since the first day we started living together. I don’t think I could have gone full time for my own business without knowing that our finances were in order, and I would never advise anyone to leave the security of a full time job to work for themselves until their debt to income ratio was balanced. As a business owner, the amount of money you tend to make reflects the amount of time and effort you are putting into your business and knowing where you stand financially and how much money you need to bring it each month to live comfortably is crucial.

2. Have a savings cushion: When I went full time, my husband and I made sure we had enough money in the bank so that we could live comfortably in the event that my business failed and he lost his job. Now this may seem like an extreme scenario, but in today’s economy, nothing is guaranteed, and we needed to make sure we would be okay in the event of a catastrophic emergency. Obviously, the amount of money you need in the bank and what I need may be different, which is why you need to make sure you are financially stable and have a strong understanding of your finances before making the leap to a full time business owner yourself.

3. Establish income proof: As I discussed in my personal story, I set a goal for myself to hit with the income I was generating from my business. I wanted to make X amount of money a month in order to prove to myself that my business would work and that I could succeed. So many people think they should concept a business, leave their job and then get to work on their idea, however, I think it’s important to start your business while you have the security of a full time or part time job so that you can prove that your idea works and that you have a sense that you can indeed make money from your business.

4. Have a financial plan: I would like to go deeper into this idea of financial planning as a small business owner at a later time, but I do believe that having a financial plan in place for how you intend to save for retirement and even cover the cost of health insurance for yourself or your family is very important. Since my husband does work full time, his job did cover our health insurance so I knew that wasn’t going to be a problem for me when I made the transition, but you need to evaluate your own situation and understand what financial strain your transition could have and make a plan to combat it!

5. Find a support system: Whenever you are trying something new in life its great to have a support system in place to make sure you continue to stay inspired and feel like you and your work matter. You have two ways to approach this. If you are lucky enough, you may find real life support, this could be a spouse, partner, family or friends, but for many of us, our friends and family don’t always understand or relate to our entrepreneurial goals. If this is the case for you, you can always look to finding support online through business coaching programs and groups where like minded entrepreneurs can gather together to support each other. My online business program, Empire Building, has really been that support for me and the dozens of members of the program as well who are committed to building their business and community online by supporting each other! If you are looking for a supportive entrepreneurial community, I invite you to take a look at Empire Building to see if it fits your needs and learning style, but whatever you choose, I do suggest having that system in place to keep you mentally strong for the long and hard journey of small business ownership that you have in front of you!

If Empire Building sounds interesting to you, I want to let you know about my upcoming Free Webinar on my 5 Pillar System for Building a Successful Online Business! I’ll be reviewing the 5 Pillars of the Empire Building Program and giving you strategies and insights you can use immediately to start building your brand online, PLUS I’ll be sharing a special limited time offer for the 1 Year Birthday of the program that you won’t want to miss if you are interested in signing up!

Click here to reserve your spot for this informative FREE Webinar Training Live coming up and to also access the replay and downloads! Hope to see you there live!

xoxo,

This post first appeared on Strange & Charmed on August 13th, 2015 and is being republished for the 2016 Empire Building Relaunch!

Business

5 Common Social Media Mistakes that can Devastate Your Business + 1 Resource that can Help You Repair the Damage and Grow in a Positive Direction!

When it comes to using social media as a business owner to gain customers, amass a following and ultimately grow your business, there is a lot of conflicting information on the right and wrong strategies to use. Things change so quickly online and you may very well be using a strategy that is not just outdated and ineffective, but actually damaging to your business. As an online business consultant, many clients come to me when they are at a loss for how to proceed with their online presence after weeks, months or even years of effort have left them feeling desperate, uninspired, and with little to no following. Over and over again I hear many of the same common mistakes being made with social media strategy, and today I want to highlight five of the most common mistakes I hear about that can really ruin your business reputation and leave your business behind the times in terms of social media. If any of these examples sound like you, don’t worry! There is a light at the end of the tunnel and I also want to share with you 1 resource that can help you reverse any damage you may have unintentionally caused to your business and get your numbers growing in a positive direction!

1. Paying for follows or likes

Paying for followers is an antiquated practice that is unfortunately still touted as online business cannon by a few misguided online marketers. Not only is paying for follows a useless way to build a following online, on many platforms it is actually against the rules! When you pay for your followers, you aren’t actually getting a customer base of people who are there to interact with you and buy from your business, you are simply getting names on a screen that essentially do nothing but cost you money. When it comes down to it, you may think it makes your business look better to have a solid number of followers, but people aren’t blind. When they see the large follower count and little to no interaction, they are going to realize something is up. Don’t make this mistake, save your money and apply it to real investments for your business like the resource shared at the end of this post if you are truly concerned about looking good on social platforms!

2. Posting inconsistently

One of the hardest parts of running a business is developing a sense of trust with your customers. It can take a lifetime to earn and seconds to destroy, especially in the fast paced world of online marketing. When businesses use social media platforms inconsistently, they aren’t just creating a scenario that makes it hard for them to attract new followers and potential customers, but they are also putting a big fat label on their business that says “we are inconsistent and you can’t trust us!” Unfortunately, when it comes to using social media for your business, the idea of doing something rather than nothing doesn’t actually apply. In this case it is better for you to stay silent than to open your mouth only to put your foot in it! So, if you are using social media inconsistently, you need to quickly reevaluate your platforms and decide if you need to take a step back and take on less in order to provide consistency and quality on the platforms on which you do choose to engage!

3. Ignoring your comments

As a business, ignoring the comments and messages of your followers is akin to walking away from a customer in mid sentence. If you are lucky enough to be receiving engagement from your audience, it means you are doing something right and have a high chance of making a sale. Don’t just walk away from the followers that are engaging with you. Make sure to carve out time in your schedule to reply to messages and comments from your fans, and of course to share and like an content they post about you!

4. Playing in your own yard

You may think that the purpose of a business developing different social media platforms is so they can use them to communicate with their community. However, when all you ever do is use your own platforms to converse with your customers and followers, you miss opportunities to engaged and attract new customers and followers from everywhere else online! Now, I’m not saying that you have to interact with people all over the web, but the best strategy for building your following involves leaving your own space. It’s so important for businesses to interact with each other and make an appearance on other people’s platforms. This could be through a guest post, a collaboration or even just interacting in the comments of another community with the same ideal customer base, but you need to put your business out there!

5. Not optimizing across platforms

The final very common mistake that businesses make when using social media is that they treat every platform the same when they should be using each to their own strengths! Your website and blog should be treated differently than your Instagram account, just as Twitter does not operate under the same conditions as Facebook. If you are going to use multiple platforms for your business, it’s important to learn the differences of each and how to optimize the content you post to each so that you are maximizing the effort you’re spending in each area!

This 1 Resource can help You Repair the Damage and Build Your Following!

Now, like I mentioned earlier, if you believe you are making one or more of these extremely common social media mistakes in promoting your business online, the good news is that things can be done to repair the damage and restore the reputation of your business online. So now I’d like to tell you about one resource that is the equivolent of the “easy button” when it comes to learning about and understanding how to use social media effectively for your online business, and that resource is Empire Building!

Empire Building is my flagship online business program that teaches you the ins and outs of using social media to build a business online using tried and true strategies and techniques. You don’t need to spend time you don’t have researching social media platforms and learning how to use each efficiently, within Empire Building, I give you all the information you need to know to get started using these platforms the right way so that you are moving the needle in your business!

If you haven’t heard, all 5 of my Empire Building Blueprints (workbooks that include information and worksheets that teach you everything you need to know about building your online business) are published and now is the perfect time to join the program if you want to jumpstart success with your social platforms! The 5 Blueprints include:

Branding
Communication
Community Building
Advertising
and Income

When you sign up for Empire Building, not only do you get access to my 5 Empire Building Blueprints, my dedicated Facebook community for group coaching and unlimited Q&A access to me, but now you also get 4 additional Upgrade Blueprints as a special bonus! The bonus upgrades include:

Creating Click-Worthy Headlines
Pricing Strategies that Sell
Creating Your Business Plan
and Email List Building Basics

Click here to reserve your spot for this informative FREE Webinar Training Live coming up and to also access the replay and downloads! Hope to see you there live!

xoxo,

This post first appeared on Strange & Charmed on August 17th, 2015 and is being republished for the 2016 Empire Building Relaunch!

Online Business

How to Balance a #SIDEHUSTLE with Your 9 to 5

How to Balance a #SIDEHUSTLE with Your 9-5

I spent 6 years working on my business as a side hustle before I ever dreamed of taking my business full time! If you aren’t familiar with the term, a side hustle is when you have a 9-5 job (or equivalent) and then you have a project you are working on in your free time that is your own. Usually, when we talk side hustles, we mean a business we are running on the side as though it were a second job that may one day become our full time gig, but not always. It can also refer to a volunteer project or cause you are passionate about that you never intend to make any money from but just enjoy doing in your spare time. Whatever your side hustle may be, in order to give that project our full attention and really get the most out of it so that it can one day become more if we wish it to, I have a few tips to impart upon you as someone who has been there, done that and built a full time business from it! This is not the story of how I left my full time job for my side hustle, if you want to read that you can here. This post covers the important things you need to know and focus on to successfully balance your 9-5 job and your side hustle so that you can do both effectively!

Get Clear on Your Business Vision

The first thing you really need to understand when trying to balance a full time job with a side hustle is the vision for your side hustle. Is this something you want to make money doing? Is this something you want to become your full time job? What exactly are you trying to accomplish with your side hustle? What key activities do you need to accomplish to make your side hustle happen? You may not have a 5 or 10 year plan laid out for this yet, but having a well rounded sense of what you are doing and why is important!

Set goals

Once you understand your vision, you need to set some goals for your side hustle! Goals in terms of your output and the activities you will perform on a weekly basis, as well as goals for input in terms of results you are seeking. For example, when I started my side hustle, it was just a blog in the beginning that didn’t have much direction or any goals, but once I set the goal to blog three times a week, my blog really started to take off because I was putting in consistent effort. Simultaneously, I had set goals for my blog in terms of monthly page views, at first I set those goals low, 1,000 page views a month, and once I hit that goal, I raised it to 5,000, then 10,000 etc! Setting goals for output as well as input are important to help you keep an eye on your results to ensure you are moving your side hustle along!

Make a simple project plan

When you have a full time job and a side hustle time can get very tight, so I think it’s always best to keep your side projects as simple as possible. Don’t put too much on your plate at one time or else you will get overwhelmed and one or both of your jobs will be negatively affected. For example, if you want to start an Etsy shop, keep your products as simple as possible. Don’t bite off more than you can chew by adding dozens and dozens of different items to your shop. Focus on producing a few items perfectly and promoting them regularly on the social media platform of your choice instead of spending all your time creating new items and leaving yourself no time for promotion.

Block out time to work on your side hustle

Time management is an essential skill you must master if you want to successfully pull off a 9-5 and a side hustle, and I am often asked how I was able to balance my full time job with all my social media promotion, blogging and YouTube video production before I went full time. The answer is that I blocked out time in my schedule to complete my activities. I spent some time a few evenings a week and usually one weekend day to get done my essential activities. Again, because I kept my projects simple and set goals, I knew what needed to be done and set aside the time to do it. If you are setting aside time for your side hustle but find that you aren’t accomplishing much, you may need to simplify your projects so that you have less on your plate.

Track your results

Now, the final thing you need to do to ensure your side hustle is successful is to track the results of the goals you set. You first need to make sure you are doing all the output that you said you would do because action is the only way you will move your business forward. Once you have tracked that you are completing the necessary output activities, you need to check the effectiveness of those activities against your input goals or results. Are you moving the needle week by week and month by month? You can’t expect huge amounts of growth overnight, but as long as you see growth from your actions, you know you are on the right path! But, if you go week after week with little to no growth, you may need to reevaluate your project plan and your output goals to ensure you are actually performing the right activities that will get you the results you are looking for.

Remember, it’s not easy balancing a 9-5 with a side hustle, it takes a lot of determination and clear expectation to manage both and most importantly, to make progress with your side hustle! It took me over 6 years to turn my side hustle into a full time career, mostly because it took me that long to learn all the strategies of online business and marketing that would eventually help me to create the business I wanted to run! If you are still on the hunt for strategies that will help you master online marketing for yourself, I welcome you to sign up for my upcoming Free Webinar Training covering my 5 Pillar System for Building a Successful Online Business!

Sign up to get more details, access to the Live event, as well as to the event replay! Hope to see you there!

xoxo,

Online Business

“This is My Dream, NOT My Nightmare!” Two Recent Interviews to Check Out!

Hello my Strange & Charmed Ones!

I’m checking in mid-week with you all because I wanted to share a few recent interviews I did that I really wanted you to check out. I know you are used to hearing about my business in my content from my point of view, but I always think reading or listening to interviews are always a different experience because I’m not the one controlling the questions and the content so sometimes you get some unexpected tidbits of knowledge.

CHECK OUT MY PODCAST INTERVIEW ON BOSS GIRL CREATIVE

I connected with Taylor Bradford of BossGirlCreative.com after she interviewed our mutual friend, Anne Samoilov, last summer! In this podcast interview, we talk a lot about vision (or lack thereof), business planning and the joy of passive income streams! Check out the podcast here and I hope the Boss Girl Creative Podcast becomes one of your new fav’s as well!

CHECK OUT MY INTERVIEW IN CREATIVE BUSINESS MAVEN MAGAZINE!

Lindsay Maloney from Creative Business Maven Magazine recently reached out to me for an interview in their March 2016 issue where we talk about planners, printables, business and more starting on page 28!

I hope you guys get a lot of inspiration and a little more behind the scenes from these two interviews! Let me know what you think in the comments and if you want more behind the scenes from my business, follow me on SnapChat as MissTrenchcoat, because I am snapping up a storm!

xoxo,

Online Business

How I 4x’d My Social Following and 6x’d My Revenue! My 2015 Business Results!

Last week I told you about an upcoming Free Webinar Training I am hosting on the 20^th where I will be teaching you my 5 Pillar System for Building a Successful Business Online. I hope you had a chance to review that information and of course sign up to get access to both the Live event and the replay because this webinar is going to be packed with great information if you are someone who wants to start an online business or has already done so, but needs help getting it off the ground! I think it’s only fair, however, that if you are going to spend your precious time with me learning, that I explain to you how much this system has helped me to grow my own business. After all, I am asking you to trust me and to follow my example and I think it’s important that you know what I was able to accomplish with this method so you can understand what you too may be able to accomplish with the successful application of these strategies. So today, I am going to open up about my 2015 business results, and walk you through the growth I experienced in multiple aspects of my business.

Social Media Following

First, let’s talk about my social media following and how my presence online increased in 2015. As you may know if you have been following me for some time, I predominantly use Instagram, YouTube and Facebook as social platforms for my business and brand. Although I do have followings on other platforms, followings that have also grown over the year, these three are where I put my attention on a regular basis and therefore I can see a marked increase in growth based on my specific actions.

Instagram

Following January 2015: ~5,000

Following January 2016: 19,291

Strategy: Post high quality images that align with my brand daily. Learn more about my Instagram strategies here.

Results: My Instagram following quadrupled, adding nearly 15,000 followers in 2015!

YouTube

Following January 2015: 10,520

Following January 2016: 42,930

Strategy: Post 1-2 high quality videos a week focusing on productivity, business or personal development. Click here to learn more about my YouTube Filming Setup!

Results: 4x’d my following again in YouTube, gaining 32,000 new subscribers in 2015. This

Facebook Page

Following January 2015: 533

Following January 2016: 3,563

Strategy: Link up my Instagram to Facebook for those who do not use the platform, and share my blog posts and additional updates regularly, using Facebook as a hub for my content for those who are not as tech savvy and follow me on multiple channels online.

Results: This growth is less impressive when compared to the others, I picked up three thousand new likes to my Facebook page, however, that does represent a significant growth of 668% which is VERY impressive. Remember, numbers look good, but growth really shows your progress and for a platform that wasn’t getting any new original content and just acted as a placeholder for my brand, this growth is phenomenal to me!

Blog & Shop Traffic

The next major topic when understanding my business results for 2015 is my blog and shop traffic. Since my shop is my major source of income, it’s important that I practice great SEO techniques to ensure my blog and shop is being found in search and new eyes are coming to my content everyday. My blog and shop are both self hosted, and if you are looking for tips for creating your own professional website you can click here to learn more!

Blog Traffic

2014: 218,096 Sessions 434,011 page views

2015: 601,018 Sessions 1,500,263 page views

Strategy: Set up a visually appealing blog where I share content three times a week that relate to my business and areas of focus to establish myself as an “expert” in my field.

Results: 275% growth in the number of sessions on my blog and more than a million new page views in 2015.

Shop Traffic

2014: 44,146 Sessions (September-December)

2015: 521,779 Sessions

Strategy: Increase activity to the shop by mentioning and linking it in as much revenant content as possible through my blog, social media and YouTube. Search, Pinterest and YouTube are the top 3 referrers to the shop!

Results: 1,181% Growth in my shop from 2014 to 2015, however, 2014 is only a partial year because the shop opened in September. Since it’s growth, the shop has gone through a lot of growth and continues to grow even now in 2016 thanks to my continued marketing efforts! Mind you, my shop is a vast majority passive income, which means I make money even in my sleep!

Income & Revenue

Now to the crux of my 2015 business growth, my income and revenue! In 2015 I added a number of new products to my shop, which helped me to diversify my product line and secure greater sales for my items. However, it was not product diversity alone that helped me increase my revenue, but also my sustained marketing efforts through content creation on my social platforms. If you are looking for some more marketing strategies, you can learn about those here.

2014 VS 2015 Revenue Growth

Q1 15 VS 14: 3,359% Growth

Q2 15 VS 14: 2,653% Growth

Q3 15 VS 14: 2,826% Growth

Q4 15 VS 14: 667% Growth

Strategy: Diversify income streams (Shop, YouTube, Affiliate, Private Consulting) so I have more avenues of money coming in, which protects me if one stream isn’t performing well in a given period of time. Then, market those streams effectively via my platforms!

Results: As you can see from the tremendous growth results above, 2015 was a big growth year for me! Because the shop was not opened until September 2014 I did not have that major revenue source in my business yet, which is why the growth is in the thousands for Q1-3 however, you can see that in Q4 14 once the shop opened and had effectively replaced my income, I still have substantial growth over top of that in 2015!

Overall 2015 Business Results!

As you can see from taking this deep dive into my analytics and revenue growth from 2014 to 2015, last year was a substantial period of growth for my business! I’m very proud of the growth my business has seen in the last year thanks to my sustained implementation of some key online business strategies! I have shared some of these strategies with you in this post and linked even more content for you to review to get a better picture of exactly what I did and why, however, I am looking forward to my upcoming webinar “The 5 Pillar System to Building a Successful Online Business!”

If reading about my business growth in 2015 interested you and you want to learn more about the specific methods and strategies I used to make this amazing growth happen, I would highly recommend signing up for the webinar, it’s FREE and I’ll be sharing both key strategies and a great tool to help you replicate my success!

xoxo,

Business

Are You Ready to Start Your Online Business?

Are You Ready to Start Your Online Business?

Over the last two years, I have coached, advised and cheered on dozens of women who were focused and ready to take on the challenge of creating their own online business. Some of these women were stay at home mothers who wanted to start a business to supplement their household income and help ease the burden on their significant other. Some of these women were employed in jobs that didn’t satisfy them but knew if they could work 9-5 for someone else, they could put those same skills to work for their own business. Some of these women were fresh out of school or unemployed and wanted to create their own opportunity instead of waiting to be selected from a list of candidates for a job! These women went on to start businesses hand making crafts, becoming coaches, virtual assistants, championing non-profits, and writing blogs and books of their own!

Each and every woman I have worked with has had a unique story and has taken a unique path to creating their own dream job, but they all had one thing in common. They knew that they were ready to act. They knew it was time to take control of their own destinies, and they knew that they couldn’t sit by and let things be for another day, another month or another year. The truth is, there is no right time to start a business. The process will shake up your life in ways you could never expect, so if you know it’s what you want to do, you can’t spend anymore time waiting. Time only makes it harder to succeed!

Remember

For some of you, their is no doubt in your mind that the time is NOW to act and get started. If that is you, I highly encourage you to stop reading this, and CLICK HERE right now to get yourself signed up for an informative Free Training I have that will help you get a quick and focused start to your progress!

But, if you aren’t sure, if you still have questions and don’t know if you are ready to start your own business, I have a few more insights to share with you!

How to know if you are ready to start your own business?

Since the truth of the matter is there is no right time to start your own business, similarly, their is no precise way to tell if you were meant to start one, however, after running my own business full time for the last two years and spending another six years working on my business as a side hustle before that, I have learned some important truths about running an online business that are key to understanding if the process is right for you.

1. You feel a passion inside.

This is a big one! The best indicator that you are ready to start your own business is that you feel a burning passion inside to do so. For different people, this passion can manifest in different ways. For example, if you find that you are unsatisfied with your work and spend your off time working on projects of your own, projects that you do for free but you know people would pay for, you have a passion inside of you! If you see other people starting businesses, selling products and offering services and you always say to yourself “I could do that,” you have a passion inside of you! If you spend your time reading other peoples blogs and following entrepreneurs online, secretly wishing that you could be like them, you have a passion inside of you. If you have been thinking about starting your own business, getting the urge every now and again and doing some research here and there still wondering if you should start, guess what? You have a passion inside of you! A passion for entrepreneurship does not mean you wake up everyday at 6am ready to start your day and conquer the world. I know sometimes entrepreneurs can make it seem like that, but it isn’t realistic for everyone. So, if you relate to any of those examples I gave, I think their is a good chance you have a passion that is untapped inside of you, ready to be acknowledged!

2. You are willing to put in the work with no guarantee of success.

Now, once you identify the passion you feel inside, the next thing you need to understand to ensure you are ready to start your own business is the fact that nothing is guaranteed. When you first get started creating your own business, you will need to do a lot of work, put in a lot of hours and do tons of research before their is ever a glimmer of even a penny! You know how they say “the only things guaranteed in life are death and taxes” well in entrepreneurship “the only things guaranteed in business are long hours and lots of obstacles.” You need to make peace with this fact upfront and feel comfortable with the fact that you may work long and hard for days, weeks, months and maybe even years, failing left and right until you find the path through to a business that is profitable.

3. You are willing to commit and make the necessary sacrifices.

The final way to know you are ready to start your own business is that you are comfortable committing to the process and making the necessary sacrifices to see your vision through to reality. One of the major mistakes I see entrepreneurs make when they decide they want to start a business is that they fail to fully commit to their idea. They get started, do some hard work up front and then when they don’t see the return on their time investment immediately or they encounter an unexpected obstacle, they doubt the process and slow down. They start to question the process, they panic and they change the plan which ultimately causes them to fall completely off course. In business, you hear people talk a lot about having a plan and creating a roadmap to success. Once you have a solid plan, the worst thing you can do is fail to commit to it, so its important to understand before you start a business that you need to commit to the process, even if that means you need to make sacrifices to stay on course once you have begun.

So, if you have made it this far and you haven’t been scared away from what I’ve shared already, you may really have what it takes to start your own business! If you are curious to learn more about getting started, I want to invite you to sign up for a FreeTraining webinar I am hosting where I share my 5 Pillar System to Building a Successful Online Business! Click here to get details on the upcoming event. I do hope to see you there and help you get a jump start on creating your own business online! After a combined 8 years working on my own business, I have a lot of advice to share and actionable content that you will want to get started on to save you precious time and energy on your own entrepreneurship journey! See you soon!

xoxo,

Business

Entrepreneurial: More Intention, Less Stress!

Welcome back for another installment of Entrepreneurial, my monthly journal entry chronicling my experience as an entrepreneur, my victories and failures each month, and the lessons learned along the way.

Hello dear readers and fellow #BossBabes! As this post goes live, my husband and I are already on our Disney World vacation that I told you I had booked last month! I hope you will follow along with our adventures in Disney World by following me on Snapchat as MissTrenchcoat because I am probably snapping up a storm and this is the method by which I plan to “vlog” our trip. But you aren’t here to listen to me describe my vacation, instead, today we are recapping the month of February in terms of how it affected my life and business.

February was a great month and felt like a vacation itself in comparison to January. Last month I told you about how tired I felt because I didn’t take an official break after the holidays and jumped right into 2016 guns blazing! Well, after the successful launch of my Charmed Life Master Class at the end of January, I promised that I was never going to put myself in a situation like that again, so I immediately made some changes in my routine and work schedule. First off, I took a few days off after the Master Class went live and relaxed. I listened to some books on tape, I watched TV and movies and just let myself turn off for a while. I actually spend the first week of February in calls with clients and getting feedback from my audience on different products which was a productive, yet, leisurely use of my time. Talking to my clients reenergized me and it was a very low pressure project to work on that was still very crucial to my business. I also spent the first week of the month working on getting ahead on my blog posts and writing work. Again, pretty low pressure items that were important but didn’t have an immediate decline that caused me stress. By the time the second week of the month rolled around, I was feeling much more under control of my schedule and could devote my time and attention to the major project of the month, which was my Free Photography Webinar “The 5 Photographic Marketing Assets You NEED to Build a Cohesive Brand Online.” I took my time with this webinar, outlining it and pulling together many of my frequently asked questions from my community, applying my best strategies to make sure the webinar was jam packed with information. I spent two weeks working on the webinar before the live event on the 21^st which was a tremendous success, and if you missed that webinar, click here to get yourself access to it. During the middle of the month, I also spent a good amount of time working on personal and home related projects. I know it may sound silly but I really needed to shop for new clothes which I had put off for far too long, so I did some online shopping, and also ran some important errands for just day to day items I had run out of weeks ago but had been too busy to take care of. Just spent some time organizing my personal life and making progress on my ongoing goal of keeping my home and life in order! Finally, at the end of the month, during the last week, I had a lot of loose ends I needed to take care of. Small projects that needed to be completed before I left on vacation like cleaning the house, mending clothes, putting together my March #CharmedGTD Photo Challenge and my monthly freebies, planning out my #CharmedBiz Chat (on the topic of taking great photos for your blog and social media… click here to check it out if you missed it) and recording an audio interview for an upcoming episode of the Boss Girl Creative Podcast! So like I said, loose ends, little projects that needed to get done before I could fully relax and take off on vacation!

Okay, so now lets talk about some victories and failures for the month because there were certainly a few of those along the way! First, let’s talk failures! Although I had developed a really good practice of journaling during January, I found that as I was feeling less stressed and more organized thanks to my new routines, I stopped journaling consistently everyday. Journaling ended up being an every other day or every three days event, which made it harder for me to journal because I kept forgetting what had gone on in a day and made the whole life documentation aspect of the journal difficult. I am someone who does what they commit to, and I did make sure to go and fill in the days when I missed, but the failure here was that I broke the habit. Part of this, like I said, was because I wasn’t feeling stressed so I didn’t feel like I had a need to go to my journal and vent, and part of this was that I was spending some “me” time alone in the evenings and getting into bed early, but I would end up falling asleep before I got to the journaling part of my night time routine. Going forward, my solution for this is going to be to try to journal earlier in the day because generally, I don’t have news for my journal after dinner! Another failure for the month was that I fell off my healthy eating kick. I had been doing really well cooking healthy dinners for me and my husband, but again, laziness set in and we ended up ordering out or going out more than we should have, especially since we knew we were going on vacation at the end of the month! My solution for this is going to be instituting meal planning again once I get back from vacation and even an light exercise plan. I find that I’m more likely to eat healthy if I am also doing physical activity so I will be working on that when I get home.

Now for some wins for the month! Obviously, the whole living with less stress was a major win! Being intentional with the amount of work I put on my plate and only doing the activities I see as essential gave me more space in my day to just relax and do the things that make me feel peaceful. Being stingy with my time also meant that I had to be very selective about how I spent my time, which really makes you focus on your priorities. A second win I had for the month was that I started using Snapchat again and have been really enjoying it! I think I may have found my solution for daily vlogging because there is segment of my following that likes seeing what I am up to, but the idea of vlogging myself day over day for a produced YouTube video is daunting and not the way I want to spend my time. It’s a lot of fun and I hope you will follow me on Snapchat — MissTrenchcoat — if you want to see my daily life and adventures!

Overall, February was a great month, I have no complaints and I feel like even my failures for the month are teaching me how I need to be more intentional with my time so that I can build a sustainable life and business that works for me! I’d love to know how your month went, so please make sure to comment below and let me know your wins and “opportunities” for improvement- I think we can all learn from hearing each others experiences so please share!

xoxo,

Productivity

Make Your Own Luck this March with My Free Tech Wallpapers & Planner Inserts!

Hello my Strange & Charmed ones!

How has your February been? This month has been filled with excitement for me, I love celebrating Valentine’s Day with my Husband and of course, Galentine’s Day with my besties! I hope your month was wonderful and that you are ready to go for a new month of fun and FREEBIES!

Okay, so let’s talk March Freebies, shall we?

As per the usual, I have a March Dashboard for your planner, along with my Make Your Own Luck March monthly task list! They are both in the same shop listing, so you only need to check out once and you get both designs in both personal and A5 size.

Also made a new set of monthly Tech Wallpapers. In celebration of my birthday on March 13th, these wallpapers are a mix of my two favorites, white marble and stripes! It’s the same pattern I use for my Charmed Life Planner Cover and my Macbook Air skin! I hope you enjoy these wallpapers and that they keep you inspired for the month. I know I love making them for you!

If you download any of these items and put them to use on your gadgets or inside your planner, I would LOVE to see them in action, so please make sure to share your photos on social media, tag me @MissTrenchcoat and use the #CharmedGTD so everyone in the community can see your photos and like them as well!

xoxo,

Productivity

Boost Your Productivity this March with My #CHARMEDGTD Instagram Photo Challenge

I don’t know about you but nothing inspires my productivity quite like a good Instagram Photo Challenge! Last March I debuted my #CharmedGTD Instagram Photo Challenge and so many of my productivity loving followers participated that the month proved to be an epic success! March is a super important month to me because my birthday is March 13th, so I love celebrating the month with my friends.

If you love Instagram and would like to participate in this challenge, here’s all you have to do!

Step 1: Right Click on the graphic above and email it to your smartphone to post on Instagram announcing your participation! (Or you can open this webpage on your smartphone and save the graphic directly to your phone’s camera roll)

Step 2: Read the prompts on the graphic each day, take a picture that illustrates the prompt of the day, and post it to Instagram. Make sure to add a fun description to your image that includes the hashtag #CharmedGTD so everyone participating can see each others pictures!

Step 3: Make sure to follow me @MissTrenchcoat and interact with the other participants by liking and commenting on their images!

Instagram is one of my favorite ways to interact with my community and the #CharmedGTD photo challenge is all about inspiring you everyday to Get Things Done! (Get it #CharmedGTD = Charmed Gets Things Done, inspired by my favorite productivity book Getting Things Done by David Allen!) If you have been curious about trying a photo challenge but haven’t ever participated before, I’d love for you to join- remember, this is just something fun to do on social media so if you miss a day or days, don’t sweat it! You can always catch up or skip prompts as needed, the point is just to get involved, let the daily prompts inspire you and of course, HAVE FUN!

If you would like to participate, again, make sure to repost the graphic above to your Instagram account and of course, let me know that you are joining! I can’t wait to see your pictures and I hope we all have a wonderful and productive March!

xoxo,

My Productivity Playlist Productivity

What’s On Your Playlist? {Productivity Playlist February 2016!}

Long time no Playlist!

I think it’s been a few months since my last full playlist post, so this is completely overdue, but I just wanted to share the tunes I’ve been listening to lately. This is a pretty random mix, but I like it and I hope you do too. Happy listening and I hope this playlist brings you some inspiration and productivity as we close out February!

Enjoy!

So what have you been listening to lately? Let me know on the comments!