Strange & Charmed

5 Tips for How to be as Productive as Possible

5 Tips for How to be as Productive as Possible

If you haven’t noticed, productivity is a very important topic to me. Why? Because I don’t like to spend all of my time working. I, like most people I would assume, would prefer to spend my time relaxing, hanging out with friends and family or pursuing my favorite hobbies. We all have to work to live, that’s an essential fact of life, but working doesn’t have to take up all of your time. Through the study of productivity I have learned ways to get more done in less time, how to streamline my tasks and work smarter, not harder. If this is a concept that you can relate to and want to learn more about, I have a few of my favorite productivity tips to share with you, plus a great online resource that you can use to continue learning about the subject!

My top 5 productivity tips

1. Set your top 3 for the day

With multiple tasks on your to do list, you may find it hard to choose which items you need to start with. In order to simplify this process for myself, I identify the top 3 tasks on my list to be my priorities. These are items that are either time sensitive and must be done today, or items that need to get done before other items can be accomplished. When working on my task list, I try to get my top 3 done as soon as possible so I know I have made important progress for the day.

2. Create routines for everyday processes

I’ve read a few different books that discuss the importance of controlling your daily habits and from them I have learned the importance of creating routines for your day. When you create a routine and build it into a daily habit, you are able to auto-pilot your choices which leads to greater self control at a lower cost. People only have a certain amount of self control to make positive choices, so when you can relieve your mind from this burden my instating routines, you are able to use your will power on more important tasks!

3. Say no to the non-essential

One of the major killers of productivity as I see it is the wasting of time by taking on non-essential tasks. So many of us struggle to get the big, important things done in a day, and that’s likely because we have a lot of little, non-important tasks to weed through. The best way to stop wasting your own time with non-essential tasks is to learn to say no to anything that isn’t the best use of your time. This is easier said than done, especially if you are a people pleaser, but I can’t tell you how many people I talk to who are unable to spend their time on things that matter to them because they are overwhelmed with tasks that just don’t matter, but they feel obligated to perform.

4. Batch and delegate work

Now, if you have been a student of productivity as I have for some time, you may feel like this tip is the equivalent of beating a dead horse. It’s the one productivity tip people refer to over and over again, but for good reason; it works! If you think you are batching a delegating your work as much as possible and yet you still feel overwhelmed with your tasks, you are doing something wrong. There is some place you are missing an opportunity to save yourself time by either batching like tasks together and finishing them at one time, or you aren’t delegating enough to others. You need to constantly evaluate your systems in this case, so I suggest checking out this post on how to stop over scheduling your day if you need additional tips to overcome this common issue!

5. Build white space into your day

When I say white space, I am referring to free time. The concept of adding in free time into your busy day may seem counterproductive to productivity efforts, but I promise you, when faithfully implemented, white space can actually lead you to greater productivity. Not only does white space give you time for self care and to calm your mind by spending time not working, but it’s actually been proven that by working free time into your day, you actually perform at a higher level. White space fosters time for your brain to process new information, and to think creatively because it’s not being forced to work. Give it a try and build some white space into your day as soon as possible.

If these 5 productivity tips have you curious about the different strategies you can use to work smarter, not harder, or if you want to learn more about implementing these tips, I am very pleased to announce that I have reopening my Productivity & Planning Master Class. If you aren’t already aware, back in August, I held a live Master Class webinar event where I shared my best productivity tips and strategies. The class was a massive success, but ever since I held it, I have been asked by numerous people to open access to the replay for the event to the public so that more people can access the information and the exclusive printables and resources I provided to attendees. So, that is exactly what I am doing now! If you missed out on my Master Class live, you can still access the replay as well as all the class materials. Just head on over to my shop and purchase your ticket to the Master Class replay and get started learning even more great tips and strategies for being more organized and productive!

xoxo,

Productivity

Stop Overscheduling your Day with these Tips

Stop Overscheduling your Day with these Tips

Does this sound like you?

The end of the day has come and instead of feeling a sigh of relief and excitement that your day is over and you can finally relax, you feel completely anxious. You’ve been working steadily all day but looking back at your tasks you don’t seem to have accomplished much, and to make maters worse, you have more things left on your to do list than you were actually able to check off. You aren’t just worried because you have a lot of work left to do, but you know that tomorrow when you start all over again you are going make another list of even more tasks to get done and you know that you are going to fall further and further behind as new tasks pop up faster than you can finish your existing ones. If you can relate to this feeling of constantly over scheduling your day, the amount of work, events and tasks that you can reasonably manage, you are not alone. Time management is tough and as a skill, it requires time, focus and the ability to self analyze to master it. To get you started, I have a few tips that I’d like to share to help get you on the path to time management recovery, and hopefully help you start getting out ahead of your tasks, instead of constantly falling behind.

Tip #1

Log your work day to account for all the tasks and actions you take and the amount of time spent on each. Like I said, excelling at time management is no easy feat. You need to have a complete accounting of your time first and foremost to get visibility to the blindspots and pitfalls that are sabotaging your productivity. It’s not enough to sit down and recall the events of the day after its all over, you really need to actively write down your tasks and the time it took you to accomplish them as you are working. Since this could be hard to do, I suggest setting a timer to go off once an hour, and when it does you write down all the things you did during that time, even if you didn’t finish them yet. Try to make sure you keep all the activities in order so you can see if you were jumping between different types of tasks and make note of interruptions to your workflow and the reasons for them. This data is going to be very important!

Tip #2

Once your workday is complete, review your data. I want you to look and see how productive your day really was. Perhaps you did get a lot of work done, it just wasn’t work that came from your to-do list. Maybe reviewing this information you will see that you lost significant periods of time to interruptions that were unnecessary, like calls from friends or chats with coworkers. You need to use your best judgement to understand what issues were standing in the way of you working on your to do list. Did you have to attend unnecessary meetings? Or perhaps the meetings were productive but just a little too long, or you didn’t need to be there for the whole thing. Once you know where the problems are, you can start addressing those with superiors or coworkers and putting new systems and habits into place to ensure your productivity is protected from outside influence.

Tip #3

Now you need to take a look at the tasks you completed and those that were left open on your list. Did you work on things during the day that you weren’t actually responsible for? Perhaps a coworker delegated a project to you and you accepted it because you didn’t want to seem rude or you wanted to take on the project because it was important, even though it was just one more thing you didn’t have time for. Remember, your to do list is sacred space. You shouldn’t put items on your list that don’t fall into your realm of responsibility or you don’t actually have the time to get done. We all leave items on our to do lists that we look at and know we won’t work on, but we feel guilty that we haven’t done so and we think, perhaps today will be the day I do this! No. You don’t have time for these sorts of games and you need to treat your to do list with a sense of respect because its the outline for your plans for the day and the way you will spend your precious time. Don’t let things fall onto that list that don’t deserve your attention and don’t accept new tasks that you don’t have the time to devote your attention to fully!

Tip #4

Start assigning yourself less to do and find a way to batch and delegate essential tasks that someone else can do for you. I like to use the top 3 list in order to achieve this. Focus on three essential activities or events you need to accomplish for your day to be productive and take care of those as your priorities. Try to focus on the activities that will be the most important and impactful use of your time and get those out of the way as soon as possible. You will also want to batch similar tasks together and delegate whatever other tasks are in your way that someone else can handle. Do you have a team admin that can run some reports for you or schedule some of your meetings so you don’t have to? Is there an intern that you can borrow who can print and assemble a presentation you are working on? Can your office secretary that sits right next to the fax machine send those faxes you have piled up on your desk while she’s taking calls? Obviously you want to use whatever tools are at your disposal, and of course you want to make sure you are being courteous with other peoples time as well, so make sure you give clear, concise directions and make the tasks you delegate simple so you aren’t creating more work for another person as well.

Tip #5

Start pushing back on new tasks, events and projects that are unnecessary. We all get asked to do lots of things throughout our day that aren’t necessary to our job function. Perhaps you have been invited to sit in on a leadership meeting or to volunteer as part of an organization with your work. Even offers for long lunches out with coworkers can be tempting yet unnecessary interruptions to our days. Now, I am not saying that you should never volunteer for special projects at work or avoid a great networking opportunity to advance your career, however, if you are constantly behind on your work, you are in a situation that poses a real risk to your current job. I’ve worked with people in the past who were completely overwhelmed with their job, the only real work they were able to achieve from day to day was to put out fires from overdue products and tasks that should have been handled weeks or months prior, and still whenever a “good opportunity” came to them to be part of a leadership team that involved extra weekly meetings or to volunteer their time creating goody bags for an extracurricular networking event, they never said no. I think part of this is the nature of individuals to want to please others, so many people find it hard to say no, especially when it seems like these extra tasks will further their career. The truth is, however, this mentally eventually leads to ruin! So, push back on whatever new tasks and projects land on your lap, and cut out the fat of extra work you are volunteering for until you get yourself to a place where you are out ahead of your work. It’s not like you have to say no to every offer forever, you just need to say no long enough to get your priorities and your schedule in order!

Like I said, time management is not easy but I hope these five tips make it a little easier for you to get started reorganizing your task list and making the key habit changes that will help you to stop over scheduling your time. If this topic of productivity and structuring your time to be more efficient and more in control of your work day is interesting to you, I have a very exciting announcement! On Monday I will be RELAUNCHING my Productivity & Planning Webinar, so if you missed the webinar the first time around and want to catch the replay, sign up for my wait list and be the first to know when the webinar has gone live in the shop!

xoxo,

Business

How to Add Passive Income to Your Blog or Business

How to add passive income to your blog or business

As some of you may already know, the majority of my business income is passive, at least a good 75-80%. So I know a thing or two about passive income strategies! If you aren’t sure what passive income means, let me explain. Passive income means that a business is making money and sales without direct action, i.e., making money in your sleep! For example, a large part of my business comes from my shop which sells digital products, courses and programs. Once I have gone through the effort to create a product, because it is digital, I can list it on my shop and sell it indefinitely without having to do any work. The system is automatic, customers come to my shop, they look around, they check out and they have instant access to my downloads without me ever having to get involved with the process. Once the system is in place, I let it run with very little observation.

Having a business with a majority passive income is an amazing blessing, but one that took me a lot of time and effort to create. Nothing comes overnight with any business, and behind the scenes, I do ongoing work to promote my brand and put those key systems into place so that they can continue to generate income for me. Now, if this sounds like an awesome way to make money, I’ll tell you, it is! There is nothing more exciting then waking up in the morning to see that you’ve made sales and income while you were sleeping. Although my business took a good amount of time to get to this level, there are actually a few things you can do to get the ball rolling and add passive income to your overall business. If you are someone who runs a shop where you craft or resell products, you have an active, hands on business. Perhaps you are lucky enough to have some assistants so you are not the only person fulfilling orders and getting product created, but whether you have a team or you are a solopreneur, there are ways you can add passive income into your mostly active business to bring in some much needed additional revenue.

Two easy strategies for how any business can implement passive income!

Create an info or digital product: Many people that sell physical products miss some great passive income opportunities by not branching out and creating digital or info products that go along with their business. If you already have people coming to your site or shop, you are missing opportunities for easy sales of passive digital products. It’s all a matter of drawing on your strengths and knowledge base to craft a product or resource that makes sense for your brand. Here are some examples to get your brain thinking!

An Etsy shop owner who sells craft supplies can write an ebook with a few project ideas using their items.
A social media consultant could design a set of printable worksheets covering key action items and social media strategies that anyone starting out in social media could use.
A blogger could create a set of downloadable design templates for new bloggers to use to easily craft posts and lay out images.

Incorporate affiliate networks: Affiliate networks give online creators the ability to monetize links to specific products or services that the creator may be promoting. For example, when a beauty blogger writes a post outlining a makeup routine, if they are part of an affiliate network, they can include links to the specific products that they used in their tutorial. If someone reading that post wants to purchase the items, they can use the links and in doing so, the blogger makes a small commission (usually a few percent) of the purchase. Affiliate networks are great because they can give you access to a wide variety of products sold online and it’s easy enough to add a link into a blog post, video description or social media comment and once that link is in place, if anyone buys a product using the link, you earn income from it. Affiliate networks are a popular way for bloggers to earn income from their efforts, but even an online business owner can use affiliate networks to help boost revenue. If you watched my business photography webinar, you know that styled photographs are an important tool for helping to generate sales online. As a business owner, if you are executing those styled photographs and using peripheral items and accessories to set the scene, you can use affiliate links in your shop listings or on your social media posts to monetize the items you are using in your images as well! You’re doing the work to create those awesome images so you mine as well monetize every inch of them!

Additionally, as online business owners, we use a lot of tools and software to help us build and run our businesses. Again, sharing affiliate links to the camera you use or your office printer can also generate income for your business and help fellow small business owners or those getting started to understand the professional grade equipment used by your successful business. People always want to know where you got x accessory or which computer you use or even the name of your website host. You mine as well make a commission from recommending these products to your customers or audience!

Looking for more tips on how to add additional income to your business or blog?

If you are looking for more ideas on how to maximize your income from either a blog, business or social media presence, check out the Income Blueprint in my Empire Building Online Business Program. It’s packed with ideas on how to grow your business income and exactly what you need to know about online businesses if you want to get started!

I hope this post gave you some ideas for how you can easily implement passive income into your existing blog or business. If you thought that passive income wasn’t an option for your business, I challenge you to use the examples provided in this post and think of a way you can either use affiliate links or create a simple digital product to add to your product or services line up! It may take a bit of creativity but I do believe that any business can add in passive income and I know any business would be glad to have the extra income!

xoxo,

Business

This ONE Priceless Business Resource Tripled My Income and it cost me NOTHING

This ONE Priceless Business Resource Tripled My Income and it cost me NOTHING

When I first left my job to go full time for myself about a year and a half ago, I did so with the full support of my husband and family. Six months later, when I launched my shop which would come to help me replace and grow my income beyond what I had been making in corporate America, I did so with the support of my growing band of followers who were eager to enjoy the designs and products I was creating. But it was months later, only a short while ago really, that I realized there is one single level of support that keeps me moving forward in my business, creating products I never expected to develop, and helping me solve problems I faced in my business in creative ways. It was a type of support that I didn’t have when I left my job, nor had I acquired it by the launch of my shop. This support was something that came to me after months of searching and has honestly become my secret weapon of my business resources. Can you guess what it is?

The One Priceless Business Resource that helped me triple my income this year was the amazing community of like minded female entrepreneurs that I have been lucky enough to call friends.

Yes, it’s true! If it weren’t for the support, advice and encouragement of the awesome friends I have made on this entrepreneurial journey of mine, I don’t know where my business would be right now. At the end of 2014 I made some projections for my business income for 2015 and I have already surpassed those income projections. At the beginning of 2015, I laid out a rough plan for the projects I wanted to accomplish throughout this year and so far I have been able to fully develop each of the ideas and bring them to fruition. Yes, I have myself to thank for all my success, but I also recognize that I have had the support of some amazing women who were able to help me solve problems and overcome barriers I had put up for myself and my business. As the end of 2015 quickly approaches and I begin to tackle the enormous task of brainstorming my plan for 2016, although I have no idea what my business will look like a year from now, I am confident that I am going to continue to grow leaps and bounds thanks to my awesome business besties who have been by my side, testing my products, troubleshooting my concepts and promoting my brand and business along side me. There is seriously no better feeling in the world then when you find your tribe, and I’m so glad to say that I’ve not only found my tribe, but I am actively growing my tribe day by day!

Now, if you are a new or aspiring business owner and you have not found your tribe yet, I am here to tell you, I know what you are going through. Before I found my tribe, I felt like I was all alone. It was me and my business against the whole the internet, and no amount of support from friends and family can ever bring you the comfort you desperately need.

So I want to personally invite you to join me and my tribe in my new Facebook community, the #CHARMEDBIZ Collective! We are a tribe of female entrepreneurs, bloggers and small business owners gathering together to share information, resources, inspiration and support so that we can all become the best versions of ourselves and our businesses. As they say, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” and that is exactly what this community is about. No #GIRLBOSS will be left behind! Join me today in the private group and also get access to my new Digital Resource Library, a collection of FREE business building resources created by me and updated regularly to help you build your business and brand online as seamlessly as possible! I know together we can do great things and I look forward to meeting you in the group!

Will I see you there?

xoxo,

Productivity

Add one of these activities to your morning routine for less stress and more productivity

Add one of these activities to your morning routine for less stress and more productivity

As an entrepreneur who works from home, I have found that how I spend my morning often reflects how productive the rest of the day will be for me. It doesn’t matter what time I wake up per se, but how I spend that first hour or so upon waking can lead me to either have a productive day or a wasted one! There are many different idealized morning routines you can adopt that promise health and wealth, but let’s be honest- designing a whole new routine is pretty hard. So, instead, start off with one of these and add it to your existing routine for a day that promises less stress and more productivity!

Guided Meditation

Meditation is one of those activities that you expect to find on lists like these, however, as someone who has tried every which way to incorporate meditation into my days and failed, I know it isn’t as easy as you’d think. Forcing yourself to sit still for 15-30 minutes without falling asleep is hard. Having to control your thoughts in the silence of your room is hard. But listening to a guided meditation instead, while you sit or lay in bed, is actually pretty doable! I keep a few guided meditations found on YouTube saved in my iPhone’s bookmarks, and in the morning when I wake up, I put one on. This routine works for me because it fulfills my need to stay in bed when I first wake up, and because I know all I have to do is turn on the guided meditation and listen. I can stay in bed, remain in a reclining position and just listen. It’s a very peaceful way to wake up in the morning, especially if you’re not a wake up and jump out of bed sort of person! If you aren’t sure where to start with something like this, here is the YouTube channel of an account that I love to go to for my meditations. This guys voice is very soothing to me and he has targeted guided meditation audios for a number of common issues.

Breath deeply

Starting your day with a workout is often touted as a secret of success for many, however, that exercise doesn’t have to be cardio. Even a simple routine of yoga in the morning where you are controlling your movement and breathing deeply is an excellent way to keep in shape, and lower stress. If you want to get started with Yoga, but think it’s too complicated, check out this article to get some helpful tips and tricks for beginners!

Journaling

In Julia Cameron’s bestselling book, The Artist’s Way, she instructs to keep a journal to write in stream of consciousness each and every morning. A few pages a day is all it takes to process through the events of the previous day that may still be having a sway over your mind, and really help you start your day with everything off your chest. It’s like having a morning therapy session with yourself! So, if you find that you wake up anxious and feel stress from the moment you step out of bed, I suggest keeping a journal by your bedside and giving this a try!

Make your bed

Making your bed in the morning is the start to a great foundational morning routine. Not only does it leave your space neat for your return in the evening, but it gives you an easy mental win in the morning because you have checked one item off your to do list without even leaving your bedroom. Start making your bed in the morning as soon as you get out of it and you will feel the positive affects on your day!

Hydrate early and often!

After hours of lying in bed, your body is in need of hydration immediately. Try drinking a big glass of ice water or start your morning with some warm water with lemon! You may want to reach for the coffee machine first, but caffeine actually dehydrates you further, so make sure to get in a good 8-12 ounces of water before you touch any other liquids!

So tell me, do you have any morning routine non-negotiable activities that aren’t included on this list? I’d love to know how you spend your morning!

xoxo,

Productivity

Why knowing your Myers-Briggs type can help you become a more successful individual!

Why knowing your Myers-Briggs type can help you become a more successful individual!

Perhaps you’ve heard someone mention the Myers-Briggs test before. Maybe it was mentioned in a class you took in college or you heard it on a great business scope. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality test designed to help people identify their dominant predispositions when it comes to the way they think and interact with the world, based on the writings of notable Psychiatrist, Carl Jung. When you take a Myers-Briggs test, you are asked a series of questions meant to determine which 4 dominant traits make up your personality from a possible 8 total traits. The result is that any given person can have one of 16 personality types and knowing your type, as well as the dominant traits that make up your personality, can really help you to understand yourself, your tendencies, your strengths and weaknesses. I also believe that it is helpful for you to understand the personality type of those closest to you, specifically people you live or work with on a daily basis. For this reason, many companies will have their teams take a test like this to get a better understanding of how each individual works on a physiological level, and will make sure the teams understand the personality types of each of their co-workers for harmonious and fruitful interaction!

When it comes to my Myers-Briggs type, I am an ENFJ, and I have come to memorize that personality sequence as though it was my blood type because in the online business community, more and more, knowing and understanding your Myers-Briggs type is important and you never know when you will be asked about yours!

What does that sequent of letters even mean?

Let’s talk a bit about the personality sequence and the options there are that make up the 16 total possible personality types you can score as in the test. Like I said, there are 4 dominant psychological traits and those are expressed as 4 letters in your personality type.

The first letter, in my example, E, refers to your overall focus as an individual. E stands for extroverted, which is my outward focus, the other possible option for this trait is I, which means introverted. You may already know whether you are an extrovert or introvert, introverts prefer to be alone, and aren’t necessarily the most outgoing, and extroverts enjoy being in a crowd and feel comfortable as the center of attention.

The second letter, in my example, N, refers to how you process information. I process information with my Intuition (N) but the other possible option for the second trait is to process information by Sensing (S). Because I process with my intuition, I tend to be idealistic and see the greater possibility in situations, always focusing on the bigger picture, but someone who processes information through sensing prefers to look at cold hard facts of reality and really pays attention to the nitty gritty details!

The third letter, in my example, F, refers to how you make decisions. I make my decisions through Feelings (F), which means I let my personal values guide my actions and draw upon empathy and how to bring harmony to a situation when I make a choice. The other option for this trait is to make decisions by Thinking (T) which means you use logical reasoning to strike a balance that is just and fair, as opposed to emotional reasoning.

The fourth and final letter, in my example, J, refers to how you live your life and interact with others. My natural preference in this trait is Judging (J) which means that I like to have rules, deadlines and general order in my life. The second option, Perceiving (P), means that you live life with a more flexible set of rules and tend to be more of a spontaneous person who enjoys surprises and likes to improvise as you go along.

The important thing to understand when determining your Myers-Briggs type is that no one personality or choice is better or makes you a more desirable or successful person. When you take the test or determine your dominant preferences, which you could reasonably do based on the explanations I have provided here, it is very important that you choose which trait comes natural to you, not the trait that you wish you had more of. As people, we all have dominant elements of our personalities and sometimes it’s important for us to suppress our dominant urges in certain situations. For example, someone with the Perceiving type in their personality would need to learn to follow rules and regulations at work or in certain scenarios and not act on their first impulse, but it is important to know exactly what those first impulses are. Said person would probably want to implement planning into their daily tasks to ensure they were following along with what was expected of them so that they didn’t get distracted as per their free spirit nature and fail to complete their work! If you get honest with yourself about which tendencies are your dominants, it makes it much easier to understand how to best control yourself for your own success!

What are the next steps?

So, if you want to learn more about your personality type, I suggest heading over to this website and taking their Myers-Briggs test. Once you know what your personality type is, you can do more research on their site to see your strength and weaknesses!

Once you know your type you can identify areas of sensitivity in your life where you think your dominant tendencies may be inhibiting you from being the most successful and productive version of yourself. Remember, your dominant tendencies should be honored and whenever possible it’s important to let those dominant tendencies have their moments, however, if your tendencies conflict with certain priorities in your life, understand those limitations will help you make better choices and become accountable to your own specific needs!

Finally, grab your spouse, children and perhaps some of your closest co-workers and share this information with them. The test is free to take online so this could be a fun bonding activity to see which personalities those around you have and how to best work together going forward for greater success and harmony!

I’d love to know what your Myers-Briggs personality type is, as I find this whole topic incredibly interesting! Leave me a comment down below and tell me your personality and what you’ve learned about yourself just from taking the test and reading this article! I do hope it brings you some clarity and self-awareness so motivate you become the best version of yourself possible!

xoxo,

Blogging

10 Tips for Becoming a Better Blogger

To be completely honest, blogging has probably played one of the most important parts in the success of my online business. Within Empire Building, I spend a good amount of time talking about blogging, how and why it’s helpful and what you need to know when setting up your own blog, but one topic that I don’t think you can ever have too much information on, is how to become a better blogger. I don’t mean how to become a more successful blogger or a more profitable blogger, although those are very important topics that you can read all about in Empire Building, I am talking today about developing the skill of being a blogger. Blogging is a very interesting and dynamic form of writing that requires regular practice and immense creative skill to master. I’d like to think that after 7 years behind the keyboard of a blog, I know a thing or two about developing yourself into a better blogger. So, today I want to impart upon you 10 tips that can help you build your blogging skill and advance your blogging practice!

1. Write daily.

Just as professional writers of non-fiction and literature must write everyday to build the habit of good writing, so should a blogger write daily in order to build the blogging muscle. Writing, after all, isn’t easy, but the single way to make it easier- the best way to ensure you can quickly process a blog post with complete thoughts and well placed arguments- is to write daily. I’m not saying you need to write a full blog post everyday, but I do think that writing out your thoughts or ideas daily is a great habit to get into. You can write on a word processor on your computer or even in a journal, just get into the habit of stringing words into complete sentences on the regular!

2. Keep a notebook with you at all times.

Now, this notebook isn’t to write in exactly, but rather, to keep track of ideas and inspiration you get throughout your day. I will tell you that I get the best blog post ideas at the most random times, so having a reliable note taking method with me 24/7 is crucial to keeping my ideas safe. Never assume you will remember an idea, write it down and get it out of your head! I happen to use a note taking app on my phone as opposed to pen and paper, whatever you choose should fit your style and convenience!

3. Consider different points of view.

As a writer (because, really, that’s what you are if you keep up a blog) I think it’s enormously important to keep yourself familiar with different points of view on a number of subjects. Writers are most successful when they can see multiple sides of a given situation and navigate fluidly among different positions. To build this skill, regularly read the news and familiarize yourself with all the angles of a given subject or story you come across that interests you. You don’t need to become a current events expert, especially if your blog has nothing to do with current events, however, following news stories is often an easy way to expose yourself to different world views. You don’t need to incorporate these views into your work necessarily, however, you should aim to build your reasoning skills and empathy with a practice like this, which will indeed impact your writing in a positive way!

4. Keep an Editorial Calendar.

It’s not enough as a blogger to just start a blog and write whenever you feel like you have something to say, unless of course you don’t care about growing a following and using your blog to advance your business or career. On the surface, an editorial calendar is a great way to organize ideas and help you to plan your posts, but in a deeper level, an editorial calendar creates accountability for regular posting. Accountability to yourself is a major life and business skill that many people never seem to master, but once you have achieved it, you become a more disciplined and self respecting individual (which is a complete bonus for your career/business). Let’s use me for example. I have been blogging three days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, since 2012. For over three years I have kept up the same schedule and I will tell you, on the few occasions where I have had to stray from this schedule, I have felt intense pangs of remorse and regret. So much so that whenever it does happen, I return to my craft with such an intense furver that I everything about my blog posts, from my writing, to my images, to my content, becomes better. All because I feel a sense of guilt for having broken a long standing tradition. If you can get yourself into a similar situation with your editorial calendar, you are going to be a master blogger in no time!

5. Set goals for yourself.

As with many things in life, goal setting is a great way to not only keep yourself accountable to a task, but also to monitor and track real substantial growth. Set yourself some goals for how many page views you want to hit in a month or how many new followers you want to see from Bloglovin’. Anything related to your blogging that you can then monitor and track to see your own progress. The great thing about goals is that even if you don’t hit them, they end up telling you so much about how you are doing. If you go weeks or months with no progress, you know it’s time to switch things up. But if you go the same length of time and see some small improvement, it’s validation that things are working slowly but surely and then you can attempt to zero in on what exactly is moving the needle!

6. Review your successful content.

Just as goal setting can help you identify what is working and what isn’t in your blogging, so can reviewing your most successful content give you major insight into how you should be approaching your writing. Make sure you have Google Analytics installed on your blog so you can keep track of page views and popular posts, because having this information is invaluable. You can even track your blog post activity on sites like Bloglovin’ and see what posts are getting the most interactions from your readers. These are most likely going to be the types of posts you should focus on or regularly feature on your blog for continued success!

7. Batch your writing.

Once you get into the habit of writing daily, you are going to start to notice that once the words begin to flow they are hard to turn off. Make the most of this and batch your blog post writing so that you can write a number of posts at once. This will help save you time in the long run and help improve your posts because you aren’t having to force yourself to write them when they are due, instead you are writing at a pace that works for your mind!

8. Brain dump regularly.

A brain dump is when you sit down in a quiet space with pen and paper and write out anything and everything on your mind. Any important events, facts, tasks, reminders you have been storing in your brain instead of on paper are to be written down. It’s only when your mind is free of mental clutter that great ideas and great writing can flow. Although I’m pretty good at writing down my thoughts, ideas and tasks so I don’t have to store them in my mind, even I need to perform a brain dump from time to time and when I do, I find that my mind feels so light and nimble that I get the best writing and ideas done immediately after. Try it! You won’t regret it, and then add it as a regular practice during your week.

9. Read articles from professional sites.

Just as it’s important to write daily to become a better writer, so is it important to read daily. But don’t spend all your reading time on fluff articles online. Instead make sure to make time to read articles from professional and reputable sources. Reading the blog posts and articles of skilled writers will help to positively impact your writing. It’s almost like “you are what you read!” So keep the pleasure reading of less skilled writers and sites to a minimum and instead spend some time each day reading articles that are well written, well informed and well edited!

10. Actively seek to improve your writing.

To be honest, I don’t do this one nearly enough! I know there are many ways to improve your writing, from taking courses to joining peer to peer writing groups, but those options are rather time consuming. I have actually been reading an excellent book on writing called On Writing Well that I actually think has had a definite impact on my writing and I’m not even finished reading it yet! Definitely check it out if you are looking to improve upon the technical aspects of writing, it’s very straight forward and easy to follow.

Follow these 10 tips and you will certainly see an improvement in your blogging skills in just a few weeks! Of course, if you are more than just a casual blogger and you are hoping to jumpstart your blog and presence online to support an online business or #sidehustle of yours, I invite you to join my Empire Building Online Business Program to get all my best strategies and personal advice for getting your blog and business noticed online. It’s literally like hitting the easy button for your business, I give you all the strategy and all you need to do is execute! Bet you never thought building an online business could be so easy!

xoxo,

Filofax

2 October Free Filofax & Planner Printables + A BONUS Photo Challenge!

Well, well, October is here, and seriously, it’s one of the favorite months of the year! So, let’s celebrate the coming of Fall with not one, but two FREE planner printables! If you’ve been hanging around with me for a while, you may remember that last October was the debut of my first Monthly To Do List! I created my 31 Things To Do in October Insert to help me keep track of all the fun Fall activities that I wanted to accomplish in the month and I’ve been thrilled to see my concept of creating monthly to-do lists has taken off! Now, I realize it’s been some time since I created a monthly task list, I know many of you are equally in love with my Monthly Dashboards, so this month, I decided to publish both!

And that’s not all!

There is so much I want to accomplish this month and with my #CharmedDSLR 30 Day Photo Challenge coming to a close, I thought it would be fun to keep the photography challenges rolling, so I am excited to announce that I will be hosting a #31ThingsToDoInOctober Photo of the Day Challenge! The prompts for this challenge are all in line with my October To Do List, so in order to make this challenge a little more fun and interesting, you don’t need to follow the prompts for each day, instead, I want you to take the prompts in ANY ORDER you’d like! This will be a fun way for us to document our months and this way, instead of everyone posting the same image prompts, we get to see the variety of things we are all up to during the month!

Doesn’t that sound like much more fun?

I think so too! So head on over to my shop and download your 2 FREE inserts, available in both A5 and personal Filofax equivalents, save the graphic above and repost it to your Instagram account, and get started with me celebrating and documenting your October! Make sure to follow me @MissTrenchcoat on Instagram and of course use the hashtag #31ThingsToDoInOctober as you check these seasonal activities off your list!

Can’t wait to see you over on Instagram!

xoxo,

Photography

Are You Ready to Master Styled Stock Photography?

Today on my FREE Photography webinar, 7 Impactful Strategies for Using Photography to Elevate Your Brand, I dropped a bomb on you guys! For the last few weeks, I have been working on a completely new product that is different than anything else I’ve created, and as far as I can tell, is also a product completely unique to the online digital marketplace. As you may already know, this month, I hosted a 30 Day Photo Challenge & Mini Course, called #CharmedDSLR, which was short for the Strange & Charmed Digital Styling Lightroom. This Mini Course was a primer for a full length Photography Styling Course that just released today!

I’m very pleased to announce my new digital course, The Digital Styling Lightroom, an online photography styling course that teaches bloggers and online business owners how to take their own styled stock photography. The workshop is taught via 5 video modules that include both lecture style instruction and workshop style tutorials. Included with this course are a number of downloadable course materials, cheatsheets, tipsheets, checklists and guides that will ensure you have everything you need to take the lessons learned in this course and apply them to your own styled stock photography!

The 5 Video Modules of the Course & What You Learn

Module 1: Photography Basics- You will learn the fundamentals of digital photography.
Module 2: Creating Your Set- You will learn how to create a set for a styled photoshoot.
Module 3: Composition- You will learn the fundamentals of photographic composition.
Module 4: Shooting Styled Photography- You will learn my exact styled photography workflow.
Module 5: Editing with Photoshop- You will learn how to edit your photos & create effective advertisements for your business.
In total you receive OVER 3.5 hours of video training from this course!

The Course Materials & Special Bonus Items You Get When You Buy!

Course Slides
Course Notes
Photography Resource Guide
Exposure Triangle Cheatsheet
Lighting Guide
Branded Prop Brainstorm Worksheet
Styled Shot Checklist
Photoshop Tipsheet

Is the Digital Styling Lightroom for you?

This course is for a blogger, business owner or social media enthusiast who needs to style products or create images for their websites, ad campaigns, shop listings and social media feeds.

It’s for a Solopreneur or a business owner with a small team that wants to streamline their photography process to get better results in a shorter period of time.

And finally, if you want to learn how to create high quality advertisements that will attract followers and sell your products, this is for you!

Are You Ready To Get Started?

If this sounds like you, I’d like to invite you to join the course today and start learning how to take your own styled stock photography!

CLICK HERE TO GET THE COURSE NOW!

I can’t wait to see you in the members area!

xoxo,

Photography

Creating an Eye Catching Composition for your Photos

Time flies when you’re having fun learning photography, right? Okay, cheesy opening lines aside, the third week of my #CharmedDSLR photo challenge and mini course has come to an end. This past week we covered one of my favorite photography topics, composition. Composition is the bread and butter of great photography and is one of the more creative aspects of the skill. Although I am a vehement supporter of getting creative with image composition, I believe it’s incredibly important to first understand the established techniques and visual rules that have dominated image composition for centuries. Although each photographer may have their own unique styles and subtleties, we are all subject to the same overarching principles of good visual design and image composition. So let’s see how my #CharmedDSLR students did exploring image composition.

Day 15: Classical Composition

One of the earliest and simplest forms of composition is classical composition, when you take a single subject and center it in your image. Its the clearest way to capture a subject because there is no confusion or ambiguity about what you are supposed to be looking at as the viewer. With this prompt, I was impressed with how many of my students were able to not only take a single subject as the focus but keep the subject in an environment that was interesting and yet didn’t compete for the attention of the subject.

Day 16: Triangle Composition

When it comes to great composition across all mediums, using an odd number of subjects somehow tends to create the best results. With triangular composition you arrange three dominant objects in a scene so that they form a triangle. Of course, there are a number of ways to achieve this composition using layering and perspective and it was interesting to see how my students would manifest the concept in their own images. There is certainly a good amount of variety within these images that goes to show that even within one single concept of composition, an endless number of unique formations are possible!

Day 17: Rule of Thirds

Rule of thirds is probably one of the most popular concepts of composition. Although you may not be familiar with the term itself, most people are familiar with the Rule of Thirds grid that you can use to assist in taking images on most smartphones and digital cameras. With this composition method, placement of objects in the frame can be arranged in a number of ways, either by dividing the frame into thirds or by placing key objects at intersecting points on the rule of thirds grid. As you look at each of these images, image that grid overlaid on the image to get an even clearer understanding of the thought that goes into well balanced images like these!

Day 18: Negative Space

Within each great image there is always a balance between positive and negative space, meaning the space that is filled with a subject and the space that is left open. With this prompt, students were expected to explore negative space in creative ways and again their variation did not disappoint! There is really no right or wrong way to approach negative space, you can do it a number of ways, by leaving a large portion of the image in negative space or by using the negative space to create a shape in and of itself. The point of this prompt was simply to make my students aware of that negative space and not to think only of the subject of the image.

Day 19: Leading Lines

Leading lines are such a direct way to get the attention of a viewer in an image and guide their eye. I absolutely love the first image in this collection with the painted arrow pointing to the dog because it really illustrates exactly what the concept of leading lines is all about; directing the viewer to look at the subject! Definitely had some creative entries for this prompt that I really enjoyed!

Day 20: Symmetry

Symmetry is such an interesting compositional concept because in my opinion its like the rebel of all composition. Generally speaking, a good composition should have variation but with symmetry, we are making an exception to this rule and saying that its okay to create that mirror image effect with our subjects. I do personally love symmetry when its found in nature or through architecture, which some of my students were aptly able to capture, but symmetrical compositions can really be found and created in so many places. The image of the doorknobs above was particularly striking to me especially with the way it divides the light between a darker and lighter side to the image. As to was I intrigued by the picture of the girl sitting because its not entirely symmetrical, but there is a sense of balance in that image as well that really pushes the envelope in terms of composition. Again, I’m just proving my point here that symmetry is the rebel of composition but everyone does like a rebel!

Day 21: Golden Ratio

The final compositional prompt for week three was the golden ratio, which like its cousin, the rule of thirds, relies on a mathematically proportioned formula to predict and guide strong compositions. Rooted in the Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio is a naturally occurring mathematical calculation that is known for creating natural spirals. I was glad to see how many students used the concept of the spiral in their images, but one specific image I want to point out is the backyard scene with the foliage. If you look closely at that image, you can really see the formation of the natural spiral in two places. First, the large spiral created by the negative space created by the greenery to the upper left of the image, and then the smaller spiral created by the greenery towards the bottom right. There is a sense of cosmic balance in this image that is not something manipulated by the photographer, instead that natural composition was captured by the photographer who clearly illustrates a great eye for framing the scene! And thats what great image composition really boils down to. You can either style a scene just so or you can see a scene already created and capture it in just the right way so that the natural composition is exposed!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this recap of week three of #CharmedDSLR! Coming up next week I actually have something special planned, a LIVE Photography Webinar event where I will be recapping what we covered in this course and providing some new content and concepts that will help you take better pictures for your blog, business and social media accounts! If you feel like you have been struggling with photography and want to know my exact process for composing, taking and editing awesome images, you won’t want to miss this webinar so click here and request your invitation to the event!