How to Inspire Creativity

How-to-Inspire-Creativity

Being a creative person 24/7 is an impossible task, even if you are naturally very creative, and for those among us who aren’t naturally gifted in this area, it’s a loathsome task to have to attempt to be creative when it just doesn’t come easily to us. For me specifically, I do happen to consider myself a creative, my work is largely creative, and because of this, I have had to develop a system or protocol in order to inspire creativity within myself even when I felt like I was running low on the creative kool-aid!. So, here is my process for inspiring creativity on demand!

Brainstorm: I do a lot of brainstorming and as a creative entrepreneur I dedicate a nice chunk of my time each week to the task, however, if you are being tasked with having to find a creative solution to a problem or just needing to inject a little creativity into a project without much notice, brainstorming can be an excellent way to open your mind up to the creative process. Focus on the problem you’re having and ask yourself the who, what, where, when and why of it all and see if you can’t answer those questions creatively!

Think like someone else: When I get stuck in a creative rut, I find that thinking about a problem from another persons point of view can often help me inspire creativity. When I say this, I mean, try to think about the problem and possible solutions from the wants and needs of another individual. This is a must for any business owner who needs to understand their customer in order to create great products and services, but this activity can really help anyone. If your stuck for examples of people to think like, imagine you were your parents, sibling, relative, neighbors or friends. Often times we know how people close to us would react to a certain thing, so do a little role-playing in your mind and get new ideas flowing into your mind.

Give yourself time: It’s not uncommon for me, as a creative myself, to know I need a solution to a problem, but not have a clear idea of how to make it happen. So, if the problem is not urgent, I sit on it and give myself time to think of a creative solution. Don’t be afraid to give yourself time if you have time to spare.

Block judgement: The killer of creativity is judgement, so it’s very important that when creative ideas start to flow that you don’t label them as good ideas or bad ideas and just take stock of all the ideas you are receiving. Write everything down, but refrain from rating or judging the ideas until you have captured everything you think you will need.

Ask for feedback: If you are having a hard time coming up with a creative idea or solution on your own, don’t be afraid to ask others for feedback. Either on ideas you have already had or simply for their opinion on the situation. A fresh set of eyes can often do much for our own clarity.

Find commonality and relationships: When you are looking for creative ideas, try finding the commonalities or relationships between two things. Forcing your brain to relate x to y can often lead to creative solutions and interpretations. Make sure the two things you are trying to relate don’t already have an obvious commonality, the more obscure the connection, the more creativity you will inspire.

Those are my tips and general process for inspiring creative thinking when I am not in a creative mood. You would be surprised the number of blog posts and video ideas I have come up with when I thought my idea well had run dry, just by using one or more of these tips! Give them a try to let me know how they worked out for you, and of course, leave me your best tips for inspiring creativity down the in the comments!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature

P.S. Are you looking for creative blog post ideas? Here is a list of 25 great ideas any blogger can use that should help you through a creative rut!

My Productivity Playlist #8 {This is your year!}

March Playlist

I truly feel like March has been a big game changer for me in a lot of ways, and I am beginning to feel infinitely spoiled by the universe. I know that all the good news and positivity can’t last forever, but I have decided that I am going to make the most of all these gifts while I can. As you may already know, March is my birth month as well, so I feel like the last few weeks have been one big celebration, marked with a lot of hard work, dedication and focus. So this month, my playlist is a collection of some of my favorite songs, some old inspirational tunes I can’t live without, as well as a few new hits that I have been playing on repeat. I wish I could say their was a clear theme for the playlist this month, and I think for me there is, but I’m not sure how someone outside of my head would categorize these. For me, these songs are all poetically inspirational, sending me subliminal messages to keep focused on the mission ahead of me. I hope you find something within this collection that speaks to you in the same way.

Make sure to check out the playlist on Spotify:

  1. FourFiveSeconds by Rhianna, Kayne West and Paul McCartney
  2. Habits (Stay High) by Tove Lo
  3. Black Coffee by Peggy Lee
  4. Have you ever seen the rain? by Creedence Clearwater Revival
  5. Kashmir by Led Zeppelin
  6. Killer Queen by Queen
  7. The Downeaster “Alexa” by Billy Joel
  8. Pink Moon by Nick Drake
  9. Tennis Court by Lorde
  10. Born to Die by Lana Del Rey

 Make sure to head on over to Spotify to listen to the full playlist for free! Then you can let me know what you thought of this months collection and of course, tell me what you have been listening to and loving this month! Click here to check out previous installments of My Productivity Playlist as well, and I would love to see pictures of you enjoying this playlist at home or at work, so snap a pic, post it to IG and make sure to tag me @MissTrenchcoat and #ProductivityPlaylist so I can see them, like and comment!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature

How to Improve Your Focus

How to Improve Your Focus

Some of the people who know me best have told me that I have incredible focus. Now, I think this is probably the most wonderful compliment an entrepreneur can get because it means that I know how to get things done and execute! As you might imagine, I have a number of balls in the air when it comes to the many facets of my business and I have managed to find a sense of balance in order to get the most important tasks accomplished and chip away at larger projects that might take a period of time in order to complete.

I believe that at the heart of focus and execution is prioritization. Now I will admit that prioritization is a skill that needs to be developed and honed in order to be affective. It’s not always easy, even for me, to know what to prioritize and when, but in my 5+ years working for a fortune 50 company, I have pretty much learned how to prioritize, even when things get messy.

So I’m sure, if you’re like me prioritization isn’t hard when you don’t have much going on, but its when two or more things begin to collide and complete for priority that you get stuck deciding what to do. This feeling of being stuck can often lead us to not make a decision and not take action. So, to combat that, lets talk about two variables that can help you draw the line between competing priorities.

These two variables are values and expectations! Now, your values and expectations are variables because they will vary from person to person. What I value may not be what you value, and expectations you set for yourself may not be the same as the expectations I set for myself. For the purposes of this video I am going to give you some insight into my values and expectations, to understand how I prioritize and ultimately execute in my day to day, but please make sure yo base your own values and expectations off what works for you!

Okay, so when it comes to my values, my first priority is myself, my personal and spiritual health and well being. After that comes my family and business, and finally the greater community outside my front door. Now, I know saying that putting myself first is a very controversial statement, but its one that we really need to demystify! When I say that I put myself first, it is not in a selfish or self centered manner. In fact, I have a great analogy that I like to use to explain why I choose to put myself first. You may have heard me say this before if you follow me on my blog, but to me, it all comes down to something we are taught when we fly in airplanes. If you have ever taken a commercial airline flight you may recall the portion of the preflight where the attendants go over safety features of the flight. Their is a great part of the safety presentation where they explain that in the event of an emergency, oxygen masks will deploy from the ceiling and you must secure your own oxygen mask first before assisting others around you. This is so important people, secure your own mask first! Why? Because if you don’t take care of you, and then things get out of control, you may not be in the position to help anyone else. Not you family, not your friends or the passengers near you who may need you. Lets extrapolate that to life shall we. If you are not getting enough sleep, eating well, and developing good self care habits, you will not be able to perform well in your daily life when it comes to your own or other peoples expectations! You just won’t. So, let’s together try to break this cycle and the stigma of putting ourselves first because in the end, we can’t help anyone if we can’t help ourselves.

Now in terms of my own personal expectations to support that value, I have some pretty straight forward expectations of how I will execute this value. First of all, I need sleep. So I prioritize getting the right amount of sleep per night. I also expect that I will take my vitamins and allergy pills everyday, because when I don’t I feel like poo because I have bad year round allergies! I also have recently developed a new habit of waking up early and drinking a fruit and veggie smoothy Monday- Friday for breakfast. But it has helped me to really start the day off right, make sure I am getting key nutrients and its just been making me feel better. On a side note, my choice of drinking a green juice is just that, my own, and its not open for discussion, so no comments down below debating the legitimacy of drinking green juice or smoothies, I’m good with that decision and I’m not looking for input. I’m just sharing these as examples for you guys to take and then extrapolate to your own lives.

So, prioritizing myself first has really enabled me to make sure I am in the right condition to actively participate in my life and my business. There is no doubt in my mind that I am able to stay focused because I have set clear values and expectations and the greatest of those values, my self care regimen, actually supports my focus in a very direct way.

 Now, if you would like to know more about my views on Focus and hear a little more behind the scenes details about my values and expectations associated with them, make sure to check out my latest installment in my Plan Like an Entrepreneur Series. In this video I outline the same basic information here, but I also provide examples from a different value and expectations, as well as outline my top 5 tips for keeping balanced when priorities compete! If this topic interests you, definitely check out the video because you will learn a lot more through that!

I hope this post and this video are both helpful tools for you as you work to improve your own focus. This isn’t a process that can be taken care of in a single day, but the longer you work at it, the more experience you get under your belt making decisions and prioritizing, the easier it will be for you to focus on what matters to execute against your personal and professional tasks! As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic down in the comments, so don’t be shy, let me know what you thought and if this was helpful for you!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature

p.s. Want my help prioritizing the important tasks and projects for your business? You’ve come to the right place!

Why I am No Longer a Blogger

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I realized something very important in the last few months. After I launched the Strange & Charmed Shop, things began to rapidly change for me. I was no longer focused on the same things that had once held my attention. My income streams had been turned upside down in a matter of weeks after the shop was up and running, and the fate of my blog held in the balance. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am NOT about to tell you that I am closing the blog OR that I am going to stop blogging, that just isn’t going to happen! However, a shift in my perception left me thinking about how I use my blog, the things I share through it and the legacy that I want to create with it. Once it was clear to me that the shop was driving a large portion of my income, I lost a lot of anxiety around my blog and stopped actively seeking out sponsorships and ways to monetize the site. Once I became someone who was creating products, rather than merely someone who shared other people’s products, I realized that I was no longer a blogger. Instead, I am a business owner who blogs.

What is the difference between a blogger and a business owner who blogs?

To a member of my online community, the difference is subtle and perhaps barely even recognizable. When I was a blogger, I was intending to generate income from my writing and seeking the support of sponsors and advertisers in order to produce revenue. Because of this I was spending a good deal of time vetting emails from companies and brands that wanted to place products on my site as a form of advertising, or seeking out and building relationships with brands that I thought my community would want to see me working with. I was much more focused on creating content where I was showing my audience products, things to buy, and hoping to attract sponsors as well as new readers based on the products I was sharing.

Once I opened the shop and that began generating a regular income, it became clear that it was more effective for me to spend my time creating products and services that helped my customers, than simply curating items from other companies. Even though I had always held myself to a high standard when it came to what I shared, once I had the power to actually help solve issues that members of my own community were having through my products, a whole new world of possibility opened up to me. I am not sure if you have noticed, but lately, I have been much more focused on sharing tips, information and even glimpses into my life, more than I ever have before. Content creation back when I was a blogger was always focused on creating valuable content, but it was also compulsory that I found a way to integrate outside brands and companies so that I could monetize and sustain my work on the blog. It was so empowering for me once I made the shift from blogger to business owner who blogs, because I now had my priorities in order and my blog (and YouTube channel) had a new purpose.

I hope that over the last few weeks and months you have been enjoying these subtle changes in my content. For the most part, I doubt you can really feel the shift as a reader, but inside my own mind and at Charmed HQ things seem worlds away from how I used to approach content. It’s so much more relaxed for me to simply share knowledge with you all, give you my best tips and tricks and not have to worry about paying the blogging bills because I have a stream of income that is supporting not only my blog, but also myself and my family! Of course, I only have you, my readers and community, to thank for the success of my shop because you have really made so much more possible for me through your support!

I absolutely loved being a blogger, and for those of you who have never taken on the task you may not truly appreciate the time, effort and mental anguish that can sometimes come with being a full time blogger. If you have a favorite blogger out there on the internet that is constantly producing great content and working with brands and sponsors regularly, I highly suggest going over to their site and giving them a virtual hug and let them know how much you appreciate all they do to keep their content rolling in day after day and week after week. Bloggers sometimes get a tough rap and take a lot of slack for all the hard work they do to publish their content, so spread the love today and make your gratitude known. Thank you all so much for being here with me, and for giving me the opportunity to make this subtle career shift. I appreciate you all more than you will ever know!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature

Be an Empress, Build Your Empire with Empire Building!

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Sunday was a very exciting day for me. If you follow my YouTube Channel or my Instagram Account, you may already know that I have officially launched a new coaching program for members of my community who are looking for guidance building their own business online. The program is called Empire Building, and it was designed by me using all the knowledge I have acquired over the past few years building my own online business from a simple blog and rarely updated YouTube channel to an online community of over 30,000 followers and another 50,000 individual users who visit my site on a monthly basis!

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I have to admit, my path to entrepreneurship has been an interesting one, especially when I take into account the fact that I have no specialized business training, nor have I participated in any of the popular online marketing courses you hear about. I’m definitely not against a business degree or taking a dedicated course on the subject of online marketing, but it just wasn’t something I ever did, and terms like hooks, listing building and lead pages still baffle me to this day. No, my success didn’t come from any fancy business or marketing strategies, but rather from doing what I thought was the most logical way to attract an audience and build a community. I created content that was of value to people, stayed consistent with my brand and focus, and treated my followers like I wanted to be treated. Apparently, I had inadvertently stumbled upon the golden rule of online business success.

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Although this lesson was a long time coming for me, if you are looking for your own online success, I want to ensure you save as much precious time as possible, which is where Empire Building comes in! The Empire Building Program is a 5 Pillar Method for building a business online using tried and true methods that I have learned over the past 6 years of trial and error online! The Core of the Empire Building Program are 5 Blueprints (or workbooks) each covering one of the 5 Key Pillars to online business success. The first Blueprint, Branding, is currently available on my shop if you are interested in getting started on your own journey to online entrepreneurship, however, Empire Building doesn’t end there!

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Over the past 6 years, I have learned much about myself and my own strengths. One of those strengths is my sincere ability to help others and provide focused, practical advice and assistance to those who need it. This is the true reason I created Empire Building, because I wanted to design a program where I could coach members from within my community either on a group or one-to-one basis. So, in addition to the Blueprint workbooks, I am also offering two Coaching Paths to you so that I can use everything I have learned to help you build a successful business online. Now, I am not going to go into the details of these programs here in this post, however, if you are interested in learning more about those programs or the Blueprint workbooks, please head on over to my dedicated information page for the Empire Building Program! This page outlines the program in more detail and is the best place to start if you are interested in working with me, but want to find the option that best suits your needs!

Of course, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly via email. I would be happy to answer any and all questions you have regarding the Empire Building program to ensure you make a choice that works for you! I am so excited for this amazing opportunity to work directly with the wonderful members of my community and help turn dreams and aspirations into reality! Thank you so much to all those who have already joined the program, I am beyond grateful for the chance to work with you!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature

{Picture Perfect} How to Become a Better Photographer

Photography Tips

As far as I’m concerned, photography is a life skill like swimming or driving. You don’t have to be someone who makes a living from photography for it to benefit your life, everyone takes and keeps pictures throughout their lives and the sharper your skills, the better visual memories you will be able to capture! So, here are five of my best tips for becoming a better photographer no matter what your current skill level!

  1. Practice, Practice, Practice! Take as many photos as you can, whenever you can. Practice makes perfect!
  2. Review your own work frequently, and note which methods, times of day, setting on your camera, etc gave you the best images. This is truly the only way you will learn as your progress with photography.
  3. Study and critique the photography of others. Go on Flickr and search through images, figure out what elements stand out to you in great photographs and the style of photographs you like the most. This will help you develop your own person style and help you to create more compelling images.
  4. Learn to engage your subjects. A lot of times whenever you are meeting with a professional photographer, they often ask a lot of questions when they are photographing their subjects. This helps the subjects relax and get engaged with the photographer, which always makes for better photos. Obviously, you will do different things to engage different subjects, you wouldn’t treat an adult the same way you would treat a child or even a pet if you wanted to engage them.
  5. Continue to research and learn. Photography is such a wide subject and there are always new techniques and photographers out there for you to learn about, so if you get stuck or you don’t like a certain style of photography that you find yourself in, dive into the online community, find some new inspiration and get a fresh perspective on your craft!

A great way for your to hone your photography skills would also be for you to jump in and participate in my current Instagram Photo Challenge #CharmedGTD! Don’t worry if you missed the first few days, just pick up with today and get started working on your photography skills while also inspiring productivity in your own life!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature

5 Apps for the Creative Business Owner

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As a creative business owner, I have to wear multiple hats throughout the day. It’s not uncommon for me to work on new designs, marketing plans, spend time on photography and images, and then end the day working on expense sheets. I feel like most days I am using all of my brain power to manage details of my business from the creative side to the practical business side, but luckily for me, my one woman show is made easier through the use of some powerful tools in the form of smartphone applications that allow me to manage my workload from home or the coffee shop without missing a single beat. So here are the apps I recommend for the creative business owner.

DocScan: I have written before about my love for this workhorse of an app that basically turns your phone into a scanner. For a few years, this was the only scanner I actually used because it was easy enough for me to use the app to take a picture of a document if I needed to email it to a customer, sign it for a client or just store it for my record keeping. As a creative business owner, I use this handy app to save images of business related receipts, and to open and annotate PDF documents regularly, in order to keep my business working wherever I am.

Followers +: There is no doubt in my mind that my number one favorite social media platform is Instagram, and I consider my community on IG to be a major priority of mine. It’s not just about creating excellent images to keep my followers inspired and informed, but I also get great insights into the way my business in performing by watching in real time my communities response to my images. Followers + is a great app that helps you track your IG photos so that you can see how your customers are interacting with you on Instagram, which photos they are liking and to help you pin point gaps in your community.

Analytics: Analytics is another app that I have written about before because it is a great way for me to manage my website’s statistics on my smartphone. If you use Google Analytics to track your website or blog, you should definitely have this companion app on your phone for those moments when you want to see how well specific content is performing. And if you aren’t yet signed up for Google Analytics to track your site, you need to make that happen asap!

Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a very handy little app that really helps me to batch my work and stay on top of my social media marketing campaigns by scheduling tweets and Facebook posts. Although, admittedly, I am more involved with my Instagram account, I still find Twitter and Facebook to be valuable marketing and community building resources at my disposal and for me, I do best when I am executing in those platforms through marketing campaigns that I can pre plan and preschedule through the use of Hootsuite.

Dropbox: Cloud based storage systems are a godsend for the creative entrepreneur who may need to have any number of media files, documents or images in their hands at a moments notice. Dropbox really helps me to organize important or frequently accessed business and marketing tools from not just my smartphone but also from my iPad or any other computer I have access to. It’s like having a filing system that just floats around in your system where you can refer to items or share them with clients or contacts at a moments notice without having to waste precious storage on your device.

If you are a creative entrepreneur, I highly suggest checking out these apps to help you with your workload so that you are spending less time on the business and marketing of your creative business and more time creating, which if you are anything like me, is your favorite part! Let me know down in the comments if you have ever used any of these apps or if you have any others that you consider a lifesaver for your creative business. If you are looking for more tips for creative business owners and entrepreneurs, make sure to check out my new series, Plan Like an Entrepreneur on YouTube for some behind the scenes action and insight into how I plan for my business! If you are not a creative business owner, feel free to check out this article I wrote called my Must Have Apps for Working Professionals!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature

Letter From the Editor: In Like a Lion

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In like a Lion…

As I sit in my living room writing this post to you all, I’m all bundled up in layers of pajamas, blankets, and a warm little puppy on my lap, also trying to fight the cold and snow that’s roaring outside. Like they say, March is in like a lion, and I hope it goes out like a lamb sooner rather than later! But it doesn’t matter how cold and icy it is outside because March is here and it’s one of my favorite months of the year. Why? Because my birthday is in March, which I am looking forward to. Friday the 13th this year, which would perhaps be a bad omen for some people, except for me, 13 has always been my lucky number, and I consider Friday the 13th an auspicious day! I think I may throw myself some sort of horror movie themed birthday party or at least dress up like Wednesday Addams that day! Feel free to leave me some good party ideas down in the comments, they would be appreciated!

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This month I also have a few important projects going on, like my #CharmedGTD photo challenge on Instagram that you still have time to get in on! I was blown away to find that by the first day, there was already over 120 pictures using the hashtag and so many more added every hour! I’m blown away by the support of my friends in the planner community, so thank you all if you are participating. I honestly can’t thank you enough for helping me celebrate this month in such a fantastic and inspirational way!

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Also, if you missed it, I already announced my March Free Printable entitled “Make Your Own Luck” which you can check out here. And of course, I also recently announced a new addition to my online shop, Printable Inspirational Wall Art. If you are looking to add some positive motivation to your office or home, check these out and start your own gallery wall!

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Since March is such an important month for me, I have planned a lot of great content for you all on my blog and YouTube channel. If you haven’t already seen it, I recently started a series on YouTube called Plan Like an Entrepreneur, where I show you how I plan for my week and then answer your questions about business and entrepreneurship! On the blog this month, I have some great productivity tips coming your way, including tips on how to be a better photographer, books you need to read, and my take on staying inspired as a creative! This month is going to be packed with great content, so I hope you stop by regularly to see what I have created for you!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature

Make Your Own Luck {Free Printable}

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The time has come once again for me to announce my Free Printable for March and this month I have decided to something a little different! First of all, this month I have created my monthly free printable in both personal and A5 size! I know this has been a request from many of you, so when you download the insert, you will actually have access to two inserts, one for each size! So, the second thing that is a little different this month is that I have created a 31 step process for creating, following and executing your goals, so you can Make Your Own Luck from now on! Don’t wait around for your life to change and your big dreams to just magically happen, you need to do the work yourself if you want it done! Luck is something you control when you work hard and make a game plan!

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So if you would like to download these free inserts, click here to hop on over to my Shop where you can access and print them immediately!

If you do download these free inserts, please let me know about it by taking a picture and tagging me on Instagram with the special hashtag #MakeYourOwnLuckMarch so I can see how you are making use of these inserts in your own planners. I love seeing your pictures, and I can’t wait to like them and interact with you on IG! Make sure you’re following me @MissTrenchcoat!!

xoxo,

Alexis-Signature