Over the weekend I moved all of my things out of the office space we have on the second floor of our house. I had been thinking about it for a while and finally decided to commit to no longer having a designated office space. And so far I’ve been loving it.
It all boils down to the fact that I just wasn’t using the space. I would only trudge up the stairs to film a video every once and a while and didn’t find myself lingering much longer after filming finished. It became a room to hold my knick-nacks and planner collection and not much else. It felt like I was taking the space for granted and wasn’t using it to its fullest potential.
Plus I didn’t need it.
I’m the type of person who much rather work at the dining room table, on the couch, or in bed. The majority of my scholarly and work accomplishments have been achieved while bed-desking. I wrote my entire thesis in bed, I started Oh, Hello snuggled under the blankets. I’m a much happier and more productive person when I have the ability to move from place to place and work wherever the mood strikes. I completely understand how office spaces are valuable and work wonders for people, but for me it’s just not necessary.
So I moved all of my supplies into the closet in the finished guest bedroom. The closet previously only housed a couple of spare pillows and an always empty laundry hamper. I find closets in guest bedrooms to be a bit pointless as most of the time guests will never ever use it. So I toted all of my things down the stairs and set up base. The move downstairs helped me to downsize my collection, really think about what mattered to me, and helped me to focus on organization.
We still aren’t entirely sure what to use the upstairs space for since I basically up and vacated it out of the blue. It’s the kind of space that will likely transition as our family grows, but currently we’re contemplating moving up Alex’s photography studio from the bowels of the basement. That way if he ever does photo shoots for anyone it’ll be a much more enjoyable location.
I’ll likely do a full tour of my closet storage space once I’m finally settled in completely and if there’s any sort of interest. I may add a small desk into our master bedroom at some point when I start work on finishing the decor in that room, but for now I’m quite content being a nomad in our house ready to work anywhere.
Blogging while busy is one of those topics I get asked about a lot. So I’m sharing with you my tips and tricks to squeezing in time for the hobby while doing a million other things.
Create a schedule you can stick with. Sure it would be amazing if we could all blog seven days a week, but that’s just not realistic for a normal schedule. Whether its three times a week or just once, pick a content schedule that works with your life.
Then actually stick with it. If you’ve made a promise to yourself to blog twice a week, then do it. Set aside time to take the photos and write up the posts no matter how hectic your days are.
See it as a time to relax and not a chore. I always blog when I’m unwinding from the day. It’s a nice break from my daily to do list and has always been a hobby and a way to relax for me. If blogging feels like a chore and just more work, maybe you shouldn’t do it. Hobbies shouldn’t feel like a hassle.
Forgive yourself if you don’t blog for a week. Sure it’s best to be consistent if you want your blog to get traction, but you also still want to enjoy the hobby at the end of the day. There are weeks when I’m just too busy and I literally forget I have a blog. Rather than beating myself up over it and stressing myself out trying to whip up a few posts, I give myself a break.
Take a bunch of photos at once so you don’t have to keep setting up your camera equipment every time you want to write a post. It’ll save you a lot of time and blogging won’t feel like it takes up too much of your day.
Plan out posts ahead of time so you don’t have to worry about thinking of what to write about when your brain is concentrating on a million other things. I you feel a bit of inspiration strike, take that time to write out all the ideas and posts you have just in case you do become too busy to find a few seconds to write.
Prioritize your life and determine if blogging fits in. Sometimes there really are other things that take higher priority than typing up some ramblings, and that’s ok. If it’s really that important to you, you’ll be able to find the time to do it.
At the end of the day I feel happier and more accomplished because of my blog. It takes priority over a lot of other “relaxing” things during my day and I’m more than happy to let it. Blogging while I’m busy never feels like a chore. It shouldn’t for you either.
I wrote this
same post two years ago and it felt about time to revisit the subject, see what’s changed, and be candid about self-employment. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Sure owning my own business is amazing and I don’t want to do anything else with my life, but it’s also a whole lot of hard work and stress. Lots of stress. And it’s not for everyone. Some days I’m not even sure if it’s for me. Every day we take risk after risk.
When I first talked about the hardest part about owning my own business, it was letting go of complete control. Now, two years later, I don’t find that to be the case anymore. We’re at a point in our business where we’re looking to expand and grow. I’m eager to welcome other ideas and change into the company. I know I couldn’t have said that two years ago when I could barely let Alex help me.
The hardest part now is prioritizing. There are so many things we’re trying to do in so many different directions that it feels like we’re working on everything at once but accomplishing nothing. Alex and I like to joke that I’m expanding outward while he’s expanding upward. We want to share our business with more people and that means we need help. That’s where things get even more complicated.
In order for Alex and I to work on our projects and go in new directions, we need other people. That’s strange for us to admit since it’s been a two person team for so long. But we physically cannot grow any larger without other people to help with the workload.
The thing about small businesses is you need people who want to help grow the company just as much as you do. It’s easy to find someone to just do the work and go home at the end of the day, but that’s not what a start-up needs. It requires new ideas, effort, and innovative thinking. I feel like I’m pitching a new brand of iPhone or something, but it’s true. I’m at the point where I’m willing to give up “complete control” in order to welcome new ideas and people to help take risks with us. Now it’s just a question of who.
It’s crazy to think that two years ago I couldn’t fathom losing control of my little brain child. We’ve come so far already with just a few years under our belts. So here’s to day after day of interesting challenges on the path of making this dream into a lifelong reality. I’m happy that you’re here with me and that I can openly share the journey.
There are only two emotions any small business or entrepreneur feelings. Complete euphoria or utter terror. April is notorious for being Oh, Hello’s worst month in sales. It also happens to be tax month so the hits are coming from all sides. I have a love/hate relationship with our worst month of the year. April is fantastic at giving me crippling self-doubt, but it’s also the best month for innovation and change.
That’s the thing. It’s so easy to let yourself get overcome with the fear of failure and doubt that you just curl up into a ball and re-watch Parks and Recreation for the twelfth time. Tell yourself you tried, there’s nothing you can do, sales are bad for everyone so you shouldn’t feel bad, etc. That’s obviously the easy way out. And I’m done with that.
One of my favorite things about owning my own business is being the one in complete control of my fate. I don’t work for a company that could suddenly start laying people off or randomly put a target on my back to boot me out. I work for myself. If things go south it’s completely my fault. But if things go right, that’s completely on me too.
So rather than looking at April like the business-crushing month that it likes to be, I’m looking at it as a chance to work on those projects I keep talking about wanting to do but never getting around to. It’s been one week of pushing for these new changes and I’ve already found a regained spirit for Oh, Hello. The passion for my company is bigger than ever and I know we’ll get through April like we have twice before.
There are tons of projects Alex and I are working on, but my favorites are in these photos. I’ve never been so excited about clipboards in my entire life and wristlets just seem like a no-brainer for our designs. We’re working on getting pencil cases and makeup bags too. I’ve finally started working on the sticker organizer books I’ve been talking about since Christmas.
The easiest way to get through a rough sales month is to pull out that to do list full of ideas you want to do if only you had time for. And do them. Stay up later. Wake up earlier. Don’t just give up on something you’re passionate about because it got harder. Don’t think sticking to the same routine will work for you like it has in the past.
Everyone always says to “keep busy” when there’s turbulence in your life. The same is true about small businesses. You have to decide if a bad month is going to make or break you. I’ve made up my mind that Oh, Hello isn’t going anywhere. Now I just have to work my ass off to prove it.
I’ve been blogging on different platforms for nearly ten years now. Over the course of those ten years I learned a lot about what not to do when it comes to consistency and content. Plus I’ve also tried close to fifty different ways of organizing blogging content that have all disappeared for one reason or another. My most recent editorial calendar method has lasted the longest and I thought it was about time I finally talked about it.
My biggest advice for creating an effective content calendar is to honestly ask yourself what you’re capable of actually accomplishing. It’s all well and good to think you’ll write a new blog post every day of the week or post five YouTube videos, but you have to consider what’s actually possible. Look at your daily schedule, your commitments, and your responsibilities. Figure out what you have time for, and what you sincerely want to use that time doing. Once you’ve decided what’s realistically manageable, you’re ready to build an effective content calendar.
Like I said, I’ve tried a lot of different platforms and systems to keep track of my content schedule. I’ve used planners, notebooks, stickers, you name it. The only thing that has ever really worked for me long term is Google Calendar. Gasp. I know. For someone whose livelihood depends on people using tangible planners I can’t deny that when it comes to this, it has to be online. For good reason to.
You want to create and utilize a system that allows for plans to change. Google Calendar allows you to write in a blog post or a YouTube video, but if life gets in the way, you can just drag it to another day. This freedom to drag, drop, edit, and change your content schedule within seconds makes it superior to a tangible planner. If you’re someone who sticks with a plan once it’s made, definitely go for tangible. But if you’re anything like me, one day you may wake up and have no desire to write a particular blog post. You won’t have to cross it out in your planner, all you’ll have to do is relocate it to another point in your schedule to do it when you feel more inspired.
I also really enjoy using Google Calendar for my content schedules because you can create separate calendars for separate aspects of your content. I have calendars for blog posts, Microscope Beauty videos, vlog videos, Kawaii Bunny videos, social media, and Oh, Hello Stationery Co. marketing efforts. Dividing out your categories of content makes it easier for you to switch off the ones you don’t want to see or focus on. It makes work much more manageable when you only have to look at one type of content at a time rather than the entire jumbled mess of all of them together.
Having all of the calendars in one place though is beneficial so you can coordinate schedules on different fronts. Say you run an online business selling craft supplies and you’re releasing a new line of materials. Using multiple calendars makes it easier to see what is happening during certain aspects of your business so you can coordinate all of your efforts together. You could post a new blog post showing a DIY with the new items one day, a behind the scenes look of production on Instagram the next, and a video showcasing all the new supplies the next day. All of those efforts operate on different calendars, but you can see them all at the same time and coordinate everything together.
Most of the time your content calendar will come together in bursts. If you’re feeling particularly inspired one day, sit down and plan out as many blog posts or videos as you can think of. Schedule them into your schedule now, but know that it can easily change based on if anything new comes up. On average my content schedule is about a month ahead in blog posts and videos. Whether or not I stick with it is different, but if I have a very good brainstorming day I want to make sure I get all the ideas down so when I’m tapped of creativity, I don’t have to worry.
It’s also incredibly important to be flexible with your content. You can’t always predict when things are going to happen, so don’t set your content in stone. That’s another great thing about Google Calendar. Some of my most popular blog posts and videos were created within an hour of some big launch or release. I quickly moved around my other scheduled content to make way for a new planner launch and had a huge increase in subscribers because of it. Make sure your content is working for you and not the other way around.
Apparently I could ramble on about content calendars for hours, so I’ll end it here for now. But if you have any questions or want to know more specifics, leave them in the comments. I’ll definitely do a follow up or expand on ideas in another post.
It goes without saying that I’ve tried my fair share of planners. Since I work within the planner industry it’s a must, but it’s given me a lot of opportunities to discover which planners lend themselves to certain needs more than others. Some are great for students, some are great for moms, and some are perfect for running a small business.
It’ll come as no surprise that one of my favorite planners to help me run my business is the
Erin Condren Life Planner. There are three different layout types, but the
hourly seems like the best for managing time if you’re running a business. Although my small business doesn’t really require a lot set scheduling, most businesses do. So having a planner that you can clearly map out your time will make sure you aren’t over-booking yourself. They’re currently 50% off right now if you’re interested in giving the layout a try. Plus an hourly layout can help you schedule designated “stop” times so you can you know, eat, and see your family.
If you’re looking for something with a bit more flexibility and freedom to add and remove things, a personal planner will be your lifesaver. I picked up
this one from Michael’s, but there are hundreds of different options in all price brackets. Plus Etsy has a
ton of inserts to help you set it up for maximum productivity. This is a great system to write to do lists in, keep notes in designated sections, and to capture any loose business bits you don’t want getting lost.
Sometimes the easiest system is all you really need. I find that nothing helps me check things off my to do list like
this agenda from Rifle Paper Co. One week per spread with just enough to do list spots per day so you aren’t over-doing it. I love scheduling out everything I need to get done in a week over the course of five days right from the start. That way I don’t feel overwhelmed by one massive to do list and I can chip away at it little bit by little bit. I’m sure you can find something like this in an insert form if you want to tie the personal planner and a simple to do list agenda into one.
All of these planners have helped in some way at a variety of different stages of my business. They’re fantastic, flexible systems that have helped me stay organized and more productive. Plus they’re pretty which is always a nice bonus.
Every girl boss needs a gorgeous desk calendar to keep them organized, so I’m giving one away! Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win this Erin Condren Tabletop Calendar for 2017. It comes with a gorgeous little stand and the cards are perforated so you can use the designed side for a postcard once the month is over. Super handy. The giveaway is open internationally to anyone 18-years-old or with parental consent!
Good luck and happy planning.
