About six months ago, I attempted this 200 days of blogging challenge and was having a wonderful time with the challenge and then BOOM! I had one of the biggest life changes. I broke up with my fiance and my whole entire world flipped upside down. Of course, I STOPPED BLOGGING.
While I retreated to a state of mourning my old life, and celebrating my new life -- I really started to miss writing and creating through this medium. I mean, put my blogging life on hiatus for 5 months! Hooray for self love! But... but... what about my business love? It's time to get back in that ol' blogging saddle and create some gold. Will you join me? Let's do this fire lily... let's light some fire by increasing our SEO, encouraging clients to come back to our site, and become the expert that you've always wanted to be.
If you have a blog, or have started one and stopped, I'm sure that you can relate to this. Life gets in the way, and you stop. I'm here to tell you / inspire you, it's time to get on that bandwagon again! Why? Because your ideal clients need to connect with you and you need your life's work out there! I want to say that it's okay that you haven't committed yourself fully till this point, but that it's time to commit yourself now. This is exactly what I am doing. FORGIVE YOURSELF FOR NOT BEING CONSISTENT, BUT MAKE THE COMMITMENT TO START BEING CONSISTENT.
This is what I am doing today, and you should join me.
I'm serious enough to make a written and signed commitment.... Are you?
Top 3 Lame Excuses of "Not Starting" Debunked:
- I don't have time...Your audience needs to get to know you, before they'll buy from you. So if you want to be successful you need to make time. Currently I'm teaching five university classes (4 Online, 1 in Person) takes up a lot of my writing power. - Shouldn't be an excuse because I have so much awesome info to share from teaching! It is my life's calling to teach and I need to do more of it, and why not be of service through my blog? Who knows it might even lead to more teaching opps! Think of it this way, and perhaps you'll get more opps through writing too.
- I have more important projects to do....If you are working on a much bigger more revenue generating project than blogging then you are in good company. Again, giving away valuable content will help funnel people into your awesome new service or info product! I'm mid-process developing a kick-butt information product to help entrepreneurs brand themselves and I'm just starting to make some major progress with it. - The same audience for my blog would love this product. Check out YouCanBrand.com
- My List Isn't Big Enough -- Who is really reading this thing?... ... You have to start somewhere, and many of these beginning blogs might just be for you to work out your voice and the kinks. Having a smaller audience in the beginning is a good thing so that you can be EXTRA awesome when your audience is bigger. I feel like without readers I'm in a room talking to myself ... kind of un-motivating. Does this mean I have spotlight syndrome?! Perhaps! -- However, even if one person is reading, it's totally worth it! I want to be of service to my readers and help them with their careers. It's what I love about teaching! So please comment and participate so that I know you are following along. Ultimately, how do I expect to get a following if I don't start now? -- Shauna Haider of Nubby Twiglet told me during The Blogcademy (a fabulous blogging workshop) that your voice may not even be developed until your 500th post, so you may not want too many people following you until you get some practice in! I'm trying to get a jump start on the first 200.
The truth of the matter is, you don't need act like Nike and "Just Do It." You need to find an approach that inspires you and works with your flow. If you type fast, it shouldn't really take you that long once you get in the flow. To ultimately to have a truly successful online business with a niche target, you better have a captivating and interesting blog where your audience can get to know you. It's so great for SEO. I have about a bazillion ideas to write about. So this should be a fun challenge! Will you come along?
I look forward to getting to know you over these next 200 days! Let's start with talking about scheduling. How am I going to make this work in my crazy schedule? Perhaps I should start with at least attempting to schedule it? Let's do this....
If you don't schedule it on your calendar, it doesn't exist. - Marie Forleo
This is what my schedule looked like Click to View in Detail
Use Google Calendars! It's Free and easy to use, and you can easily drag things around as things change.. I have an Android phone and it automatically sends reminders to my phone for everything that I have scheduled which is super helpful!
After some work with my amazing Life / Business Coach Debby Eubank, this scheduling thing is actually going to be a bit different. So I will keep you posted with the new and improved schedule as I develop it.
Focus / Flex / Free Days
Categorizing your work into Focus / Flex / Free Days can help you chunk similar things together to increase productivity.
Focus Days If you are interrupted with a client appointment, a networking event, an errand, etc. then getting back into a project can be tough. If you turn off all of your electronics for those focus hours you'll get way more done.
Flex Days are days that you can schedule all your social meetings that require more face-to-face interaction and less concentration.
Free days are important so you don't feel like you are burning yourself out and you have scheduled fun time which helps with a good work / life balance. If you don't rejuvenate those brain chemicals on some free time, you will get burnt out.
When I went through the brilliant Blogcademy, I learned that developing an editorial calendar is mandatory. It makes it so much easier to sit down and know what to write about if you have topics already planned out ahead of time. The other key is doing blogging in chunks and having them released daily without you actually having to write daily so you can get out from your computer if you need and want to. Since it's important to have original content, you may want to feature and artist's work or a photographer's work and that means you need to get permission from them to feature their work on your site. This takes time and planning! So it's good to get ahead.
Lastly, these girls who run the Blogcademy, work non-stop on their blogs, so something to consider is that to be successful it might require doing what other people aren't willing to do. This is inspiration for me to start thinking big, and getting outside of my comfort zone by doing something like writing 200 days in a row!
- Monday's - Monday Funday- Topics will be related to things you can do for your business that are fun, hilarious, creative, because Mondays can feel overwhelming for people to get back to the grindstone after a fun weekend. We will continue the fun!
- Tuesday's - Dear Design Doll, -- I'll answer questions or cover frequently asked questions regarding branding, design and entrepreneurship
- Wednesday - The Swipe File- Examples of how to use inspiration in design work and branding without plagiarizing or ripping anyone off. How to get inspired in your business and design work by allowing yourself to consciously look at things around you to get inspiration from. so that you don't get stuck!
- Threadless Thursdays - T-shirt design is one of my favorite things ever, and I want an excuse to flex my design muscles and get feedback from you
- Friday's Top # Things You Should Know About___ A numbered list of a variety of business topics
- Every other Saturday's Links Mi Amor - My list of links to check out of amazing things I find on the web, from other blogs to tools, inspiration, books, hot trends in design and business etc. I reserve the right to do this blog whenever I want, cause it's on the weekend!
- Sunday's OFF -- My Rejuvenation Day! You should take one or two of these off a week.
Here's what I am considering for content...
Cool photography, current design projects broken down, video tutorials, community competitions, blog tutorials, trade secrets in design and business
