This past week was a strange one because I was forced to slow down even more due to fluid imbalances in my ear. It felt like I was on a ship, when I moved I thought I was constantly swaying and about to fall over!
This frustrated me; just when I thought I had my work and exercise routine down, this weird illness comes along! One thing that helped with my restlessness and slight nausea was getting out into the garden and clipping the hedges.
And let me tell you, gardening is addictive! One minute you’re clipping back a few briars here and there, then you spot a few strands of grass dad missed around the trees, and then the nettles in the corner start peeking out…. four hours later your wrists are about to fall off! I kid you not, the day after I could barely move my hands because my forearms were in so much pain!
And the birds!
People have been saying the birds are louder. I wonder, are they actually louder or is it just that we notice them a lot more now because we’re slowing down and paying more attention to our surroundings?!
Either way, it’s beautiful.
The bees are also out in the masses lapping up all that nectar and pollen. I was full sure there was a hive in one of our trees, but when you just sit and watch you’ll see all the plump bumble bees buzz from flower to flower. They’re so cute. From afar!
Feeling incredibly grateful that I do have a garden to plod around in, as many people are stuck in cities with little space to move around and relax in. This was one of the main reasons I moved back from Prague, there was nothing to do and the city felt quite claustrophobic to me. I’m lucky that I have a home in the countryside to come back to!
I saw something online last night that piqued my interest….. 4 day work weeks. The point made was that we only need a few hours of increased concentration to get our important tasks done for the day. Comments underneath the post mentioned this; when we give ourselves less time to do something, we excel at getting things done efficiently. We waste less time scrolling on social, sending emails, doing more than the necessary amount of research.
Seeing as this week is the May bank holiday weekend (wow really, honestly had forgotten too..) I’m going to squeeze my work in Tues-Fri. And then the following week Mon-Thurs, perhaps taking calls on Friday if needs be.
I do think if I knew I only had four days to get my work done, I’d work harder and procrastinate less! I’ll let you know next Sunday how my week went!
I tried to sit down approx. 5 times this week to read my two books but one page was turned in total. Just not feeling that book buzz this week.
I did however, watch the Normal People book adaptation on RTE Tuesday night! Boy was it everything I needed during this iso and more.
Talk about transporting me right back to secondary school (which TBF is only six years ago… hmm still kind of a long time though gah!), the worries and woes of teachers catching you staring out the window to what’ll happen at the next disco!
It’s nice to pour over something that isn’t COVID-related, and listen to all the callers on Joe Duffy’s Liveline give out about how “porno-esque” it all is. I mean, this is the quontent I signed up for!
My favourite marketing tool this week is email. Email newsletters to be precise! Newsletters can be a precarious topic during these times because of all the brand messaging and pandemic alerts. The few newsletters that I’ve signed up to are worth sharing here too for the golden nuggets of information they share.
Amy Lynn Andrews, Ross Simmonds, The Daily Carnage, Ann Handley and Laura Belgray of the Talking Shrimp (a copy-focused email newsletter)!
The right newsletters can be full of useful, on-trend information that saves you time searching for new tools and research online.
And they’re also nice to read in the morning, or as a way to procrastinate when you know you should be doing some work-related research….
Last week I signed two new clients. Yay! Funnily enough, they both came from online Google Sheets.
Before Christmas, I added my name to an online workers/digital nomad sheet that was doing the rounds in a Facebook group. This week someone reached out to me, we jumped on a call and our projects and services were the perfect fit!
The second call also came from a Google Sheet especially for digital marketers, and et voila! Another call.
Spreading your information around the web and making your services as easy to find as possible is super important. If I ever see job postings or people looking for help in groups or on LinkedIn, I try my best to comment because you just never know when those people will reach out again.
Super chuffed I added my details to those sheets now, and it took like what, not even five minutes?!
I’m finishing with an over-used quote but I always find myself going back to it, whether it’s work-related or fitness or anything really.
“A year from now, you’ll wish you had started today”.
And even though these weeks in iso might seem slow, time is still passing pretty quickly. It doesn’t have to be a massive life overhaul, but even doing one small thing that can help your marketing strategy, or get yourself online and in front of your target audience is one step in the right direction.
Is going online something you’ve wanted to do for a while now? Or are you struggling to think of ways to market your business during COVID-19? Leave a comment below or message me on any social media, I’d love to hear from you! 🙂
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