It’s been a few weeks since I wrote one of these. What first became a Sunday morning ritual, then developed into much-needed time off of my laptop at the weekend, which then became a deeper issue because when does one simply find the time to write after a weekday’s work?!
As you may tell from the above sentence, yes I have indeed been watching The Lord of the Rings in my spare time. Never thought I’d say this, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not sure if it’s the trio of hobbits and their never-ending eating ordeals, or Orlando Bloom’s Daenerys-esque hair do….
I’ll admit I’m a little annoyed I didn’t keep these up and remain consistent, but I’m patting myself on the back for sitting down to write this evening’s one because this is my week off!
And on the eve of my 25th birthday. So I thought it fitting to write a diary entry of sorts on my final day of being 24. Not that there’s anything remotely interesting about turning 25, a quarter of a century, only half way through your twenties….
I’m thinking Monday would be a good day to keep these going, while the weekend fun is still fresh in my mind. And also because weekends are starting to resemble normality and summer shenanigans once again, with the COVID restrictions lifting. Long may they last hey!
It’s been a bit of a whirlwind these past few weeks. Work’s keeping me busy, but also forcing me to sit down and assess what kind of work I want to continue doing for the rest of the year. I finished a content strategy course and I now want to start putting these new skills into practise and build them into my service offering, as well as revamp my website, after much deliberation! There’s a lot of spinning plates as a freelancer, and some days are easier to manage than others.
I’ve been listening to a variety of podcasts too to keep me entertained on walks with Cloud, and I’m gravitating towards a lot of mindset and self-help podcasts.
They’ve got me wondering; why have I been putting off these tasks? A lot of things have come to fruition for me since starting my personal training with Kerie, figuring out what my why is and challenging my mindset; figuring out a morning routine and making time for the things I actually enjoy doing. I love looking at habits and figuring out how I spend my time and how I can hone in on my happiness and what makes me tick. Buuut I’m also probably over-analysing things as per usual!
The podcasts I’ve been listening to are:
Come Curious: F**ks Given
Rosemary MacCabe’s How To Be Sound
Kerie Dillon Performance Podcast
Keelin Moncrieff Same But Different
Train Happy Podcast Tally Rye
The Muscle & Hustle Podcast with Becca Gillen
So if you’ve seen me walking and laughing out loud to myself, now you know!
Crank up the temperature and it’s even harder to stay committed to work and habits, because all I want to do is get my ass outside and revel in those two solid weeks of Irish heat.
But alas. All great things must come to an end. The weather, my fun running outside with the Askeaton Accelerators…
All because I sprained my ankle! After a brief adventure back to Kerry last Friday and messing around up the side of some mountain area, I landed awkwardly on my foot.
I did cry today and wonder why did such silly and perfectly avoidable things have to happen, and hinder all the strength and running gains I was making. I’m going to be out of action for at least 6 weeks. Boo.
Trying to look at it as the universe telling me to slow down, focus on getting those work tasks done once and for all, and still work out my upper body and SWIM! Workarounds baby 🙂
But onto why I started this juicy blog in the first place; freelance and digital marketing tips and tricks, and they force me to actually think about what I’m learning and using in my work everyday.
My productivity tip for this week might seem counterintuitive; but take a holiday this summer. Even if it means staying at home for a week and not going on any major trip away, it’s important to give your head a break from work and those stressors. I’ve mentioned it before but taking work breaks is super important to let those ideas simmer. Breaking your routine and trying new or old hobbies and being away from the constant stream of emails (yay for OOO!) will do you the world of good.
I have two freelancer tools to prescribe to you this week! The first one isn’t a marketing tool but is a necessity in your freelancer’s toolbox, and it’s FreshBooks. Your invoicing and accounting software all in one! Stay on top of your invoices and manage your cash flow all in one place. ++ for the simple and clean user interface too.
The other marketing tool that I recently discovered is Xtensio. This is brilliant for any of you who are writing copy for sales sheets or even websites. If you’re struggling to figure out how much you should write for a certain piece of copy, quickly drafting what it will look like on the website or printed out on paper will help meld the information together.
It’s free to use for the basic templates and is also great to download and send as a copy to clients to give them an idea of how the copy would look as a finished product. Client brownie points 🙂
Many of you are probably craving in-person events or coworking spaces opening back up again, but it’s really wonderful to see so many brilliant events going virtual. These events open up the spectrum of attendees because they’re free and much easier to access due to not travelling or paying.
I’ve signed up for the Learn Inbound pint-sized marketing Zoom event on July 30th, but this is only one of many events that are being held online now. Make the most of them, as there are always little nuggets of free information that you can take away, or find new cool people to follow online! But yes, I am most definitely craving an in-person event ASAP. I’ll keep you posted!
I was watching Melanie Murphy’s Instagram stories recently and she spoke about how pretty much everyone uses filters on Instagram these days when on their stories, and how much of a distorted view it gives us. You’d nearly forget what people actually looked like… She said remember when people used to upload all of the photos to Facebook back in the day, circa 2010. Like every. single. photo from the night out was uploaded! Not a care in the world. So I shall end with this quote:
“Proceed in your life with the enthusiasm of the younger you who uploaded ALL THE EMBARRASSING night-out photos to Facebook, circa 2010.” We need this energy now more than ever in 2020!
What sort of energy are you bringing with you through the rest of this year?!
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