Welcome to the Productivity Blog

So I've been thinking (and talking) a lot about inspiration lately. It's a theme that ABOH completely revolves around, and I recently told you in a blog post that I've added it as a brand new category. That's where this post comes in.

I get so much positive feedback from you about this online space and the one phrase that keeps popping up quite regularly is this: "it's so inspiring." I wanted to do more with these words and so I came up with the idea of an inspirational reminder post. I'm hoping to post little messages of blogging and life-related encouragement every Saturday to inspire you to push a little further, work a little harder or simply take time to reflect on each quote. 

I'm really excited about starting this new series. Let me know if you like it in the comments and today, we'll kick off with the first one!

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So if there’s a very easy way to my heart, it’s magazines. I remember when I was about 15, I picked up my first ever issue of Elle for when we were going on holiday. It made me feel so adult. Ever since then, I’ve never missed an issue, and magazines became a big love of mine.

I grew to love them so much, that it became my career goal to ultimately write for a magazine. This is a goal I’ve sort of fulfilled – I’ve written for LOOK magazine and Holl & Lane too. But I’d love to write for more. I also did a Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013, so it’s safe to say that they’re a huge source of inspiration for me.

So today, I wanted to round up all the magazines that I’ve come to love over the years. Some I buy every issue, some I’ll just buy the odd one, but I love them all for different reasons. I know the online world is taking over and “print is dying”, but I believe that magazines will never die. Here’s my pick of the best.

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So you’ve spent some time perfecting your handshake, you think you’ve got your CV nailed and you’re keeping a spreadsheet which logs all the jobs that you’re applying for. You’re sending off application after application and you’re getting some interviews, but so far, you’re still unemployed and you just can’t figure out why. You put in all that time and work only to feel like you’re never going to get anywhere.

What gives?

What else do you have to do to stand out, get hired and make employees unable to resist hiring you?

These are the questions we’re going to answer today.

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I’m a morning person through and through. There’s nothing I love more than waking up early and getting to work, because I know that’s when I’m at my most productive. Evenings are completely different. When I get in from work, I’ve got my routine nailed. But when we've eaten tea and cleaned up, that’s when I start to struggle.

My evenings used to go one way or the other. I’d either waste them away not really doing anything or work late into the night. Recently, I’ve been on a mission to make my evenings count, be more intentional with them and do things that matter. So today, I wanted to show you how I’ve been doing it.

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Spoiler alert. There are LOADS of bloggers out there. In fact, more and more appear every day as we move into a time where blogging is seen as a full-time job.

What does this mean for you? Well you might be thinking, “what’s the point in blogging if there’s already so many people doing it?” That’s not the way to think. The right way to think is: “so how can I make myself stand out from everyone else?”

It’s hard when you’re just starting out, but learning from bloggers who've been around for a while can be the best way to grow your personal brand and improve your blogging skills. And ultimately, become a pro blogger yourself.

When I first started blogging, I was pretty much playing a guessing game. I didn't have a plan. I just wrote blog posts, published them and chatted a bit on social media.

Then my eyes opened and I realised that I couldn't go on this way. If I did, my personal brand and blog wouldn't grow, and I'd wonder in five years why nothing had changed. Was this what I wanted? I bet you can guess the answer.

So what did I do? I researched bloggers who were the best at what they were doing and payed close attention to them, to see what their process was and what made them different to all the other bloggers out there. What I found were some huge lessons and I wanted to share them with you today.

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As you know, I’m huge believer in promoting positivity in all aspects of my life. One way I do that is through affirmations. I’ve even started adding them into my daily routine. Not only do they help you have a strong, motivated outlook, they also serve as reminders on what you want to achieve and give you the belief that you can get to where you want to be.

I know some people think motivational messages are cheesy. They avoid those quotes on Pinterest like the plague. But when you think about how toxic our negative thoughts can be, you might start to think twice about affirmations.

We can change our entire mood from good to bad by one simple thought. “This is rubbish.” “I’ll never get a job.” I’ll never make that much money.” “I’m not good enough/pretty enough/clever enough to do that.”

We use negativity on a daily basis - so changing it to positivity should be simple enough, right? You’d think so. And we try many different things to turn our frowns upside down. But I believe positive affirmations are the way to go.

The only problem is that they only work when we believe in them. We have to believe in the power and truth of them in order for them to have a positive effect on us. You can say “I will achieve this” hundreds of times over. But if you don’t choose to believe it, then nothing will change.

We are in control of our own thoughts and no one can change them for us. There’s also no one else who can remove the negative thoughts from our minds. It’s up to us to decide how we think and act. 

Like Buddha said: you become what you believe. Believe you can’t do something and you won’t. Believe you can do something and you will. The more you strengthen this connection, the more positivity you’ll have in the different situations throughout your life.

So if you want to open yourself up to possibility, define your focus, choose to do things with good energy and begin to believe that your life is a positive one, these affirmations are for you. Use them in however way you want to and whenever you need them most. Here are some of my favourites.

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So is Spring here yet? Can you see it? 

I know you've been enjoying the sunshine down in London, but up North, it's still not getting over 11/12 degrees. Which means no summer clothes for us yet.

I'm sat waiting (very impatiently) for it. I mean, we've had some nice days. Thursday afternoon was beautiful, and when I got home from work my mum and dad were gardening. But mum had her big coat on and dad had a woolly hat on, so we've still got a bit to go.

But yes, I'm really ready for it. Sometimes I'll look out of the window at work and just wish for it to appear. I even made an ASOS order the other night for a couple of Spring pieces in the hope that the temperatures will rise.

Springtime also means the countdown starts for holidays, more time off and my birthday and I obviously can't wait for all those things! 

And summer nights in the garden sipping wine, going on walks to watch the sunset, having breakfast outside in the sun.

I need to stop before I get carried away...

Here's what I've been loving this week.

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Evernote is one of the most used tools in my blogging toolbox. To say I love it would be quite an understatement. And if you don’t use Evernote, today I really want to introduce you to it and show you how amazing it is.

This is a tool you can use in all aspects of your life. Think of it as the place where you can dump all your thoughts and lists in one go – but in a mega organised way. You can save links from the web, your own notes and put all these in an order that suits you the best. You can use Evernote for so many different things. I started out using it to make a note of the clothes I wanted to add to my wardrobe. Then when I started using it for blogging, that’s when I came to realise its potential.

You can essentially create a central hub on Evernote for all your blogging needs. Post links, calendars, ideas, to-do lists – everything can be kept on here to help streamline your blogging process.

The main way I use Evernote for blogging is for post inspiration, so that’s what I’m going to cover in this post. And since so many of you ask how I come up with so many ideas, today I wanted to let you in on my little secret.

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Stress is real and is something that affects each and every one of us. Whether it’s university deadlines, personal problems or juggling too many things at once, we all suffer from it at one point or another. It’s so incredibly important to take care of ourselves in a positive way to make sure we don’t burn out due to stress. But I also know how difficult it can be.

Stress can affect us in different ways depending on the type of person we are. Usually I find someone with a short temper gets stressed more easily than someone who doesn’t have a short temper.

I don’t suffer from stress that often – although I have in the past. And one way stress used to make itself known to me was by my scalp coming up in a big red rash. I know. Attractive, right?

Luckily, when my hairdresser came last weekend, she made a note about how healthy my scalp was looking which means my stress levels must be pretty low. So today, I wanted to share my secrets with you to show you how to decrease stress in your life and actually get rid of it for good.

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When you’re told by your tutor that you’ve got to undertake a compulsory placement at a magazine as part of your course, it’s like the best news ever. Every single one of us couldn't wait. But it was daunting having to organise it ourselves. All we had was a list of dates – it was up to us to find a magazine that would take us on.

Amazingly for me, that turned out to be LOOK magazine – Britain’s biggest weekly selling glossy. When the head of the features department confirmed I could attend, I marked it in my diary and the countdown begun.

Tom’s Aunty lives just outside of London so it was fantastic that I got to stay with her. It was this time two years ago that my placement finished and I remember bringing all my things down to the dining room the night before the big journey, feeling like I was moving out. It was emotional leaving my family – I cried a lot when I was left on my own, because starting the next day was the biggest thing I’d ever had to do.

Looking back, there was so much I learnt about myself, not just from the internship, but living independently in London for four weeks too. So today, I wanted to share these lessons with you, so that you hopefully enjoy them and learn a few things yourself too.

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Like most people in the world, I spend a lot of time at my desk. That means not only do I want it to look good, but I want it to be a comfortable space and that allows me to work efficiently and productively.

When you spend so my time in one place, you want to make sure you’re going to enjoy it. You want to make sure it works for you. Enough space, a place for all your equipment and space to actually move around are all things you need to think about, because these are key things for preventing procrastination and a lack of motivation for the work you actually need to do.

I shared on Instagram recently that I’ve moved all the furniture around in my bedroom to make sure it’s a space that works well for me. Before, I didn’t really have a “working” area. I had a desk, but my bookcase and equipment were all in different parts of the room and it didn’t really flow. Now I’ve changed all that, I’ve never been more productive. So here’s how you can set up your desk space to make sure you’re getting your best work done.

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When you’re a blogger, you receive all sorts of blogging advice from people who think they've got all the experience and want to share a thought or two. But actually, not everything you read or hear is as helpful or as you might initially think.

On Saturday, a lot of you commented on my post “Why I won’t tell you what your blog should be about”, saying that you (like me) had fallen into the trap of taking a lot of advice on board and had struggled with knowing what to believe. I can completely relate. But one big barrier to taking on any piece of advice is knowing who you’re getting it from. Just because one thing worked for one person, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you.

So today, I wanted to share some pieces of blogging advice I’ve seen or been given in the past and thought it best to ignore for good.

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2016 so far has felt like a period of growth in lots of different ways. The first month of the year saw me grow with my blog by launching the #BloggingBreakthrough eBook, I’m continuing to grow in my career by learning more and being given more responsibility, and I’m growing in my personal life by the different chapters that are starting to appear. 

Reflecting on all of this recently has got me thinking about how crucial growth is for each and every one of us, and how we should embrace that every day.

We start to grow taller from when we are little - that’s growth we can see. But it’s actually the growth we can’t see that’s more important. The growth during school when we’re becoming the person we’re supposed to be. The growth during university and work, where we’re becoming independent. And the continuous growth throughout our lives where we get to understand who we are.

So today, I wanted to share with you, not only why this is important - but also some small things you can do every single day that will help you see your growth.

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I'm really loving putting together these Seven for Sunday posts every week, especially now I've switched them up a bit. After taking a few days off from blogging at the start of the week, it feels good to get back into the swing of things and I'm looking forward to creating all the content I've got planned for this month.

So happy April! This week has been just right, although it was tricky cramming five days worth of work into four! I think at the start of the week I was definitely still in Bank Holiday mode too. March was good, but I'm really looking forward to this month. The days are longer which means there'll be more time spent outside and there's a few nice things to look forward too as well.

This weekend has been a food-filled one - Tom and I made our famous chilli pasta bake for my brother last night before he goes back to uni, and today we're at my Nana's for a family Sunday roast. (Her's are the best in the world, FYI.) I'm also thinking of purchasing one of FitnessBlender's programs and change up my routine a bit, so watch this space.

Anyway, right now I'm drinking gallons of water to stop myself from wanting my tea too early and admiring my bullet journal, because OH MY is it pretty!

Here's how this week has looked.

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A few weeks ago I got an email from a beginner blogger who had some questions about her blog. She wanted to know what she should be blogging about in order to grow her traffic and build a community. I considered her question for a minute and then froze. How would I even begin to answer that?

So I thought about it and started drafting out a reply with some tips. When I’d gotten halfway through, I read back over what I’d written and had a realisation: what was I doing?

A number of thoughts ran through my head at this point.

• Why was I telling this girl what to write about?
• Is it possible to tell someone how to build a blog in just one email?
• Why had she emailed me?

So even as an someone who's been blogging for early three years, I still have moments of panic whenever I get a direct email that asks for my help.

And the truth is, every blogger does.

No one has the answer. No one has the step-by-step formula. No one has the magic trick tucked away in their secret blogging box. So it really makes me uneasy when other bloggers shout from the rooftops about what you should be blogging about.

Should is a funny word, don’t you think? It’s like, when someone tells you that you should do something, where’s their authority to say that? Who’s to say you should believe them?

Sure, it’s definitely a good idea to have some standards, and there are some things that all bloggers do and know work well. But I also think that our blog is our own, and we’re all capable of making our own decisions.

Are there really set rules for what blogging should be like? Aren't there too many already? I’d say so. That’s why I’ll never tell you what your blog should be about. And here are a few more reasons why.

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We’re known as the “busy” generation. Our plates are always full. We've always got too much to do, yet we keep saying yes. Lots of us ask the question, “How do we do it all?”

Here’s the thing: being too busy is a lie. Each of us has 24 hours in a day and you get to decide how you’re going to spend your time. Every single hour. You know the feeling you get when you say, “I don’t have time.” It makes us feel weak and that we aren’t spending our time in a worthwhile way. That means we rush to tick off our to-do lists, and then we wonder what we've actually spent our time doing.

If you say you don’t have enough time, then that comes down to how you’re spending it. Because the truth is, you are in control of your life.

I’ve definitely been in this place, so if this speaks to you too, here are some steps you can take to start feeling more in control of your time.

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After the amazing response to my post Behind-the-Scenes: A Journey down My Career Path so Far, I started thinking about sharing the journey that other people had been on. So on the last Thursday of every month, I will be introducing all sorts of people in different industries to share the career journey that they have been on.

For the first round of posts, I reached out on Twitter to see who would like to take part and got some fantastic responses. I'm hoping the series - which will run permanently - will provide a little insight into how different each of our career paths can be. I also know how much valuable information these people are going to give you and I hope you're as excited about the series as I am. 

So here we go with the first interview.

 

Jessica Freeman is an Atlanta-based designer and the owner of Jess Creatives. Jess works with entrepreneurs to create a brand that shines on and offline. After hours, she enjoys spending time with her husband, Aaron, and their pup, Morgan.

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Hey friends. First of all, let me start off by saying that I hope you had a wonderful long Easter weekend. I was so excited to have four days off, but it still felt like Tuesday rolled around too quickly!

In my last Month in Review post, I said that February had been quite a whirlwind. Thankfully, March hasn't been so manic. I’ve finished my evening work for my job now until September which is really making a difference, and now that the clocks have gone forward it’s making the days a lot longer which I love.

I’ve also not been feeling as overwhelmed this month and I know that’s because I’ve had less work on my plate. I don’t have any public speaking gigs coming up and my freelance work is slow too – although I am in the process of creating a freelance services page so watch this space.

For some reason (and without getting too deep and meaningful), I’ve been thinking a lot about my future this month. Tom and I have been playing house for the past week while his mum and dad have been away. And whilst I love getting to see what it’s going to be like living with him permanently, I’ve also found myself missing home a lot. It’s a weird feeling being torn between different emotions, but I guess eventually it’s something we’ll all have to get used to!

The most important lesson I’ve learnt this month is that family comes before anything. Over Easter, I took a complete break from the digital world to spend time with the people that mean the most to me, and it’s done me the world of good. So now let’s have a look at what happened in March.

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I'm writing this from the comfort of Tom's sofa, in a nice, quiet room with the four day Easter weekend ahead of me. Bliss.

I may or may not have had extra super-early nights this week just so I could be ready for it. I'm taking like 9:30pm early. And yep, I'm nearly 25. 

Although it's 8:30pm right now and my eyes are getting heavy, but we'll just brush over that.

This week has been made a lot better knowing the Easter weekend was ahead - but it's also been extra busy because 1 - my manager has been off sick all week, and 2 - I've had to squeeze my normal five days worth of work into four.

But safe to say I blasted through and ticked everything off my list which my oh my, felt good. I also had my last dose of evening work this week until September - another reason to celebrate!

So without any more chitter chatter, I'm going to go right ahead and get into this week's Seven for Sunday. Oh - and Happy Easter :)

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Most of us know all too well the feeling of overwhelm we can get from blogging.  Juggling the day-to-day demands of running a blog alongside a day job and our daily lives is challenging to say the least. I’m there with you right now, juggling social media, taking photographs and we won’t even mention emails.

"Overwhelming" is probably a good word you’d use to describe it. Especially when you feel like no one is reading, commenting or even listening. Growth can be slow, and sometimes, you wonder what the hell else you need to do to see a difference.

Don’t you wish someone could give you some secret information and let you know about some tips to help you create amazing blog posts and ultimately grow your audience and online presence?

That’s why I’m writing this post today.

Like most bloggers, I check in with my stats around once a month to see what changes there have been. But recently, I was interested to see what had happened over time, starting right at the very beginning.

What I found really surprised me.

The way I created my most popular post of all time is exactly how I go about creating my blog posts today. It’s popular for a reason, and it’s because I did certain things that made people want to read it.

So if you’re looking for some fresh ideas for creating content or you just want to try some things that actually work, you’ll get it all right here. Let’s get going.

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