Honing Your Craft

Hello everyone!

It feels like entrepreneurship is in the air lately! Everywhere I look I see people going into business for themselves, producing multiple streams of income and watering the rivers to financial freedom. As a full-time and part-time marketing and design professional, my brain is working 24/7. I work full time as a Senior Marketing Specialist for the largest commercial real estate company in the world, and part time I am a marketing and design business owner. This year, I am setting my business goals as a priority and honing my craft as a content creator.

When I look up the word hone (or honing) Merriam-Webster defines it as 1) to sharpen or smooth with a whetstone; 2) to make more acute, intense, or effective. Wow, that’s powerful! You literally take a tool and grind it against a stone to make it sharper, more effective at what it was designed to do. Let’s see how to apply that same principle to ourselves. We each have a skill or talent—a innate gift—that come naturally; whether it be public speaking, drawing, financial aptitude, cooking, caring giving, or teaching. Taking that skill, talent or gift—or tool—and sharpening it so that it becomes effective is paramount to completing the job or task. The question then becomes, what device—or experience—can I use to sharpen this? A pencil sharpener was specifically designed to efficiently sharpen a pencil. All the mechanics and their functions were invented to give a pencil its cylindrical shape culminating a perfect sharp point with which to write. Can you sharpen a pencil with a knife? Sure! But will the point be perfect and sharp? Will the cuts be even? Can you carry it around with you at all times? Your tools need to be sharpened by things, people and experiences conducive to shaping and sharpening the purpose of those instruments.

Honing your craft first starts with identifying your craft. Think about something you do very well; something you don’t even have to think about in order to accomplish or something which you often receive compliments. This is your skill, your talent, your gift, your craft! Now, that you’ve identified it, what situations, experiences or environments are the most conducive to helping you sharpen your craft in order to monetize it? I’ll use myself as an example. As a self-taught graphic designer, I thought I had to offer everything under the sun to be successful: flyers, business cards, banners, logos, product design, illustrations, websites, and the list goes on. While I do offer several of those, creating websites is not my forte. In the beginning, I tried to learn all I could about HTML, coding, programs like Dreamweaver, and FTP uploading—honestly just typing those words gives me a headache. I limited the website projects I accepted, and I stressed about the few I had because I was trying to make it work with my limited knowledge. So, guess what, I got to the point where I realized I had to scale back and really narrow in on what I could execute REALLY well. Cutting those services didn’t mean I was taking a pay cut if anything I could charge more for my expertise in the remaining specialized areas!

Today, I continually immerse myself in order to become a subject-matter expert by taking webinars, staying current on industry trends, joining groups/communities, and studying other successful professionals. Collaboration is something that I have found helps me sharpen my skillset while becoming inspired by fellow subject-matter experts. By honing my craft, I can become a thought leader in my area of expertise where people will seek out my perspective and service.

This is the sweet spot. Creating the solution to a need. You don’t get there by doing a little bit of everything poorly or surrounding yourself with people who are not designed to enhance the effectiveness of who you are and the task you were designed to do. You get there by finding that thing specifically designed to refine you and the thing you were exclusively created to do on this earth. What is that thing for you? Is it finding a mentor, taking an online course to gain credibility in your industry, or perhaps renting a separate work space that fosters quiet and creativity? If you’ve gotten to this point, your work ethic is not in question, you are willing to do what it takes to succeed. Focus your hard work on refining, shaping and putting an edge on what it is you do best!

5 Tips to Save Time in the Morning

5 Tips to Save Time in the Morning

Hello everyone!

Are you like me, throwing things together in the morning and praying to make it out the door in time for your morning commute? Well, I for one got tired of lurching out of bed and scrambling around the house only to walk into work with the “sorry I’m late” face. I decided I HAD to do something different if I wanted a different result. So, I thought about all the things I do before walking out the door in the morning and what tactics I could apply to help me accomplish them. Here are five tips to help save time in the morning:

1 | PREPARE MEALS THE NIGHT BEFORE 

My biggest time sucker in the morning is making my lunch and breakfast and I can spend up to 20 minutes prepping food! Assuming I did my job on Sunday and meal prepped (ha!), packing my lunch and breakfast the night before is a breeze. In addition, I like to make my snacks beforehand. Slicing and portioning out veggies for hummus dip, spooning out yogurt with blueberries and honey, and blending up a protein shake. I pile everything into my lunch bag and put the whole bag in the fridge. 

2 | PACK YOUR BAGS.

I am fortunate to have access to a gym at my job and I prefer to work out on my lunch hour. An unorganized morning can go like this: me scouring the drawers for leggings, searching for the sports bra that matches them only to realize it’s in the dryer in the basement, and then trying to find my other “other” headphones. Ugh! I completely eliminated this step by packing my bag the night before AND placing it by the door so all I have to do is grab and go!

Maybe for you, it’s packing the kids bookbags or loading up your laptop case with important papers, folders and, oh yeah, the actual laptop. Whatever your “bag” is, pack it up at night and put it by the exit.

3 | PLAN YOUR OUTFIT. 

Now, this next tip is kind of a hard one for us ladies, but it will save you time in the morning, I promise!! Women typically select our outfits based on our mood for that day (yes, men this is a real thing!); so how can you decide on an outfit before you know how you’re going to feel? I found that the number of times I chose an outfit the night before and then completely changed my mind in the morning was very rare. By giving myself the framework to follow, I customarily stuck with my original choices even if I swapped a scarf or sweater here or there. Now, on the occasions I wanted to “throw the whole outfit away”, I was glad I had done tips one and two so I could afford little more time to figure it all out. Now, sometimes nothing works, and you find yourself down the rabbit hole 20 minutes later surrounded by a room full of dismissed ideas…but that is another post for another day! LOL.

4 | TURN OFF THE TECH.

What is the first thing you do in the morning? Maybe you meditate (namaste), pray, make a cup of coffee or start yelling at kids; but I think we all do one other thing before ALL
OF THAT. Reach for the phone. Guilty as charged! I mean guilty, guilty. It usually goes something like this for me: I grab my phone and check my first stop—Instagram, then any texts I missed, emails…ooo that one from Swell’s new product line that makes me feel like I also want to go hiking through some Himalayan-like locale beautifully toting its new tumbler. Before I know it, I’m on Expedia comparing flights to Nepal, and then on to Target to find a sarong for said fictional trip and…ooo vacuum cleaners are 50% off…see where I’m going with this?! But this is how my brain works if I fall into the tech trap of letting one thought lead to the next and to the next. Let yourself have 5-10 minutes to answer the emails and texts that need immediate attention and then shut it down! The same goes for watching tv! You can always listen to the news on the car radio.

5 | GO TO BED ON TIME!

This sounds the most straightforward, but it can be the hardest to do. By the time you get home, get dinner, get the kids ready for bed, try to watch a show or two, nurture husband/wife or friendships, pack your lunch and gym bags, pick clothes, brush teeth, and attempt your nighttime skincare where does the time go? Well, sometimes you just have to make yourself do it! Bedtimes are individual but isn’t there a rule about eight hours or something? LOL. I am a chronic pusher of the snooze button, but when I’m in bed—and not on my phone—by 9:30pm, it’s actually easier to get up when my alarm goes off.

How you start the day often determines how the rest of your day will go. So why not start on a high note? What are some ways you save time in the morning? Drop a comment below.

Time Saving at the Gym

Hi everyone!

I’m back in the gym after two and a half weeks! I can tell you that aside from being extremely sore, I have a new tool to help me stay organized and motivated. Yes, I just referred to my new gym bag as a tool and, yes, I said it keeps me motivated!

I’ve been on the hunt for a gym bag that is compact enough to carry to-and-from work while offering ample storage. This bag has interior and exterior compartments for your phone, travel-size toiletries and sweaty garments you might want to keep tucked away. The size is perfect, being large enough to fit all my stuff but small enough to stow in narrow lockers—I can use the drawstring to cinch the bag closed and keep everything secure. The material and straps are thick and durable. Since I’m pretty rough on my stuff, the black color will be very forgiving and keep it looking as good as possible, for as long as possible.

You may be asking, how is this a tool? For one thing, the compartments keep everything organized and sorted. My biggest time sucker at the gym is the locker room, I can waste up to 20 minutes pre-and-post workout. Now having the ability to reach into my bag and put my hands directly on what I need has reduced my changing time by 10 minutes. That’s almost an hour in time savings during a typical work week!

Mid-day workouts have been proven to keep me consistent so squeezing every exercise minute out of an hour is important to me. I stay motivated knowing I can spend more time exercising.

Make it a regular practice to research tools that will aid you in your goals. Whether it’s downloading an app that reminds you to drink water every hour (yes, I have that!) or setting up a “keep the change” feature with your bank that rounds purchases up to the next dollar and deposits the difference into your savings account (yes, I have that too!). 

What tools do you use to stay organized? What could you be doing more efficiently in your daily/weekly routine?