In this post, I’m sharing a round up of what I have been up to and what I have been exploring in Tech and Marketing in the last few months.

Productivity/Planning Stuff

My PA Planner

I thought that it was time for an update on the MY PA Planner. I’m loving it. It just works so well for me. I ditched it for a week and I noticed a huge difference. I can plan out my day so well and it means that I can actually ditch my Pro Asana account. (Which feels a bit scary because I love the rules features and how it keeps things organised – I might switch back to it down this line when I get more team members in. A story for another day but changes are afoot!)

The actual planner is arriving at the end of the month so I’m excited to give the 2023 version a whirl and get rid of my stapled print out and finding out if this is my no-brainer planner going forward. I test a different one every year and I never land on one that really sticks and helps me organise my brain.

Do Less by Kate Northrup

I’m currently reading Do Less by Kate Northrup and my biggest take away so far is that I need to start using the cycle of the day, month, year to my advantage rather than trying to work my brain and body into the ground when there are certain times when it’s OK for me to slow down. (I’m crap at slowing down. But I know that I really need to)

For example, in the Summer – When my little girl starts school, I’ll need to adapt my working hours so I’m starting a few years early to create a way of working that will work for me, productivity wise and my life in general.

OR on certain days of the week when I have more working hours available, I need to be taking a lot more breaks to keep my productivity up. This book just makes so much sense. Working it cycles/ by the seasons/my own seasons seems so logical but I’ve never really thought to actually give it a try.

I’m doing some testing so I’ll keep you updated on how that’s going but if this resonates, check out the book.

Project Management

I am testing out a new project management app (BasicOps) to see if it will cut it as a replacement to Asana. I’ll keep you looped in on that.

Marketing Stuff

• I enjoyed listening to this episode about the best way to use Instagram for email list growth on Amy Porterfield’s Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast with Jasmine Star & Brittany Krystle. You can tune in here.
• The new ‘Add yours’ feature for Reels. Find out more here. I think I’ll give this one a try at some point.
• I created an email marketing Airtable for myself and planned out all of my emails until June next year. It was as if my brain just needed to get it all out somewhere.
  
  This felt a bit wild for me and so stupidly organised and I thought, ‘nah I won’t fully stick to this plan – ha’ but so far I have and I’m even writing emails for October and November (Random dates though, there is no order to my writing. I’m just doing it when I’m inspired but this kind of thing is unheard of for me. I’m ahead with email marketing? eh?) You can get a copy of my Email Marketing Planner here.
• I learnt that I can create 16 Reels in Canva in 1 hour when the caption and content are totally nailed. Timing myself on this was mind blowing and sort of reconfirmed to me that writing my caption before I create makes me way more productive than if I just wing it. This is another reason why I love my Sort Out Ya Socials Social Media Planner.
• Over the last 3 weeks, I have randomly spent an hour here and there creating social media posts using my new branding. It had been a while since I posted a standard image post to Instagram and I was surprised to see them actually get any traction, what with all the talk about Reels being the way forward and having no one really see them when Reels first became *the* thing.
  
  So, I’ve decided that I’m not going to completely stop posting standard posts and carousels. I’m going to use all the tools at my disposal because why not?
  
• An interesting feature from Instagram also over the last week is that you can now add topics to your Reels. I’m going to give this a try and skip out on the hashtags and see what happens.

Software I’ve been exploring

Feedhive

I’m a fan. Feedhive makes scheduling social media so easy and I don’t need to faff about with hashtags because it has an AI hashtag generator thingy. I just need them to create a mobile app now and I’ll be a superfan.

GroupConvert

I’m not sure how I feel about GroupConvert yet but they are running a challenge so I have signed up to see what it’s all about. I’ll do some testing if it seems good/legit and let you know how that goes.

Sendfox

I’m trying SendFox out with Mantra + Moon and so far, I quite like it. We’re doing a bundle in December so hopefully we will get to see it pushed to its limits then.

Whereby

This is so damn good. Whereby is an alternative to Zoom and works in your browser so you don’t need to faff around with room codes and apps. You can even embed into your website which I am excited about because I want to start running weekly co-working sessions for my membership. You can brand it too with your logo and a background image – I just love this feature.

Other Stuff I’ve discovered and done

Sacred Money Archetypes by Denise Duffield Thomas

I’m currently doing Denise Duffield Thomas’ Sacred Money Archetypes Course and it’s really giving me food for thought about the way I run my business and how I can start making my life easier. I’ll keep you updated on how this is going. It’s so interesting! (I’m journaling everything that comes up)

This inspired me to finally change the change my brand colours on my website and it’s making me want to take it a step further and change all of the icons and elements. I’m trying so hard to resist (because…time) but I want to step into the word ‘Bloom’ even more so it’s probably going to happen eventually.

Find out your money Archetype with Denise’s Quiz here.

Client/Student-Only Groups

• I launched a client only Facebook group which had me a bit nervous for yonks. I put it off for ages. Visibility mindset issues… etc. But I got a handle on that and as you might have noticed I’m more active in your inbox recently. Yay Gems! So, the FB group thing is all thanks for Elizabeth Goddard’s Client/Student-Only Groups FTW Course (affiliate link)
  
  I’m also going to getting my old FB group rolling again soon so keep an eye out for that.

Creating a Membership

Blooming Bosses is online to explore! You can check it out here. I’ll be updating you on how you can join soon!

Client Work

I spent a lot of time getting clients ready for bundles and Black Friday and some of them needed a good terms & conditions/policies review as they hadn’t checked them in a while. If this sounds like something you need to do, here are a couple of places to get contracts and T&Cs etc from:

• Contract Club by Braden Drake – I use some of these and life just felt so much easier as soon as I bought them and also it’s an absolute no-brainer bargain.
• The Contract Shop – These are epic, robust contracts you can use for all kinds of businesses and offerings. Definitely worth a look.

Books I have read and loved

• The Tapping Solution – (Still reading) I think this one will take me some time.
• Positively Wealthy – I started reading this but I wasn’t sure what to expect. It has daily prompts etc and I just wasn’t ready for it so I’ll be starting this one over at some point or diving into it in parts.
• Do less by Kate Northrup – This has shifted my mindset massively. I’m moving with my own seasons and finding ways to get all the things in life and business done but without the hard core state of push push, that I usually find myself in.
• Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein – I’m half way-ish through this one. Let’s see how it goes!
• I’ve bought myself a copy of this book as a Christmas gift: Manifesting for beginners by Victoria Jackson (Blooming Bosses Founding member) I’m a bit of a fangirl. She is so blimmin’ lovely and has an amazing way of explaining things and pushing you to get stuff done in your business too. She got me hiring a VA and kicked my butt into shape 😂