New School Year – New Changes For Me!

As the kids were getting ready for the new school year, I had to buy school supplies.  When I was out shopping for new notebooks, pencils, binders, sheet protectors, and folders I had this feeling that I had to start something new.  I wanted a new notebook and folder to start from the beginning in.

What Was My New Change?

I had been sitting on a redesign for my own blog for a long time.  I knew I was going to switch servers and host my site with Bluehost. (This is my affiliate link, should you wish to help support me).  I knew my site needed to be Google Chrome compliant and I should enable SSL to my site will return higher on the Google search results.  But, I still had my site hosted on GoDaddy.  So I decided that since the kids were starting a new school year, it was time for me to begin a fresh start.I had been working with a close friend of mine getting advice on what I could do to make my blog better.  Ya see, when you are designing something for someone else, it feels so much easier than when you have to do your own.  I think that is because we are our own worst critics.  I was given a few pointers and I knew what I had to do.  I spent the Friday night of Labor Day weekend designing.  I was having such a good time.  My daughter was working on a school project in her office and I was in there on the designing computer while we were jamming to good music. 

I needed to design this new site because my message was not clear.  My blog was looking like my brain had been feeling for the past few months!   There was no organization, nothing that told my readers who I was, what I was passionate about, and what I enjoy doing.  I needed to have my favorite colors and the look needed to be clean.  So I am happy to say I did it!  And yes, I was working on a weekend; but I was playing!  That’s fun for me.  And I was taking the advice that my friend had given me when we met a week ago.  

What Am I Doing To Change?

• I am very deliberate with my intentions each day.
• I am using time blocking to get specific tasks done within chunks of time so I have appropriate focus.
  • Batch writing is a great example of how this is working well for me.  I can create several blog posts at once and schedule it so that I don’t lose the flow from writing.
• I am taking time to learn something new each day
• I am intentionally making sure I am using a pinnable graphic in my blog to grow my traffic with Pinterest.

What’s Next?

Now it’s time to get back to what I loved, writing for my blog.  Two years ago, I used to be able to write a new blog post every day.  When I felt overwhelmed that my blog wasn’t serving me, I stopped writing.  Now that I have a new strategy in place to have a successful day, I feel like it is much easier for me to write.  With this new structure to my day, my brain is also feeling more clear.

And one more piece of good news to report.  I am being more consistent with my training.  In addition to more frequent runs, I am doing my cross training again with weight lifting and leg exercises.  Taking care of me in addition to everything else I love.