CI Magazine - April 2020

A P RI L 2 0 2 0 I S S UE N O . 0 3

DI TCH THE ‘9 T O 5’ A N D E MB R A C E FLE X I B LE W O R K I N G Make an impact on other people and the planet

THE PER FECT TIME TO DECLUT TER YOUR HOME

PRO SECTION

E VERY THING YOU NEED TO KNOW AB OUT REMOTE PRODUCTIVITY

Wo r k in g f rom ho me

Special

Award-winning chronic illness blogger Natasha Lipman talks

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E DITO R’ S NOTE

Wo r k in g f rom ho me

Special

Home working Hello team, and welcome back to a new edition of the Creative Impact Magazine.

Needless to say, the last few weeks have been incredibly challenging for so many of us. Both our collective members and the wider community has been shaken by this global pandemic.

I am a realist at heart, so I know how important it is to be informed, be adaptable and keep yourselves safe. However, I am also a relatively positive lady, so I thought my contribution to this current climate and pandemic is one of trying to offer my support where I can through Creative Impact.

Yes, we’ll have to adapt and adjust the way we work, interact and socialise. Yep, it’s going to be a hell of an adjustment. Yet, what can you do/implement/make time for when working from home (studying from home etc) and keep a happy environment?

Once again, I am not qualified to provide any health advice, but I can help with what I know the best, which is in the areas of business management, marketing, and productivity.

FOREWORD

Coaching and consulting with people on creating better systems is my job, the Creative Impact team is pretty much remote so why should we not help where we can?

This is why we have been working HARD on this free issue of our digital magazine, with a whole section about working from home and how to navigate these uncertain times. A massive thanks also goes to all the contributors who took the time to support us with amazing articles you’ll see in this edition of the magazine.

What I do know is that everyone has been plunged into a new working reality by the pandemic,and this will influence and change working practices in the longer term.

More than ever the line between work life and home life is blurred. Work culture and

overall expectations are changing and shifting faster than ever before.

You’ll learn about the challenges and lessons I learned when I started working from home eight years ago, including how to create new routines, how to balance work and social life, and much more.

As this pandemic is forcing us to change our work space and ultimately showing us what down time really is, as a collective we are forced to ask ourselves powerful questions, including what really matters when it comes to our work as well as deeper meaning.

Hope you are all staying safe, supporting people who need it and keep your spirits high.

Editorial

Contribution Editor Amy Lanza

Fab Giovanetti Editor in Chief

Lead Designer Michael Cavalli Stock photography Unsplash Affiliate links Amazon Associates

CREATIVE IMPACT MAG | 03

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Contents

ISSUE NO. 03

CONTENTS

14

APRIL 2020

06

In the news

10

Monthly calendar

13

What we are reading

14

Cover feature: The big Interview

22

Declutter your home for the last time

26

5 Realistic morning rituals

31

Stay positive with Chris Pinner

32

Make time for learning

34

How Better decisions leads to an authentic life

40

Stopping anxiety

45

New Pro Section Remote working explained

43

A night in with the One Planet Pizza team

46

Creating a routine to survive isolation

67

Podcast Archive: Working with Jolt

50

Habits that will transform your day

68

Behind the Content with Bridgette Macilwaine

54

Flexible working in business

70

Promotional feature: Blinkist

58

How ‘Time Dysmorphia’ affects you

72

Expert profile with Marci Angeles

62

Pro Tips: How to use the two folder method

Creative Impact Mag is part of Creative Impact group For inquiries or suggestions, contact us at: Website https://creativeimpact.group

Email info@creativeimpact.group

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d o o G

IN THE NEWS

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NEWS As we are consuming news more than ever, we thought we’d bring you our very own special roundup of happy news from across the globe.

Community effort EDUCATION | USA

When Morey Belanger joined Dayton Consolidated School in Maine, US, there was a shift in the curriculum. Six-yearold Morey was the first deaf student at the school and to ensure that she is included and part of the community, the whole school set about learning sign language.

A gourmet menu FOOD | USA

Spanish Chef José Andrés is transforming eight of his acclaimed restaurants in New York City and Washington, DC, into gourmet soup kitchens for those struggling to make ends meet in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. While the to-go only meals are $7 for those who can’t afford it, it’s free for those who can’t.

06 | CREATIVE IMPACT MAG

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IN THE NEWS

Invisible help

PE with Joe Wicks

Special concert

Two college students start “invisible hands” - gathering 1,300 volunteers in 72 hours to deliver food and medicine to the most vulnerable New Yorkers during coronavirus outbreak

If you’ve been taking part in Joe Wicks’ daily online PE lessons, then you’ve helped raise some much-needed cash for the NHS in the process. Joe, AKA The Body Coach, has announced that he is donating all of the revenue generated by the classes to help the National Health.

Almost 200 people in years 4, 5 and 6 at Silver Springs Primary Academy sang songs from their school grounds so that the elderly residents living in Kendal House sheltered housing could watch them and listen.

VOLUNTEERING | USA

A unique proposal

FITNESS | UK

MUSIC | UK

TRAVEL | UK

A man planning to propose in Iceland does it at Iceland foods instead. The supermarket chain have revealed they will be funding their honeymoon.

Call to army HEALTH | UK

More than 700,000 people have signed up to the NHS volunteer scheme.

The government’s target for volunteers currently stands at 750,000, after an overwhelming response from the British public saw the initial target of 250,000 met in just 24 hours. As gifts to senior living communities, elderly homes under quarantine

Planting the seed GARDINING | NETHERLANDS

IKEA in the Netherlands closes and is delivering all their plants and flowers as gifts to senior living communities, elderly homes under quarantine

CREATIVE IMPACT MAG | 07

Wo r k in g f rom ho me

Special

TOOLKIT

Working from Home edition At Creative Impact, we are big fans of remote working. As our team is pretty much remote, we had to learn over the years how to manage different aspects of our business through tools that facilitate communication and productivity.

Asana

Canva

We love Asana as a to-do list, and it’s what we use to coordinate work with the team.

We recommend spending 3/4 hours setting up your projects and types of tasks, and then sharing your workspace with others. You can replace this with other to-do lists, so if you are unsure about which software to go for, try one for a week and re-assess.

You can comment on tasks, move them in different sections and boards, and overall easily delegate to other people.

We eventually sucked it up and decided to pay for Canva pro. If you are not familiar with Canva, the software allows you to streamline your design efforts.

The pro version allows us to do professional looking and easy to edit design we can let the team edit and update. We have been using Canva for years, and eventually threw in the towel and decided to invest in a more branded experience, saving content into folders and much more. It allows us to streamline our design efforts.

COORDINATING TASKS AND PROJECTS

CLICK HERE TO TRY

08 | CREATIVE IMPACT MAG

WORK ON GRAPHICS AND TEMPLATES AS A TEAM

CLICK HERE TO TRY

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DIGITAL TOOLS

Loom

Zoom

Loom is another favourite tool of ours. It allows us to share instruction with our team (and assistant) as well as sharing audits with members of our collective by running through their website and recording the screen.

Loom is the most effective way to get your message across, no matter where you work. Seriously, sending a Loom is more efficient than typing long emails or spending your day in meetings having conversations that don’t need to happen in realtime. Time is money, ya all.

After far too many ineffective online meeting apps (sorry Skype, you have never been my friend) a few years back we stumbled upon Zoom.

Since we work remotely, we have daily catch-ups with my team every morning and run group coaching for our collective members through Zoom. We have used recordings for webinars, online conferences and so much more. Gold-mine features include polls and breakout rooms, which you can access depending on your account.

SHARING INSTRUCTIONS

CLICK HERE TO TRY

BETTER ONLINE MEETINGS

CLICK HERE TO TRY

CREATIVE IMPACT MAG | 09

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COMING UP

Monthly calendar Monthly social media calendar

Wo r k in g f rom ho me

Special

APRIL 2020

We have worked on a number of different tools to help the wider community. We’ll be offering an extended calendar of digital events.

Whether you are new to working from home, want to improve your self-care routine there we have something for you.

WEDNESDAY APR 1

12:00 | Masterclasses - 12-week podcast launch 17:00 | Masterclasses - 12-week podcast launch

WEDNESDAY APR 8

12:00 | M asterclasses - Hosting an interactive online event 17:00 | Masterclasses - Hosting an interactive online event

WEDNESDAY APR 15

12:00 | M asterclasses - 8-week digital product launch plan 17:00 | Masterclasses - 8-week digital product launch plan

ONLINE SUMMIT Ten speakers coming together to help you up your content and create irresistible products. Up your game conference is an on-demand conference dropping on April 9th, giving you access to exclusive pre-recorded sessions.

INSTAGRAM GROWTH How to drive people to your website from Instagram GROWING LEADS How to turn your next discovery call into a business opportunity

WEDNESDAY APR 22

COPYWRITING SKILLS How to create a killer sales email

WEDNESDAY APR 29

SCALE YOUR BUSINESS Sell out your group program and get bums in seats

12:00 | M asterclasses - Creating an evergreen sales funnel 17:00 | Masterclasses - Creating an evergreen sales funnel

12:00 | M asterclasses - Introduction to Facebook ads 17:00 | Masterclasses - Introduction to Facebook ads

EVERY THURSDAYS APR 2/9/16/23/30

11:00 | In the Membership - Self Care Clinic meditation 17:00 | On Instagram - Self Care Clinic Q&A

EVERY MONDAY APR 6/13/20/27

11:00 | In the Membership - Digital roundtable with expert 16:00 | On Instagram - Afternoon Tea with Fab

EVERY TUESDAY APR 7/14/21/28

13:00 | In the Membership - Weekly coaching

10 | CREATIVE IMPACT MAG

DESIGNERS SECRETS How to craft the perfect homepage and convert visitors

FIND OUT MORE https://creativeimpact.group/online-summit/

SEASON TWO OF THE MAKE AN IMPACT SHOW Join the team behind the Creative Impact Co for audio guides and exclusive interviews.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE

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APR 16 | WEAR PAJAMAS TO WORK DAY

Monday

06

Tuesday

07

14

27

Thursday

Friday

04

Sunday

02

APRIL FOOLS’ DAY

Q&A WITH CHRIS PINNER

08

09

10

FREE ONLINE SUMMIT

GOOD FRIDAY

16

17

Find out more about Tracy on P31 18

24

25

26

01

02

03

15

03

Saturday

01

NATIONAL SCRABBLE DAY

20

APR 12 | EASTER SUNDAY

Wednesday

WORLD HEALTH DAY

13

COMING UP

05

PILLOW C H RINT IS P IN N ER FIGHT DAY Q&A w ith a th e founder of Innerfit, a wor11 kplace wellbeing provider

12 EASTER SUNDAY

19

WEAR PAJAMAS TO WORK DAY

21

22

23

BRITISH TEA DAY

EARTH DAY

ST GEORGE’S DAY

28

29

30

WORLD DAY FOR SAFETY AT WORK

INT DANCE DAY

MAGAZINE EXPANDS TO MONTHLY Creative Impact is the ultimate tool and resource for creatives and conscious entrepreneurs. We offer a subscription option that allows you to access a year worth of magazines and exclusive monthly templates, as well as our back catalog.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE

CREATIVE IMPACT MAG | 11

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MISSION STATEMENTS

What’s your mission?

We asked our collective members what’s their mission and how they are looking to make a positive impact on other people and the planet, and here’s what Ushi had to say.

“My Mission is to ensure women feel that they own their own lives, through fitness, mindset and nutrition.

I want to show women that you can have the lifestyle and health you desire with a few tweaks to your current life. That weight lifting and a fitness mindset is a benefit for every aspect of your life ...

I want to help women live stronger for longer.”

Ushi Lad

www.ushpush.com

About Ushi Lad

The love for fitness and weight training transpired into my career path, as I became a Personal Trainer and an online fitness coach. I’m a qualified Level 3 Personal Trainer and Level 1 “Girls Gone Strong Coach”.

My journey hasn’t been easy and I’ve failed numerous times, but I’ve always after a blip managed to get right back on it and refocus! I’m nowhere near the end of my journey, in fact, I’m only halfway there…

Fitness is not just physical, it’s been a mental battle too. Whatever your story is, I’m here to help, I’m here to listen, I’m here to train you and I’m here to help you on the path to a healthy, fit and strong body!

12 | CREATIVE IMPACT MAG

My passions in life are fitness, food, wine, and travel… My goal is to one day own my own boutique gym and help other Asian women on their path to a freeing mindset, full health, and fitness… For now, I’m loving training women both in-person and online.

The journey to a healthy mind, body, and soul is not easy… but it will be worth it!

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WHAT WE’RE READING

Wo r k in g f rom ho me

BOOKSHELF

Special

Click on

book to get sales link

The 5am Club

Atomic Habits

ROBIN SHARMA

JAMES CLEAR

A classic that never grows old. Should everyone wake up at 5am every morning?

Probably not. Yet, this book can teach you so much about the way you approach and start your day. The concept was devised over twenty years ago and is based on a revolutionary morning routine that has helped thousand maximise their productivity, activate their best health and bulletproof their happiness.

Indistractable NIR EYAL

You sit down at your desk to work on an important project, but a notification on your phone interrupts your morning. Later, as you're about to get back to work, a colleague taps you on the shoulder to chat. At home, screens get in the way of quality time with your family. It’s so easy to lose track of your day.

What would be possible if you followed through on your best intentions? What could you accomplish if you could stay focused and overcome distractions? What if you had the power to become "indistractable"?

In this groundbreaking book, Clears reveals exactly how these minuscule changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions - doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early or holding a single short phone call. He calls them atomic habits.

Peak Performance BRAD STULBERG

Are you a bio-hacker in the making?

Peak Performance combines the inspiring stories of top performers across a range of capabilities - from athletic to the intellectual, to artistic - with the latest scientific insights into the cognitive and factors that drive performance in all domains. This great book uncovers linkages that hold promise as performance enhancers but have been overlooked in our ways of thinking. broaden the billboard definitions of beauty.

CREATIVE IMPACT MAG | 13

COVER FEATURE

Working from home

l a i c e p S

INTERVIEW WITH

NATASHA

LIPMAN Award-winning chronic-illness blogger Natasha Lipman on finding balance in the new normal Interview by Fab Giovanetti

N

PHOTO CREDIT: @FORDTOGRAPGY

atasha Lipman is one of the most talented people I know, as well as one of my oldest Instagram friends, (such a Millennial).

She has experienced the challenges and lessons of working remotely through her personal experience, and has the wit and humour to share her relatable story with us, as well as inspiring thousands of people every day on Instagram with her message.

Small but mighty, as some people say, she is on a mission to change the conversation around disability and chronic illness. Let’s step into Natasha’s office and learn more about her and her journey.

COVER FEATURE: THE BIG INTERVIEW

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“I spent a long time pushing myself really far, trying to keep up with what I felt like I should be doing, and then crashing very hard” NATASHA LIPMAN

How do you currently support people online?

I am a blogger and ‘Instagrammer’ and I spend a lot of time there creating content for the chronic illness and disability community.

Essentially, in my mind, every piece of content I create is done with me when I was 21 in mind! What kind of things did I need to see then, and what would have helped me?

On Instagram, I open up important conversations and give people space to share their own experiences. I also share, with boundaries(!) aspects of how I try to manage my life with chronic illness (for example my experience using different mobility aids and becoming a wheelchair user) and share reviews of things like mobility aids and inclusive fashion. I also talk a lot about boundaries and unsolicited health advice, because I think taking time to evaluate how we all behave online is really important.

Additionally, on my blog I share interviews with people who are doing cool things in the chronic illness community and beyond, and am working with experts to create resources on things like managing chronic pain, learning how to pace, etc but told in a friendly, accessible way. These are things that are often not taught at all or are presented in unhelpful ways to patients.

Like it took an hour’s phone call for the piece I was doing for pacing to learn more than I’d been told over the last decade.

I often think what my life could

16 | CREATIVE IMPACT MAG

have been like if I’d understood that earlier and hadn’t pushed myself too far for so long.

As a journalist I specialise in disability and women’s health, so I spend a lot of time advising or writing about that too! I also speak at events, consult on accessibility and inclusion in the workplace, and mentor people. I am particularly passionate about bringing these conversations outside the disability community to places where these things need to be heard.

How did you first adapt to the changes in your life,?

It’s something that very much developed over a whole decade.

I spent a long time pushing myself really far, trying to keep up with what I felt like I should be doing, and then crashing very hard and then being unable to do anything at all. So it would be bursts of intense doing a lot and then months and months of nothing.

It just wasn’t sustainable.

I think the most important element of starting to get things on an even keel was accepting that my health conditions were chronic and that they’re something that I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life.

That level of acceptance helped me realise that I had to change how I viewed so many things in my life, in order to be able to keep things as consistent as was within my control (oftentimes

Working from home

Specia l

it’s not), I had to make changes.

What I find difficult is that in many ways, due to fatigue, having a work routine and a wellbeing routine can sometimes feel almost counter to each other. It’s like I’m stealing from one to feed the other, and so that’s something I’m constantly trying to figure out how to manage without burning myself out.

I do want to say, though, that I’m extremely lucky that I was able to push through enough in my teens and early twenties to gain a skillset that enables me to work from home. There are so many people who don’t have this - and I would never say to anyone that my path is one that is easily replicable. I’m also extremely privileged as a chronically ill person that I’ve had the financial, emotional and physical support that I’ve had which has enabled me to do what I do.

What would be your first advice, when it comes to working from home?

Especially in light of everything that’s going on right now, there are SO many different resources available.

On that note, does “balance” really exist? (laughs) No, I don’t think balance exists. For me, anyway!

I think striving for balance is always going to be more stressful than just trying to figure out the best way for us individually.

Life always gets in the way, there will always be things that are out of our control. And that kinda ‘base level’ equilibrium can change from day to day.

PHOTO CREDITS: @FORDTOGRAPGY

Read a bunch of them, listen to some podcasts, and make a list of anything that you think you’d like to try. Don’t do them all at once, but have a play around with techniques and different ways until you find what works for you.

Join the family

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Working from home

Specia l

For many of us it can be quite dramatic - from one day to the next I literally can go to doing quite well for me to just being unable to function at all. Sometimes it’s the weather, sometimes my hormones, sometimes I’ve been doing too much. Sometimes my body is just being an arsehole. There can be no rhyme or reason to it and that’s really challenging.

So, if we are constantly trying to find balance, and we’re basing how we feel on any given day on how close or far off from it we are, instead of just focussing on the day itself, we’re never going to feel satisfied or content. I just try to do the best I can everyday with what my body gives me.

How do you keep yourself organised and find balance when working and living in the same space?

For health reasons, I mostly work from my bed, which is very much counter to most advice out there about good sleep hygiene.

It makes things a lot more difficult because I just generally don’t have that much physical separation because I’ve not been able to go out as much as most people who work from home still usually are able to.

Additionally, I’ve never been much of a ‘planner’ because I felt like it was a waste of energy (you can spend a huge amount of time just organising things and then getting nothing done).

Over Christmas, though, I was feeling very overwhelmed with all the hats I wear, and I decided to get everything out of my head. I spread it out over a while, but oh gosh has it made a difference.

PHOTO CREDIT: @FORDTOGRAPGY

My Occupational Therapist said to me that in a chronic illness context, constantly trying to figure out your base level can be really unhelpful because of this constant change.

COVER FEATURE: THE BIG INTERVIEW

I used the free service from Meistertask and basically created a project management system for myself, giving every task an individual card and then putting it in different workspaces which are then broken down by columns: things like ‘ready to publish’, ‘in progress’, ‘needs response’.

It has made such a difference to stop me panicking about forgetting things and just flitting from one thing to the next. Now I can see everything that I need to do at some point, but I can make a more conscious decision about what I’m working on and it’s taken a huge amount of pressure off, and enabled me to start working on pacing my life a bit better.

Where possible, I’m now also trying to work in an adapted Pomodoro Technique, although I still don’t do this as much as I’d like. Pomodoro’s are where you do x time on and then 5 mins off and then back again. I use the Toggl timer on my desktop that

“Where possible, I’m now also trying to work in an adapted Pomodoro Technique” NATASHA LIPMAN

CREATIVE IMPACT MAG | 19

acceptance. Although I accept that my health is my health, it can still be hard accepting how much I need to rest.

just pings after 20 mins. And I try to use this to encourage me to work at a table for a short period of time, and then can go and rest, instead of just random off and on and off again whenever my energy spikes.

Having really set, focused time has been a game-changer because I’ve been so much more productive (I’m a notorious multitasker), but more importantly has allowed me to get more proper and conscious rest.

I have to be really careful about work and energy expenditure because I can very easily push myself into a flare, so it’s a constant struggle between the feelings I have of unfulfilled potential and what ‘imaginary healthy Natasha’ in my head can do, vs the reality of the situation.

I think because all my formative years were spent pushing myself way too far, that’s kinda my default...so making myself stop is very difficult for me. I’m very lucky in many ways, too, because I’ve always worked extremely quickly and efficiently, and a lot of what I do (especially writing) comes very naturally to me. It means that for me, the impact of it isn’t as high as it can be for others.

How do you navigate the feeling of needing to be productive when also listening to what your body needs?

Honestly, I’m terrible at it! I love doing things and making things and it’s my coping mechanism and what makes me feel the most like myself all rolled up into one, so I always do more than I technically should. It’s a problem my two best friends share, and we’re always coming up with new projects and ideas, which isn’t always helpful. I think part of this is wrapped up in the challenges of

20 | CREATIVE IMPACT MAG

I think I’m extremely strategic about what I do and how I work, so it’s always about what’s the lowest energy spend for the highest impact? How can I prepare things in advance or how can I simplify?

For example, I’ve shifted a lot of what I do for my blog to interviews which I conduct by email. So it’s mostly the case of writing a few questions, getting the responses, a quick polish and then publish.

That’s much quicker than my longer more thought out blog posts, and so much quicker than spending an hour on the phone, then transcribing and then editing and pulling things together.

But I am making a real effort to set specific times when I let myself do things and then others when I need to stop and move away from it entirely. I don’t know how to explain it, I guess healthy people have this to some extent. There’s a very clear switch when I’m using ‘good’ energy and it flips into energy that can be harmful. When I feel like I’m getting there, it can be SO hard to stop because when I was younger if I stopped I crashed. So learning how to pace has been absolutely vital for me.

I always thought pacing was about restriction, but it’s more about learning coping mechanisms and skills to spend your energy in a ‘safe’ way by splitting up mental, physical and restful activities to enable you to do more over time in a sustainable way.

How do you keep yourself motivated?

From a work perspective, I’m extremely lucky in that I’m a naturally self-motivated person. Granted, some of that could be because I haven’t really had a choice but to be. I like to have a lot of projects on the go that I can dip in and out of. Coming back again to chronic illness, I find it harder to motivate myself to do the daily selfmanagement that I know helps me the most is I do it every day.

Working from home

COVER FEATURE: THE BIG INTERVIEW

Specia l

Especially after a health blip, it can be really demotivating. And when I start doing a bit better, it’s like I’ve got a glimpse into a world I lost for a while and then jump in headfirst and then don’t have time to do the things I need to do every day - it’s a vicious cycle.

I try and start off by doing something really small - say writing down three good things that happened that day. Or a small meditation.

And try and keep that up for a bit before adding something back in.

I generally don’t do lists every day - they’re usually reserved for when I’m having a hard time sticking to self-care things - and I write them down and tick them off. The time I get the most use out of them is when I’m having a flare-up and I feel like I’m literally doing nothing - but that isn’t true. I use a reverse to-do list - a ‘have done’ list, where every activity I do brushing my teeth, getting some food - goes on the list and is ticked off. It makes me realise that those things are just as much of an achievement as ‘work’ or something that feels more productive.

What do you appreciate the most about working at home?

I wouldn’t be able to work or have a career without working from home. It enables me to work around my health, saves

me a huge amount of energy (in terms of commuting, getting dressed and presentable every day, being around people) and enables me to manage my chronic illnesses in a way gives me the best chance at staying on as even a keel as possible.

Honestly, flexible and remote working can have benefits for many people, not just those of us with health issues or people with children, as I think we’re all seeing now. One thing I always say to people is you’ll be shocked how much you can get done in a much shorter amount of time - you’ll realise how artificial the 9-5 is for a lot of jobs!

What is the biggest challenge?

Isolation has always been the biggest challenge of working from home for me. This was sometimes quite frustrating as even working in the digital space, so many opportunities and events take place entirely in-person or aren’t necessarily accessible, so I often felt like I was missing out. It has been interesting to see how so many things are now being implemented to help tackle this. I hope they continue.

Author bio

PHOTO CREDITS: @FORDTOGRAPGY

I get what I call ‘responsibility fatigue’ - where I only have so much in me to keep up with it all, and once I break the chain, it can be really difficult to get back to it.

Natasha Lipman is an award-winning chronic illness and disability blogger and part-time journalist for a major broadcaster. Last year she was named as one of the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK. natashalipman.com

@natashalipman

CREATIVE IMPACT MAG | 21

TIME FOR A CLEAR-OUT

CREATIVE IMPACT CO

CREATIVE IMPACT CO

TIME FOR A CLEAR-OUT

HOW TO DECLUTTER YOUR HOME FOR THE LAST TIME Written by Anna Fenn

T

Wo r k in g f rom ho me

he annual “spring clean” comes round every year. We all make the changes, put things in order and then a few weeks later, the house is back to its messy ways. What if we could declutter our lives for good? What if we could all invite Marie Kondo into our homes?

As a Certified KonMari Consultant, Anna Fenn promises us just that with her everyday toolkit for a tidy life. Anna runs her consulting business Optimise Your Space in London, helping clients transform their cluttered homes into an oasis of organised calm. Sounds bliss, right?

Is your home wonderfully neat or downright messy?

I’m not talking about the days when you have guests over and want to impress.. but your typical day where nobody visits.

Can you find the things you need at a moment’s notice or are they hidden beneath a mountain of stuff?

The majority of people I’ve met fall into one category or another. Extremely neat or disorganised to the core! Which do you resonate with?

“Absolutely zero judgements here! Your

Special

organisational level doesn’t make you a good or bad person but it can impact greatly on your quality of life stress-wise”

It sparked the idea in me that this was something I could do to help others achieve harmony in their own lives.

I’m so fascinated about decluttering having seen the actual joy it can bring to people’s lives when they live in an organised home.

I had no idea when I stumbled upon the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

by Marie Kondo how passionate I would become with the concept and benefits of home organisation.

My first official step towards this goal came in 2018 when I signed up for Marie Kondo’s first European seminar and became fully certified as a KonMari Consultant.

Marie Kondo’s philosophy makes the concept of decluttering so simple! I was hooked from the first chapter and it totally changed the way I viewed my own home.

When I mentioned to people that I was training to become a KonMari consultant some couldn’t help but laugh. How can you teach someone how to tidy? Who would ever be interested in such a topic?

You are either an organised person or not.

However, as they have come to learn, tidying is a skill that can be learned!

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TIME FOR A CLEAR-OUT

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So what did I learn from my training?

I learnt that the following is true: “The lives of those who tidy thoroughly and completely, in a single shot, are without exception dramatically altered.”

Marie Kondo Decluttering your home takes time but is worth the effort. There is no magic shortcut, particularly when you have built up a lifetime of possessions. Once you complete your tidying marathon it becomes simple.

Your daily life focuses on maintenance instead of the drudgery of sifting through unwanted clutter.

I also learned that it’s not about getting rid of everything but highlighting what brings you the most joy in your home. I find that many of the things my clients are passionate about usually are hidden away! I say it’s time to display your treasured shoe collection with pride!

Follow The Method

The only way to tackle your household clutter is to go through it all. Sort your items by categories instead of by rooms. By following this order you ensure that every area of your home is organised. Starting with clothes and progressing onto books, papers, komono (the Japanese word for miscellaneous- which is subcategorised for ease ) and lastly sentimental items e.g photo albums, letters or children’s art.

Approaching your Tidying Marathon

By tidying your home using Marie’s method you will undertake the most thorough analysis of all your earthly possessions! The word marathon can feel like a hefty undertaking but remember this means you can take it at your own pace! It’s not a sprint after all and as the wise fable goes – slow and steady wins the race!

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Take plenty of tea breaks and walk in the fresh air. Your belongings hold so many memories that you need time to recoup in between sessions. Believe me when I say that joy that will enter your life once your entire possessions are in order.

“All you need to do is take the time to sit down and examine each item you own, decide whether you want to keep or discard it, and then choose where to put what you keep” Marie Kondo

Why is this Method so effective?

We can spend hours doing something but if it’s not done properly it just means we have to spend even more time repeating the process. Who wants that? The essence of this method is tidying once and tidying properly.

Even Marie doesn’t want to tidy all the time!

“Tidying is a special event. Don’t do it every day.” Marie Kondo

TIME FOR A CLEAR-OUT

Author bio

Anna Fenn is a Certified KonMari Consultant. Through her work, she combines her passion for environmental sustainability with efficient organisation skills using the renowned Marie Kondo Method. Today she runs her consulting business Optimise Your Space in London, helping clients transform their cluttered homes into an oasis of organised calm.

You can find out more about Anna at www.optimiseyourspace.com

So with that in mind let’s look at two ways you can save time with effective tidying so that your days are spent doing more of what you love!

Visualise your ideal home

Being general about your tidying goals will only delay what you’re hoping to achieve.

Think in specific terms so that you can clearly imagine what it would be like to live in a home free from clutter. How does it make you feel? The feeling it evokes is just as important as the image of the lifestyle.

Research has shown that you’re twice as likely to achieve your goals simply by writing them down! So get yourself off to an inspiring start by designing your own vision board!

Work Smart, Not Hard

No one wants to spend their lives organising but by keeping on top of your tidying you ensure that your precious time is spent on things that really matter to you. Once you have completed your tidying marathon, minimal tidy ups are all that’s required.

So, put everything away as soon as you use it! Your belongings will all now have their own special place so this won’t be difficult.

This way things don’t go missing and you keep your countertops clear. Clean surfaces are like a free massage to your brain.

To find out more about the legend that is Marie Kondo- method check out our summary of the Method and get started!

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5

Realistic morning rituals for the best start Written by Charlotte Willis

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y alarm has developed a terrible habit. Quite abruptly, at 5.30am every weekday morning, an innocent yet forceful tone grasps my attention, dragging me from a state of dreamy REM sleep into the complicated reality that is my working day.

So early? my friends exclaim. But there’s good reasoning behind my ungodly rising. Besides harbouring the perfect excuse to refuse post-work get-together, the morning, as I see it, is somewhat of a

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sacred time. There’s something rather magical about waking up before the rest of the world. The relative silence in the air, the additional few moments of precious time we have to ourselves, bathing in our own thoughts, hopes and wonderment. The perfect base for developing a practical, efficient and simple morning ritual.

If you’re looking to become a little less just-enough-time-to-grabcoffee, and a little more prepared-for-my-approaching-day, these five ideas for morning rituals come free from bravado and overlycomplex methodology.

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01

Rise and Move

What you’ll need: At least three alarms, workout attire, some decent trainers and a podcast or motivational playlist.

Set yourself a series of three alarms, about 5 minutes after one another, just to ensure that you wake up by a certain time. Grab yourself some water, tea or hot beverage (preferably not caffeinated before you have any food) and start to wake your body up. Some light stretches of the legs, arms, neck and chest will help blood to begin flowing around your body. Once you feel ready, start to move with a little more intention. Be it a gentle yoga flow, a moderate jog, or a more intense gym session, find your movement and exercise for around an hour. Getting a hit of endorphins first thing in the morning, alongside increased blood flow and oxygenation, helps focus your attention on the tasks ahead and can help you beat the 5pm gym-rush.

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START THE MORNING RIGHT

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Rise and Write

What you’ll need a blank or guided journal and a pen.

If you’re thinking of incorporating just one ritualistic technique into your daily morning routine, this would be the one. Upon waking, the daily hum-drum of tasks and the scale of your to-do list can be, quite frankly, enough to make you want to crawl back under the sheets. Daily planning, involving scheduling your tasks, jobs, meetings and movements hour to hour will help increase your productivity and ensure you stay on top of your goals. Another great

“How do you want to feel when you close your eyes at night?” written ritual is to journal your expectations for the day: how do you want to feel when you close your eyes at night? What do you want to achieve today, this week, this month – and what are you doing to reach these goals? Journal your thoughts, dreams, fears, aspirations, and anything that pops into your mind.

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03

Rise and Breathe

What you’ll need: yourself, a private space and some earplugs (if your room is noisy).

A simplistic way to become more intertwined and in touch with your thoughts is to simply direct your attention inwards, focusing on your breath. Use the yogic technique of 6-6 breathing: take 15 minutes of deep breathing, inhaling for six seconds followed by six seconds of exhalation. This form of breathing will help your body develop variability in heart rate, which is beneficial for aiding relaxation and cardiorespiratory health. A perfect way to ease a racing mind and start a great morning routine.

04

Rise and Dine

What you’ll need: An additional 30 minutes in the morning and a source of complex carbohydrate.

It always surprises me how few of my colleagues and friends actually rise early enough to eat breakfast – a critical meal to begin digestion, metabolic functioning and fuel your creativity during the day. Aim to rise at least 30 minutes earlier than you usually would.

Make yourself a glorious bowl of loaded oatmeal with seeds and nuts, a chickpea omelette with mushrooms, or even a simple scramble and toast. Quite critically, refrain from eating breakfast

START THE MORNING RIGHT

whilst watching TV or scrolling through Instagram. Eat mindfully, reading if you must, taking time to think through your daily tasks, journaling as you go.

05

Rise and Be manifest What you’ll need: Yourself!

The simplest morning routine, but perhaps the most effective at boosting your own sense of awareness. Self-reflection is something that we all need to do way more of. Being able to reflect on our previous actions and emotions of days gone by, and the successes (and losses) we’ve taken along the way, is a critical part of moving forward with our professional and personal lives. Every morning, take stock of how the previous days and weeks have affected you.

Are you feeling energised? Exhausted? What went well? What didn’t work out? How will these feelings and events help shape your activity today? How will you move forward in a productive, yet self-aware, way?

Author bio

Charlotte aka @charlottesophiewrites is an author, editor and content creator, whose interests and work promote sustainable living, in every sense of the word.

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INSPIRATION

“I have not failed.

I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

THOMAS A. EDISON

STAY POSITIVE

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How Bright Spots can help you

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ave you ever noticed how humans have an amazing ability to focus on the negative? From early years we are trained not to be boastful, we are told we must learn from our mistakes. But what about our achievements and successes? Aren’t we missing a trick here by not focusing on them and learning about what went well, and why?

Focusing on failures gives us two options: • Put our energies into future improvement • Beat ourselves up about what we got wrong Think of the potential of focusing on our achievements. Now more than ever we need to be kind to ourselves. Arguably, the

Author bio

Chris Pinner is the founder of Innerfit, a workplace wellbeing provider. Innerfit are currently running special offers and WFH webinars and 1-1s. Get in touch: hello@innerfit.co.uk www.innerfit.co.uk

Written by Chris Pinner

things we get right are more worthy of our attention, and a goldmine of potential for improvement.

working remotely there are plenty of Apps that make this possible, Chrome’s Note Board is one example.

Looking for and noticing positives may take practice. It’s often a case of rewiring our brain to look for the bright spots, study them, and replicate what went well.

It does more than just make us feel good, it protects us from stress, as evidenced in this Nature research article.

TIP 2 Focus on something you have done well and analyse it, why did it go well? What steps/actions could be transposed to other areas, or adapted for use elsewhere?

4 PHASES TO A POSITIVE MINDSET If it’s not natural to focus on the good in yourself, start by focusing on the bright spots in others, it’s often easier. You are training your brain, the impact is like ever increasing ripples in a pond. Here are some tips to get you started: TIP 1 Find Your Bright Spots Watch Chris Explain Here (2minutes) In times of change, it is too easy to slip into problem solving mode. Let’s lift ourselves out of that, and focus on the bright spots.

Post it notes can be a great resource for this. Find a prominent place for everyone to post notes saying something good about themselves or someone else. If you are all

TIP 3 Clone and scale up the things that went well, the successes, achievements, the bright spots.

TIP 4 Reward achievement. Encourage employees to nominate themselves or others, it encourages positive focus, motivates and inspires. Reward doesn’t have to be financial, it can be recognition/ validation. There is plenty of evidence to show employees who feel valued will be more engaged and productive and less likely to leave.

YOUR NEXT STEPS What could you do now? Look at the tips above, what can you apply to your daily work life? Times are uncertain, and people feel unsettled, we could all do with a boost.

What could be rolled out to help colleagues focus on the bright spots?

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LEARNING NEW SKILLS

Making time for learning doesn’t have to be hard Three ways you can get to learn something new

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Written by Fab Giovanetti

hese days, as we are skipping commutes and WFH has become something so many people are getting accustomed to a new morning routine.

Being away for a few days, I am making the most of finding time to learn something new every morning (something I will admit I stopped doing a few months back).

Since so many of us are constantly looking for ways to add more reading and learning in our lives, I thought I’d share my favourite ways to make the most of that time coffee is still kicking in, my eyes are half-way closed and I am still trying to figure out what is my name (I am sure you can relate, dear reader).

Read non-fiction summaries or listen

Use a tool like Blinkist to get summaries of your favourite self-help books. You can read the Blinks or listen to them in about 12 to 15 minutes. You can get the key ideas from bestselling nonfiction distilled by experts into bitesize text and audio.

Recently, Blinkist added a selection of short podcast-like audios with people like Ryan Holiday, Seth Godin and the likes.

This is personally my favourite way to learn in the morning — I can even highlight interesting quotes as I go along, which is a massive bonus.

Check out some of the top titles here.

Make the most of your morning reading time “I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Go old-school and read a book — yet get a notepad handy. We retain more information when we take notes, especially writing notes down as we go along.

I wrote a whole piece on Making the most of audiobooks that can give you loads of practical tips on making the most of the books you read.

It’s a great practice to retain information and make the most of what you read.

If you still like audiobooks over actual books, you can also tap into Audible and make the most of your coffee sessions, unloading your dishwasher and making your breakfast.

LEARNING NEW SKILLS

Avoid distractions where possible

Limit your screen time for an hour after you wake up with an iOS device — I limited the screen-time for any app that will “eat up” my learning time.

You can restrict the use of all of your apps for a period of time every day or customize it for specific days.

You can also restrict a selected choice of apps, and only allow key apps such as messages, maps, etc.

This is not essential, but I find that little extra motivation to push me to pick up a book can help me massively during the aforementioned fog in my head.

If you love reading distraction-free articles in the morning. Look into a free Pocket account, as it allows you to bookmark articles directly from your browser.

I love to spend my post-meditation and stretch time reading interesting articles.

Yet, instead of heading to a browser or Medium, I save all my interesting reads into Pocket with a tag Read later, as it allows me to read everything I want distraction-free.

Having my coffee whilst reading the paper has never been sexier. I’ve been using Pocket for over five years now, yet not to this extent before.

These are three ways and tools I use these days to keep me motivated and keep on

learning new things every day — in no particular order, really.

When you learn something new, the white matter in your brain is called myelin, and it helps improve performance on a number of tasks.

The more people practice a new skill they are learning, the denser the myelin in their brains becomes, which helps them learn even better.

Make the time to learn something new, and reap the benefits in the long run.

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BE YOUR BEST SELF

CREATIVE IMPACT CO

How making better decisions leads to an

authentic life

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Written by Sophie Clyde-Smith

aking choices is a fundamental part of life. The quality of your decisions, and how aware you are when making them, can have a significant impact on your physical health, emotional health and professional success.

Therefore, understanding different factors that influence and drive your decision-making process is extremely important. One of the main factors, proven by scientific research, to influence your decision-making process is personal values.

Values are defined as:

“Relatively stable enduring beliefs held by an individual, which apply across contexts, and function as guides to ideal end-states.”

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In layman’s terms:

“Values are important beliefs you hold, that apply to all different areas of your life, and help guide you towards the ideal version of you/ the future version of yourself you would ideally like to become.”

But how do you use your personal values to make better decisions?

How do personal values apply to the different areas of your life?

And what do you actually need to do to step into that future, ideal version of you?

Your authentic life awaits

Your personal values are representations of your deepest desires and beliefs. A window into your soul.

Author bio Transformational Life & Career Coach (ICF Accredited), Sophie Clyde-Smith is on a mission to support the wellness of modern professionals. With a positive and practical coaching style, Sophie inspires and empowers her clients helping them to create long-lasting positive behavioural changes in their careers and businesses.

Looking to find out what your values are?

Download this FREE 5 STEP GUIDE to help you discover yours today.

ARE YOU LOOKING TO SET BETTER INSTAGRAM GOALS? CLICK BELOW TO TAKE OUR FREE CLASS TAKE THE CLASS

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BE YOUR BEST SELF

Understanding your personal values, and using them to make decisions, is akin to a secret shortcut being revealed that will fast track you to success (on your terms), wellness and a more joyful life.

When you build a life based upon your personal values, you are building a life based upon your unique authentic self.

What happens when it goes wrong?

Perhaps you are being exposed to prejudice behaviour in the workplace and it isn’t sitting right with you, maybe you feel like you are being disrespected and treated unfairly by a loved one or you are experiencing that sense of stagnation in your life and a desire to grow and move on.

You could even have a billion pounds and have achieved all your goals, but still feel empty and unhappy.

Whenever you experience conflict or friction in your life (or any other negative emotions, thoughts and feelings), if you look at the situation through the lens of your personal values, chances are, you will quickly see what is really going on; you are not living a life authentic to you or your true desires.

“You are not being true to yourself.”

The effect of these situations can be relatively small causing irritation, low-level anxiety, indecision or confusion. Or, they can have a significant impact on your well-being and quality of life.

Not being true to yourself long term can lead to self-doubt, low confidence, low self-worth and an inability to take action.

Understanding your personal values in these cases will help you to know the action you must take in order to achieve the best resolution, for you.

The differing contexts for personal values

To go even deeper, many people have a different set of values for their career versus relationships, so it is important to consider your personal values for each frame of reference.

Your personal values around your career could be something like; growth, wisdom, wealth, freedom and advancement. Whereas, the set of values you hold for your relationships (i.e. life partner, family and friends), could include such values as; honesty, love, fun, passion, commitment and integrity.

You very well could hold all of the above ‘relationship values’ (honesty, love, fun, passion, commitment and integrity) for your career, but as soon as you look at each word through the lens of your career, the words take on a different meaning.

But what happens when your own set of personal values are conflicting with each other?

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BE YOUR BEST SELF

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Value hierarchies

Whilst it may be easy to sit here and write a nice, neat list of our personal values and talk about the theory of using them to help guide our decisions, in reality, in our complex complicated contradicting reality, it’s not so simple.

Situations will regularly arise where your own set of personal values will be at odds with each other. A situation where, whatever happens, whatever option you take, one of your personal values will not be served.

Perhaps you want to take your business to the next level and fulfill your values of advancement but you’re aware of the negative impact it could have on your relationship based values of intimacy and closeness. Or you love the team you’re working with, which fulfills your value of camaraderie and teamwork, but the job you do no longer lights you up and does not meet your values around passion.

In these cases, what you need to know is your personal values hierarchy. Which values are more important to you than others?

What is your ultimate, number 1, most important personal value?

What would be the next one after that? And after that?

Once you understand your priorities, whilst it’s likely the decision will still be hard to make, at least you will have conviction in it and a framework to rely on.

“This is not a straightforward undertaking.

Life just doesn’t work like that.”

Defining your personal values hierarchy requires extensive selfreflection and/or guided support to figure out the answers to these hard questions. Hard questions like, if it was a matter of life or death and you had to choose between one thing over the other, what would be most important to you?

Your integrity or your fame? Your friendship or your spirituality?

Your self-respect or your culture? The list of potential conflicts in real life goes on and on, forever.

Why bother?

Whilst it’s unlikely you will face a life or death situation, the message I’m trying to communicate is that the better you understand your personal values, and the more you know what your priorities are, the more aligned your decision-making capabilities will become with your true self.

This is how you build your most authentic life. This is how you get closer to ultimate self-expression and congruence.

If you’re feeling lost, like you’re travelling down the wrong path, or you have that sense of ‘is this it’ and you’re petrified at the thought of life being the same for the next 30/40/ 50 years, then your personal values are a key factor in helping you take the first courageous steps on the journey of transformation that you so desperately need.

Not everyone is willing to take the, oftentimes, challenging steps on this journey. If it was easy, everyone would be feeling authentic and content in their lives and businesses, and we know this isn’t the case.

But some people have made the effort, some people have done the work – you may even know a couple of these people.

They are probably the picture of health, have financial abundance and career success.

These people experience this level of success because they have built a life tailored to their desires, they have built a life in which they are able to be authentic and they continually make decisions with personal values in mind.

Personal values and your career

You can now clearly see the impact value-congruent behaviour can have on your overall life. But how does it more specifically impact your career?

Your career is a continually evolving and unfolding journey made up of constant decisions. There is never a time in your professional life that you do not have to make decisions.

In the modern world, people are routinely on the edge of transformation, standing at the top of a wide chasm and on the other side sits their new career, their new life.

Every decision counts, no matter the size. Think about this analogy; every single minute makes up the hours, makes up the weeks, makes up the years makes up your entire life.

Every tiny decision you make ultimately makes up the bigger ones, which then makes up the direction of your life. By defining your work values and using them as guides for career decisions, you will be able to make decisions that will serve you, the whole authentic you, decisions based on your terms.

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KEEPING THE MIND HEALTHY

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Protecting your mental wellbeing during uncertain times Written by lauren White

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ithin my journey of recovery, I have learned a few things. Mastering my mindset has been crucial, and I hope my experience can help others during these times of uncertainty.

When I was in active addiction, I came to learn that the real issue was not

substance I was abusing, but the reason why I was using it. This powerful shift helped me through tough times.

The feeling of not dealing with life terrified me, and I tried to distract myself with what could take away all those feelings. For me, it was food, exercise, drugs, alcohol, men, relationships, social media, TV, work...

Bloody hell, the list can go on!

Addiction can be anything. In my time doing therapy and rehab, I learned that it was easy to distract myself by “doing”, yet it was hard to sit there and do nothing .

Naturally, I would do anything in my right mind to not sit with my own thoughts... including over-exercise, or overwork.

At this moment in time, as we are forced to stay inside, we don’t have a choice on the matter and we should really sit there and

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learn how to be okay with the situation.

Through my recovery, I spent time learning different types of therapies such as CBT, DBT and the 12 step therapy. Here are some of the takeaways I got from them.

RADICAL ACCEPTANCE Even though we may not like it, We have to accept what is happening in the here and now.

TRUST THE PROCESS We have to trust that everything we are going through is a part of the journey.

Meditation and mindfulness can help with looking inwards.

STAY IN THE “NOW” Anxiety is often triggered by the fact that we can’t stay in the now. Worrying about tomorrow and the future isn’t going to help

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KEEPING THE MIND HEALTHY

LAUREN’S JOURNEY Lauren is a 26-year-old from Hertfordshire. She works within the wellness field as a personal trainer and fitness instructor.

She became a motivational speaker after battling addiction and mental health.

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At the age of 21, she moved to Hong Kong for her work. Since coming back to the UK, Lauren has done a Masters in addiction psychology and now works at a high-end gym in Canary Wharf as the front of house manager.

For the past ten years, Lauren has been working with the Amy Winehouse foundation and Princes Trust to go into schools to share her story of recovery. because truly all we have is the “now”, this present moment.

HAVE FAITH IN SOMETHING Having faith in something will help us to believe that everything will be okay.

IS IT A FACT? OR IS IT YOUR MIND? Unless it’s a fact, don’t try and convince yourself that it’s real. We all have minds that can convince us of things. Sometimes to the point where we put ourselves down etc. Remind yourself that to stay positive and that believing in yourself is key.

SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-WORTH Believe that you are good enough and deserve to do what’s best for you at this moment in time. Being quarantined is not easy. So find some things that are going to make you feel better.

MAKE STRUCTURE A THING Here are a few things you can do to find structure when isolating: • Do a yoga session for the mind • Connect to people on the phone • Listen to podcasts to motivate you • Learn more about colour therapy • Journaling or writing helps me a lot with the mind • Do things you haven’t been able to do whilst working, such as a hobby Structure and showing up for myself have helped me in my recovery. Find what works for you. Remember, there’s no such thing as wrong or right when it comes to taking care of your wellbeing.

We are all in this together. We are not alone.

This is the time to be kind and help others.

Service and giving back is key, as we come together as a global community.

Find out more about Lauren White and her work with mental health on social media

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Nights in with One Planet Pizza

NETFLIX AND

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Because every recipe for the perfect night in begins with cheeze.

From The One Planet Pizza Team

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he humble night in. An excuse to don your cosiest onesie, breathe deeply, dine-well and binge-watch Narcos from season 1 (finally). Nights in are a zone of personal indulging. A time to unwind from the day and devour deliciously-effortless, sustainable and comforting slices of plantbased pizza (if we do say so ourselves!) delivered straight to your front door, from our kitchen to yours. Here’s our recipe for a fantastic night in with our pizzas.

STEP 1 Set the scene

Nights in call for coziness. We’re talking low-lights, soy candles, huge sofas, big cushions, and ample duvet coverage. There’s no room for work-wear here. Get into your comfiest trackies or join the dressing-gown crew, slip on some warm socks and grab a cup of tea whilst you’re at it.

STEP 2 Put your pizza in

Whilst the kettle boils, this is a perfect time to put your One Planet Pizza in the oven. We recommend serving our pizzas alongside some appropriate nibbles, such as hummus dip for the leftover crusts, a few sweet potato wedges, and a hearty avocado, spinach and leafy salad. Perhaps you like it hot? Add a spoon of siracha mayo on top of your cooked pizzas for a little kick.

STEP 3 Choose a cheesy movie

There’s no need to spend hours choosing what movie to watch, simply stick to a classic – the cheesier the better! If you’re partial to a comedy, choose one that you know is guaranteed to make you laugh. If you’re short of time, stick to a box-set which you’ve always wanted to watch, or re-visit a series you haven’t seen in a while.

STEP 4 Put your phone on silent

Technology is banned from this evening (except for maybe a few initial Instagram stories). Now is the perfect time to turn your phone onto do not disturb, engage night-mode and switch off! There’s no room for laptops, late-night work emails or even distracting texts from your friends and family. Nope, tonight is about you and your

own headspace. Pre-set your morning alarms and check your phone strictly for time-keeping purposes.

So, be it your dream way to spend time with your brilliantlyintroverted self, just what you needed after a long day of work, or a necessary way to spend your time owing to recent events of a viral nature, we believe that the perfect night in begins with cheeze.

That’s why we’ve brought forward our nation-wide launch of OPP’s new customisable frozen pizza delivery service, OPP Direct. We’re making nights in easier, providing you with plant-based pizzas delivered directly to your front door within a few easy clicks.

Special Offer

Order yours today from www.oneplanetpizza.com and use the code CREATIVE10 for 10% off your first order! We can’t wait to see your cozy nights in.

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CREATIVE IMPACT

PRO SECTION WELCOME TO OUR PRO SECTION dedicated to giving you the best advice out there about some of the hottest topics in the industry

THI S I SSUE

Remote working explained HOW TO FIND A ROUTINE

START YOUR DAY RIGHT

T I ME DYSMO RPH I A

Find a routine that works for you and become your most productive self, even when working remotely

Ways to make the most of your WFH days, nourishing your mind, body and soul - pyjamas not included

Where is your time going? Why, in order to be more productive, you just have to look inwards

REMOTE WORKING

Routine How to create a

when you work for yourself Written by Fab Giovanetti

Y

ou did it! You eventually decided to give your notice, kiss goodbye to your boss (hopefully figuratively) and start working for yourself. Well done you!

The idea that you can work from the comfort of your own bed, in your pyjamas, binge-watching Netflix series’ in the background may sound appealing. Yet, it’s not a productive environment and (trust me) it gets old very quickly.

Establish a routine that works for you.

For me, this is getting up, showered and dressed in the morning, and working 9-5 Monday-Friday, before heading to the gym most evenings.

Some people prefer to get up at 6am, workout, get ready for the day and head to a coffee shop. The right routine may look completely different to you depending on your commitments, the nature of your work and your priorities.

Either way, getting up and getting dressed sets you up with the right frame of mind for the day.

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Time to create better routines Despite being slightly annoying when your grandad keeps repeating the same thing again and again, repetition is essential to get my writing done, especially when taking the time to create content may feel daunting at times.

When it comes to routines, habits, and ways of shaping life around your mission, different people throughout history have experimented with different approaches.

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I will be using artists and creatives as my main example, as I find that most of them can be incredibly relatable to people often engaging in the “side hustle” on a tight schedule.

Although no one consciously chooses difficult life circumstances, there are some creatives (in different industries and areas of trading) who choose to have little free time or to keep their day jobs in order to pay the bills.

Author Haruki Murakami, whose quote can be found at the beginning of this article, ran a small jazz club in Tokyo for several years before his career gained momentum.

Once his writing career kicked off he chose to move to a rural area and craft his own routine: waking at 4 a.m., working for five or six hours, running or swimming in the afternoon, then listening to music and reading before falling asleep at 9 p.m.

“When talking repetition, I think rituals, routines and practices that do shape our habits.”

Goals and visions do have something in common: repetition, routines, and questions.

Rituals and routines are something that can be supported with a few key tools — which I am definitely experimenting with.

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“And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen” What is his key to success, according to himself? Focusing on the basics. “You don’t get to the highest levels of the sport without having the basics in order.” There is another aspect of repetition that is truly powerful.

Each time you repeat something, you notice something different. Each time you repeat something, there’s some piece that just comes easier.

How routines can lead you to success

The beauty of a routine is that it will affect people differently.

As Maria Popova, founder of Brain Pickings writes, though very different in practice, routine and ritual seem to be two sides of the same coin: “While routine aims to make the chaos of everyday life more containable and controllable, ritual aims to imbue the mundane with an element of the magical.

The structure of routine comforts us, and the specialness of ritual vitalizes us.”

I studied a few examples from Mason Currey’s book Daily Rituals.

On the one hand, writer Toni Morrison, for example, likes to rise at around 5 a.m to see the sunrise. For her, it’s important to wake before the light and observe the transition into the day, tapping into her writing inspiration.

This is something athletes know very well.

On the other hand, Ann Beattie is what you’d call a night owl, working most productively between 12 a.m to 3 a.m.

Some people can be such morning people that, well, they cannot get enough.

Novelist Nicholson Baker, for example, reaps the benefit of two mornings in one day by waking up for his first writing session at 4 a.m., then going back to sleep, and rising once again around 8:30 a.m. for his second-morning streak.

As a boxer, I will repeat the same moves, again and again, just to get them in my head. Why? Because I need to be ready if a jab strikes. The same can be said about habits and repetition.

“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”

— Muhammad Ali

Learn from the athletes

Athletes are another great example of repetition and rituals.

Today, we know the true extent of those words. According to research, up to 40% of our daily actions are powered by habits–the unconscious actions and routines we’ve developed over time.

Daniel Cormier, the current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, and former Olympic wrestler won multiple gold medals as a wrestler. And in MMA, he has won 20 of his 22 fights in total.

As Will Durant writes in The Story of Philosophy (a quote often misattributed to Aristotle): “We are what we repeatedly do” What does your routine say about you, and what you want to achieve?

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“YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO

EVERY DAY!

NOT WHAT YOU DECIDE TO DO ONCE IN A WHILE.”

H

abits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day. Those once-in-a-while tasks are meaningless unless practiced consistently #sorrynotsorry

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Written by Becky Stanton

When you are exploring working from home, your habits are essential!

You are in the comfort of your own home, surrounded by Disney +, snacks and the freedom to what you want (within reason at the moment!).

Habits, routines and rituals are the answer for homeworking success. To remain focused, intentional and motivated.

You can choose to be/do/have whatever you want consistently to change your experience and have that ‘lockdown

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glow-up’ we are all dreaming of.

To keep things nice and simple, I recommend you create home working habits for your mind, body and soul!

These practices will support you to transform your day amidst the chaos.

So here are my top tips that you will LOVE if you’re new to home working or just fed up with your same old excuses!

1

Something for your MIND

Our minds are in overdrive right now – it feels like too many tabs are open!

We’re thinking about current affairs, loved ones, our friends, our businesses, our finances, our food supply! And don’t get me started on toilet rolls. So now is the perfect time to focus on your mind.

Create habits, routines and rituals that calm your mind and maximise how you desire to feel.

Mornings are such an untapped opportunity. I love focusing on mindset work first thing in the morning – before you’ve checked your phone, before you’ve seen the news and before you’ve spoken to anyone.

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Speak to yourself first! Check in with your mind through journaling and see what thoughts arise. You can do freestyle writing or use journal prompts. Find a comfy and

quiet place in your home – a Wellness Sanctuary – do enjoy this habit in.

– write everything you are thinking and feeling down on paper.

I urge you not to bottle things up right now

This is where the habit of reframing and gratitude can be used. See what thought appears and reframe it positively and apply grateful thoughts to the situation.

Something like “I feel overwhelmed with everything that’s going on” can be reframed to “I am grateful that I am safe and healthy right now”.

There will always be things that we cannot control. But we can ALWAYS control how we think and react to situations. Yes, negative emotions and thoughts will arise and they are justified. But please do not give them more air-play than they deserve! Feel the emotion and reframe. We can choose to lean into loving, gratitude and positive thoughts right now

“When you feel you don’t have time, that’s when you need it most.”

Another great mindset habit is connecting with your goals and intentions! Yes, things may have changed in the short-term, but stay connected with your long-term desires.

That dream house, that dream lifestyle and that dream of leaving the house.

Spend time every day visualising and dreaming. And who knows, with the space you’re giving yourself with these new habits, new and improved dreams may come your way.

Choose love!

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2

Something for your BODY

The mind-body connection is real! If you are spending more time indoors or working from home, amp up the body movement. Don’t stay chained to your desk or permanently attached to your sofa.

We are human beings that were born to move. Answer me this – have you ever felt low and anxious skipping? I didn’t think so…

Find movements that bring you joy and sprinkle them throughout your day. Take those long walks in the Spring sunshine, dance to your favourite song on your kitchen floor, do star jumps every hour, do your home FiiT or yoga practice, get children and pets involved.

There are so many options available, so choose the ones that sound exciting and motivating to you! One person’s home Zumba is another person’s 5K run.

The key to this habit is that movement improves your mood and your mindset. It helps make you be present in the moment, feeling those emotions that arise of joy, fun and laughter. It will make you more productive and effective when you’re working as you feel fantastic.

3

Something for your SOUL

If you’re not on a spiritual journey, soul can also mean peace or harmony. It’s about feeling safe, protected and relaxed.

In times of anxiety and worry, I always suggest turning up the soulful practices!

There is a Zen proverb that says: “If you don’t have time to meditate for an hour every day, you should meditate for two hours.”

It’s true – when you feel you don’t have time, that’s when you need it most. You’re on a downwards spiral if you push aside soulful practices – heading straight to burnout.

So in these times, add habits, rituals and routines that feed your soul. It can be as simple as reading books that inspire you, taking up a hobby, meditating and enjoying silence, practicing yoga.

Any activity that enables you to feel peaceful, calm and supported. Because as Eckhart Tolle says, there is only NOW. The past and the future do not exist in this moment. Focus on the present and those feelings of anxiousness, overwhelm and worry cannot exist.

Choose peace!

Author bio

Becky Stanton is a Transformation Coach who specialises in aligning your mind-set and physical space to create the success you desire. Becky guides clients to connect with their deepest desires and up-levels their internal and external environment to align with their dreams to transform their reality. www.beckystanton.com

Choose joyful movement!

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How to embrace flexible working in your business Implementing strategies for remote and flexible working in your business can benefit your brand and productivity long term Written by Fab Giovanetti

A

s Buffer and other tech startups have fully embraced the flexible working lifestyle, I made it part of our company ethos to welcome and embrace flexible working fully.

Being bound to your desk more than 39 hours a week at work also means you’re

more likely to develop mental health problems (according to research from the Australian National University).

People like the one and only Tim Ferris have been praising flexible working for over 10 years (check out 4 Hour Work Week for more on that ). More and more entrepreneurs I talk to these days embrace

flexible working as a way to communicate and manage a team.

My team works remotely most days, we communicate via Quip (most people use Slack these days), and I let them choose the days they are online — they both work part-time, which suits their own business dreams and goals.

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In the UK alone, laws about working are changing. Conservative MP Helen Whately introduced a flexible working bill in Parliament this week which, if taken forward, would make flexible working the norm in employment contracts and require employers to advertise positions as suitable for flexible working unless certain conditions are met.

The reason we see more and more media on the matter is merely due to the fact that if companies and brands don’t allow for flexible working arrangements and location independence, they are going to lose out on good talent.

On paper, this sounds perfect. However, introducing flexible working in your

strategy requires, well, a completely new set of skills.

This is why I thought I’d outline a few of the things I have learned about setting up an agile and “flexible” environment and ditch the 9-to-5 approach to work.

The hidden dangers of remote working

Flexible working usually involves freelancers and project-based team members (such as designers or producers, for example).

When it comes to introducing different people to your vision, time zones and communication will be your obstacle — when you’re dealing with different locations, of course, it will be an issue.

When your team is never in the same place at once, it can slow down decision-making processes and creates more room for error.

One of the main obstacles when it comes to a big team can be communication — the majority of our communication is in text, whether via slack, email, or text message, and tone can easily get lost in translation.

Not working together face to face, it can be hard for new team members to get a feel for the culture at the clinic easily, or develop the relationship that makes it easier to

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deal with conflict or misunderstandings that inevitably come up when working with other humans.

Katherine Creighton Crook , founder, and principal therapist at Leyton Sports Massage found that the solution sometimes at the beginning of the journey for team members: “One of the things I implemented in the past year is an onboarding email series for new therapists when they join us. It introduces new team members to the software we use, our operations manual, and outlines (in a friendly way) how we work together and what our expectations are, including our clinic’s mission and values.”

Also sharing the same vision is hard when we have little or no face time — Ina Pescla, the founder of my mantra active, agreed with me on this:

Checking in with your team is essential, and something Serena Oppenheim values highly. Serena runs Good Zing, managing a team made up of various consultants with hugely different skill sets, based around the world, from London to New York.

Good Zing is a platform, like Yelp or TripAdvisor but for finding and sharing everyday health tips: “We implemented a weekly Monday morning meeting to go through the content, plans for the week, issues that came up the previous week and much more. This has made a huge difference to ensure that everyone is on board with the same vision and it has also minimised miscommunication. If someone can’t make the meeting physically, they dial in or get an update from someone who was there.”

“communication and vision I’d say are the two main things I’ve struggled to pass on to my team, especially the social media manager.”

Jenn Wittman runs a successful portfolio of businesses with her husband. They run thyroid and autoimmune wellness business, a direct-sales lead generation business, a real estate business and a business strategy service.

Most clients I work with admit that language barrier with manufacturers can be a source of a few headaches, so practicing patience also comes in handy.

As the team is small, everyone else is in charge of implementing projects within their domain — graphic design, website design, marketing, and administrative assistance.

Make time for check-ins

Touching base daily with emails and phone calls helps to keep the team in check and fosters good working relationships. Another way to keep goals and systems clear and streamlined involves using software (just like Quip or Slack) to make life easier.

You can work across online document sharing platforms like Google Drive and have one online to-do list (such as Wunderlist or Asana) to collaborate on tasks and projects.

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They both hire for the team and are the project managers for all our projects: “Before we streamlined our system, we were sometimes both giving different instructions to our team which wasn’t efficient and was very frustrating to our team members.”

Using a shared system to organise their projects with the team has increased productivity and efficiency, cut down on miscommunications, and decreased confusion and frustration.

They started using Basecamp and that has done wonders for them. Basecamp allows them to communicate projects tasks in one place, to track our work and keeps them all on the same page.

Hiring becomes a skill

Hiring also requires particular attention to details, and this is where onboarding comes handy.

Most of the mistakes you can make when it comes to flexible working can be spotted at the very beginning of the relationship.

“The onboarding sequence seems to help give new team members a sense of place when they first join us and has cut down on the number of teething pains we get” recalls Katherine Creighton Crook “I also encourage the team to swap sessions with each other, both to build skills as well as building that relationship. We have a slack channel especially where therapists can come in and share good outcomes of clients, or where they have a question.”

I had my fair share of employees, and I thought I pretty much developed a “sixth sense” for people. However, I recently had to let go of my new virtual assistant because things were just not working.

I find this happens endless times when it comes to social media and content, especially for founders of small companies.

When it comes to social media we can be such perfectionists. Content is essential to share your vision with your audience, and it has to be in line with the company ethos.

“I had to step back into it and take a part of the task on myself again.” recalls Plesca, when talking about social media “It’s hard when someone doesn’t get your vision.

There are two ways of dealing with it — you either fire them or take on the easiest task that they struggle with and do it yourself.”

Is flexible working right for you and your brand?

I believe most companies should adapt to a more “flexible” way of working.

I also believe that a lot of businesses are not truly aware of how they manage their time and tasks.

Being aware of the pitfalls and how to prepare yourself for a shift in the way you manage your team can be the best thing that will happen to your own company. Just make sure you are ready.

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How

s y D e m i ‘T

’ a i h p r o m

g n i t c e is aff s s e n i s u b r u yo s i s a b y l i a d on a y Fab G Written b

i ova n e t t i

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Time Dysmorphia A phenomenon which causes people to believe that their time is slipping away through their fingers.

T

here is this really funny saying going around the Health Bloggers Community team ”Write it down, or it’s not happening.”

This is mainly related to requests flying around the office, but the principle is the same. If you feel overwhelmed, lacking the focus of simply drowning in tasks, most chances are that you do not know really where your time is going.

The same applies to small payments in your business. Cash flow is much harder when you sign up for endless trials and services, and you are desperately trying to follow back up the trail of breadcrumbs of the tools you use and spend money on. This is the nature of trials themselves — they dissuade you from cancelling a subscription by sneaking in your bank account.

There is nothing wrong with this tactic, as long as we accept it as a marketing ploy.

More tools, more tasks, more admin equal less time for you to spend in your zone of genius. As simple as that.

The problem is not the realisation (I know you are a smart cookie) but is taking the first step and do something about it.

Reclaiming your genius. Doing more of what you truly love doing.

The first, and possibly most important, exercise to get started with simplifying your day and getting back in your zone of genius is writing it down. All of it. I recommend starting with the fun bits (we all love the fun bits, they get us going) and write down what sits in our zone of genius.

My zone of genius includes writing, speaking, creating content, workshops and creating digital products and resources.

Your list can be as long as you like (I find that most people have 3/4 things they truly enjoy doing)

It just feels good to get it all out. It’s a simple way to fire our passion up: let’s see what we can do to create more time for our ZOG.

Write down everything you do This is the most important thing, and an exercise I ask my clients to do before even starting talk strategy. Write down where your time goes every week. Be damn specific, make sure you go for the small and big tasks alike.

I wear a lot of hats, so it’s quite an extensive process. There are different ways you can create your list — for the truly analytical people, you are in for a treat.

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LO VE

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

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Write down the tool you use

The most comprehensive and, in total honesty, Virgo way to do that is to write down your tasks, which area of work it relates to (admin, marketing, emails etc) and how many hours per week you spend doing those tasks.

Nine times out of ten, I receive messages from people sharing with me that the list is much longer than anticipated.

It’s time to go through each and every task and ask yourself the first milliondollar question: “Is this task essential/bringing me closer to my goals?”

This can go two ways.

The answer is no, yet you really enjoy doing it. In this case, is it really a work task?

Is it something you should do in your working hours?

“The problem is not the realisation but is taking the first step...”

Most times you realise that these tasks tell you something about your goals. You love taking photos, yet you are not a photographer? Is this something you can turn into a hobby?

There is nothing wrong with that, but it’s important you get clear on whether you want it to be part of your work and business goals or not. If not, editing photos should not be on your list of work tasks.

Is this is a task getting you closer to your goals? If yes, we have a winner!

It’s time for the next question: “Is this a task I enjoy doing?” If you do

and it gets you closer to your goals, you have a task that gets the green light!

This is a new step in my decluttering process, and it makes all the difference (taking into account I run a few businesses). You have to write down the tools you use for two main reasons: • Just like the tabs on your laptop, different tools require a different capacity of your attention. The more tools, the more tabs you’ll have open in your brain (and possibly your browser) • Budgeting can be a big one too. Do you know what you are spending on tools to help you be more productive/ efficient/organised?

Going back to the free trial principle, how many people subscribe to the stereotype of signing up for the gym and never using it? Some investments are worth making only if you are making the most of them.

If the answer is no, ask yourself the most important question: “Is there anything I can do to simplify, automate or delegate this task? If so, how?”

If you still cannot do either of those and the answer is no, take it into the review pile, and make sure you get back to it in the next 3/6 months. The bottom line is that there is always a way to simplify and delegate, however, this may not be the right time for you to do so.

Ask yourself: “Is it really saving me time/ helping me do things faster/making me more efficient?” If the answer is no, feel free to delete your account.

Sounds like a lot of work? Well, team, this is just the beginning. The next step takes things a bit deeper.

When I work with clients we go way deeper, really looking at the results and analysing the process of growth.

Now it’s your turn This exercise took me about three hours to complete, as I went with a fine comb through everything I do and use. It’s an eye-opening exercise, and one I would recommend you join me in doing.

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P R OD U CTI V I TY TI PS

How to increase your work efficiency How two folders can completely change the way you organise your time Written by Fab Giovanetti

D

o you remember the teen magazines that used to be in the newsstands twenty years ago?

(Apologies in advance if you were not born twenty years ago, you just made me instantaneously feel ten centuries older) If like me, you were lucky to be alike in such age of printing glory, you’d remember teen magazines filled with pops tart gossips, eyebrow-raising advice about your intimate health and loads of quizzes and tests.

Will you marry your BFF? If you were a Spice Girl, which one would you be? That was, by far, the favourite section of any given magazine.

“Tell me something more about me” I seemed to desperately cry.

Unsurprisingly, as a Virgo and a roaring type A, I was not surprised to find myself totally hooked with the idea of learning more about myself.

Fast-forwarding to twenty years later, and personality tests are used by employers to recruit new employees.

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In a way, personality tests are one of the favourite ways for Millennials to learn more about themselves.

We could even argue we perceive as if they give us a clearer idea of our strengths and weaknesses, something that empowers us more in the choices we can make and the way that we can better ourselves as humans.

Now, I am a type A, ENFJ-T Millennial myself, and I was quite a precocious child too, so I was all over any quiz and test I could get my hands on.

T FUN FAC ays would alw As a kid, I ing Ginger end up be would Spice, who sed? have gues

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Most tests have seemed to point out to the same trait, again and again. Over-achiever.

(My blessing and my curse, I suppose.)

Welcome to the Monkey Mind

“The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.” — Shoppenhauer Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik was perhaps the first to note the

brain’s obsession with pressing tasks.

The so-called Zeigarnik effect(by which we remember things we need to do better than things we’ve done) stemmed from observing that waiters could only recall diners’ orders before they had been served.

After the dishes had been delivered, their memories simply erased who’d had the steak and who’d had the soup.

The deed was done and the brain was ready to let go. Our brain is wired to work better when following a path, yet you can go to far.

As an over-achiever, I have a few tendencies, one of which I would call the compulsive to-do list ticker. You see, normal humans would pace themselves to tackle tasks and responding emails according to a schedule.

I have been known for taking the preferential route of sprinting towards the finish line.

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The secret trick here is that you feel like you get a lot done, yet you feel like you accomplished nothing.

Welcome to the Monkey Mind.

According to Buddhist principles, the monkey mind is a term that refers to being unsettled, restless, or confused.

In the days I gave in my tendency of being a compulsive to-do list ticker, I would end up doing loads of small tasks that were not really that urgent, and not truly focus on the most important task of the day.

As per usual (over-achiever strikes again) I use a combination of techniques to keep my monkey brain at bay.

“Today” and “This week” are two folders you are going to apply to your biggest time wasters.

Yet, there is one that I discovered a few months back and I religiously use to this day. Enter the two magic folders.

To me, those two are represented by my inbox and my to-do list. This folder method combines two techniques: the batching technique, and the time-blocking technique (something I mention when talking about my prime time). The two folders technique is something that has been used by different productivity coaches and authors alike, and for good reason.

The two magic folders

All right, you got me, I am creating loads of pathos around these two, but for good reason. In less than a week, I doubled my productivity — and all by adding these two folders to my emails and start labelling my to-do list.

They work like a charm. Our two new BFFs are called “Today” and “This week”.

If you want to be even more of type A then yours truly, you can go ahead and create a “This month” folder. I won’t judge. Much.

The way I give it my spin is by creating a dynamic approach to it and adapting it to different areas of my work. I think it was Nir Eyal in his book Indistractable who suggested to only look at one email twice — the first time, to label it, and the second to respond and archive it.

(I could not agree more)

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The two-folder email method I first applied the two-folder approach to my emails and created the two majestic labels in my inbox. Whenever I open my emails in the morning (usually after my two hours of uninterrupted work), I start coding my emails (as well as responding to anything urgent pronto).

My only rule is to respond to anything that requires less than 5 minutes to write/check/ implement. If it requires more than that, then it falls into the “Today” folder.

If instead, I feel like it’s something that could wait until the Friday of the week, I push it to “This week”. I then batch time to check my emails twice per day (this is still something I am working on, as it’s the hardest part).

At the end of the day, I also make sure I check my “Today” and “This week” folders to adjust any outstanding email.

Bye-bye, inbox mess. Hello, Nirvana.

Applying this approach to my to-do list

Okay, to be completely honest, my Asana account is not really a two-folder sort of system. Yet, in my to-do, you’ll still see a “This week” folder.

My “Today” folder is replaced by a handful of tasks I set for myself for the current day.

I still have some tasks set for a specific deadline, however, instead of furiously adding a deadline to everything (I have been known for adding respond to WhatsApp message as a task before), I add anything that needs to be done at some point in the week to a label called (spoiler alert) “This Week”.

I tried creating a section for it, or a boardspecific from my to-dos for the week.

However, having a label allows me to have different to-dos coordinated with my team for Creative Impact, whilst still have a section just for my writing, workshops and speaking gigs.

Each morning, I check my planner to see what is the big focus of the day.

I spend my first two hours doing that (whether it’s working on an upcoming course, workshop or writing). After that, I prioritise the 2/3 today tasks lying in my to-do.

I also have a daily “batch admin” task with loads of small admin bits, which I do in another focused period of time, just like I’d do my inbox management.

At the end of the day, I head back to my Asana to check what else was planned for the week and prepare my “Today” list for the following day.

Final thoughts

“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important.” — Steven Covey

Overall, “Today” and “This Week” are nothing more than labels. Yet, when it comes to psychology, they can help us greatly work with our brain.

A recent study by professors Baumeister and Masicampo from Wake Forest University showed that, while tasks we haven’t done distract us, just making a plan to get them done can free us from this anxiety.

The pair observed that people underperform on a task when they are unable to finish a warm-up activity that would usually precede it. However, when participants were allowed to make and note down concrete plans to finish the warm-up activity, performance on the next task substantially improved.

As Bechman notes: “Simply writing the tasks down will make you more effective.”

Helping your brain recognise what truly is a priority can be what completely shifts your perception towards your daily workload.

Making the time to explore that can have a ripple effect in your overall strategy.

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INSPIRATION

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much” HELEN KELLER

CREATIVE IMPACT CO

PODCASTS

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Special

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How to learn something new every day with Tal Shmueli SEASON 1, EPISODE 10

Whether you decide to completely change your current focus or to add more value to something you are already invested in (such as a degree, an additional course or a specialisation) becoming obsessed with learning is something successful personal brands have in common.

you need to make learning one of your sacred appointments. So often learning gets relegated into a corner, becoming a leisurely activity to help us fight boredom.

Let learning become a very special VIP appointment. Take the time to do your research and take notes of your progress.

This comes back to the fact that if you want to tell a story, create something for your community and audience that can also revive the trust and credibility, you have to know what you are talking about.

Maybe even bring a notepad with you the next time you are listening to a podcast (just like the episode we’re recommending you to listen to below).

Just like you would schedule a time to go to the gym, do your ironing and washing up,

Taking your learning seriously will support you tenfold in your overall growth.

In this episode of our podcast, we discuss the truth about learning new skills and becoming a better teacher with Tal Shmueli from JOLT, the business school for the self-made.

The company recently introduced remote JOLTS, a series of live classes, as a new way to learn from amazing experts and teachers from all over the world.

Three things you will learn in the episode: •H ow to become a better speaker •W hy learning is not as easy as you think •H ow you can truly teach people something new

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CREATIVE IMPACT CO

INTERVIEW

BEHIND THE CONTENT

BRIDGETTE MACILWAINE If you could share with us who you are and what’s your mission, what would you say?

I‘m an outgoing and positive Nutrition and Wellness Coach who works with others to help them feel their best, have more energy and mental focus, and to make holistic healthier choices by encouraging people to understand how each of our bodies works with and responds to our food, our thoughts, and our physical activities each day, by working one on one, offering online coaching and hosting fun, motivational events for everyone!

How do you choose the content that goes into your accounts?

What I post on social media can have a great effect on anyone in this technological age as we spend so much time on digital devices nowadays, when I choose content to post on my accounts I think of 3 main simple

points: is it helpful, does it align with my mission and is it truthful?

What has been a career highlight?

To me as a business starting up, with aims and ambitions, every moment can feel like a highlight, but one thing that always sticks with me is when people have contacted me who want to work with me because they have seen my writing or posts or by word of mouth and feel it connects with them and they are inspired, then I know I am on the right track.

When it comes to health and wellness, how is the content you are creating helping to make a bigger impact in the world?

My aim within health and wellness is to encourage people to adopt a more well-rounded and accepting approach to cooking and exercising, without these tasks having to be a strain, a chore or

unenjoyable. There are endless nutritious meals that are delicious and quick to make and a whole array of fun activities to take part in to keep you fit without having to spend hours in a dark overcrowded gym, and in the end, we have a happier mindset and a healthier community.

Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting?

Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

My biggest mistake was taking on too much, I am a fast worker and very self motivated, so when I get excited I want to jump all in!

While I was launching my Health and Wellness business a few ago I was still

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CREATIVE IMPACT CO

working full time within my other career area, so it was fitting all the learning, reading and health commitments I had made into my evenings, early mornings and weekends. I am proud of what I was able to accomplish, but I had to let a few people down, because I could not finish a task I was so keen to take on. I have definitely learnt from these situations, and time management is one of the most important skills I have learnt when collaborating with others.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to

where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There have been many people throughout my life who I feel have helped and supported me along the way and I must say, I know it seems a cliché, but for me, who you become as a person starts from your core foundation influences, and for me that’s my Mum. Throughout my years growing up she has influenced me in so many positive aspects, from teaching me to bake during the summer holidays, giving me her cookbooks to cook dinner, helping out in the veggie garden trying to grow my own carrot, following her to aerobics classes, many family holidays and boat outings, where I learnt that meal prepping and being organised is the greatest skill!

INTERVIEW

What is your favourite thing about being a member of Creative Impact?

Creative Impact has taught me so much in the past 2 years, and being able to connect with so many like minded people, share stories, collaborate with others and learn new skills from the challenges and courses.

I love that the platform encourages others to share their posts, wins and goals. It’s very motivational and instills a positive mindset within us all that we can all support each other and not do everything alone.

You can find out more about Bridgette, and her work on social media

CREATIVE IMPACT MAG | 69

PROMOTION FEATUERE

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The Virgin Way

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IN PROFILE

CREATIVE IMPACT CO

EXPERT PROFILE

MARCI ANGELES My name is Marci and I am a web designer, recipe-maker, happiness chaser based in Colorado empowering you to build your dream business, launch your website, eat well, do what makes you happy!

Favourite thing about being part of Creative Impact?

The community is AMAZING!! Everyone is truly supportive of everyone inside and it’s really empowering to feel like there is a team of fellow entrepreneurs wanting everyone to succeed.

How do you help people?

What is your area of expertise?

I specialize in launching simple and strategic wordpress websites for female entrepreneurs and conscious lifestyle brands. I have a blog full of business tips, design advice, tech tutorials or even some delicious recipes.

Apart from my main business Dragonfly Ave, I have two side businesses called Minimum Viable Websites, a template shop to help

Wo r k in g f rom ho me

Special

you launch quickly, test your idea & market it and Techommend, a weekly newsletter of curated tech resources to empower women through tech.

What is your design philosophy?

Simplicity and function over everything. In other words, keep the design simple and make sure it works for you.

I love the Steve Jobs quote, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. My aim is to always give my

clients a strategic website that works for them, but also looks good.

What is the biggest mistake people make when it comes to design?

The biggest mistake people make when it comes to design is focusing only on the look rather than the functionality of the site.

A pretty site can look beautiful but not help with conversions or sales. You need to have a site that’s also built with your target market and unique business goals in mind.

How can people create a better website?

Start with a plan before creating it.

Understand your target market and what they are looking for, understand your business and it’s goals and how that translates to what your website needs to do. Keep the design clean and simple, user focused, use quality images and include call to actions and an email opt-in!

Find out more about Marci here.

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THE FACTS WORKING FROM HOME

80% of people said that when faced with two similar jobs, they would turn down the position that didn’t offer flexible working conditions

A 2019 survey found 61% of global companies currently allow their staff to have some sort of remote working policy.

61% working policy

13%

20% Non-flexible

80% Flexible

13% of remote employees are more productive overall, and also take fewer breaks and sick days

4.3 million People in the USA work from home at least half the time

7.7milion

50% number of workdays lost (15.4 million days) to workplace stress and anxiety in the UK alone

85%

Of over 15,000 global business confirmed that greater location flexibility lead to an increase in productivity

(sources: globalworkplaceanalytics.com https://www.merchantsavvy.co.uk/

76% Of workers would be more willing to stay with their current employer if they could work flexible hours.

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